War at Sea: Offense - Defense - Preparedness
Harold B. Hahn
SHIPS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THEIR MODELS
Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1988
The late Robert Stewart of Mystic was a generous donor to the Maritime Society; twelve of his meticulous steamship models grace the Library shelves, which also hold many of his books. One of these, Ships of the American Revolution and Their Models, is of interest to more than modelers because it includes a history of each ship, along with modeling plans. The ill-fated frigate Confederacy was built at Norwich, twenty miles up the Thames from New London, and after delays due to lack of materials and management problems she was launched in 1778 and towed to New London for fitting out under Capt. Seth Harding. Her short career was a litany of misfortune ending with capture by the Royal Navy off Delaware in April, 1781. Close inspection by the British revealed that she was unfit for conversion to a 40-gun ship of the line as they had hoped. Nevertheless, she was a handsome protoype for modeling, as is apparent from plans redrawn from the originals at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
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Sam Willis
THE STRUGGLE FOR SEA POWER
A Naval History of the American Revolution
New York, W.W. Norton, 2016
First published in Britain, this naval account of the Revolution is written from the British perspective. We acquired the book for its important reference to New London: in a discussion of the fledgling colonial (later state) navies Willis writes: “The Connecticut navy was created principally to protect New London, one of the largest and most important seaports in New England and by far the best deep-water harbour on Long Island Sound.” The author underscores his Anglo viewpoint when he writes that Connecticut’s navy had “the most provocatively titled ship in any of the state navies: the Oliver Cromwell" - another link with New London: Oliver Cromwell had led Parliament's army to victory over Charles I in the English Civil War, establishing himself as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. The monarchy was eventually restored under Charles II, who in 1662 granted a charter for the colony of Connecticut to John Winthrop, Jr., founder of New London.
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William Clark Bell and others, eds.
NAVAL DOCUMENTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Washington, Department of the Navy, 1964—2013
For serious readers of naval history, this impressive multi-volume work is a researcher’s dream. The twelve volumes printed to 2014 — now searchable online — give a detailed day-by-day account of our naval activity during in the Revolution. Correspondence, official reports, orders, logs, newspaper accounts and other sources, all arranged by date, describe the war at sea and in the halls of government. A search of “New London” in the digital edition of Volume 1 brings a remarkable 102 occurrences to the screen, each embedded in an extract of the text to help the reader decide whether to look at the full document. “Nathaniel Shaw” brings up 48 occurrences in Vol. 10, “privateers” 162 occurrences in Vol. 11, and so on. The powerful, indeed magical, search capability of the digitized volumes complements the print volumes on our shelves, offering us the best of both formats. Volume 1 came out in 1964, volume 12 in 2013. Each volume covers only three or four months of chronological time, so although the project has only reached the halfway point toward the British surrender in 1781, it already provides an endlessly fascinating look at our naval and maritime past.
Note: Volume 12, with an introduction by President Barack Obama, was the last to be published in print; the remainder of the series is being published only in digital format.
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Ronald D. Utt
SHIPS OF OAK, GUNS OF IRON
The War of 1812 and the Forging of the American Navy
Washington, Regnery History, 2012
The lively commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812 is over, but the 2015 re-enactment of the celebratory ball at New London's 1784 courthouse reminds us that the conflict didn't end until well into 1815. Even after the treaty was signed on Christmas Eve, 1814, in what is now Belgium, the glacial pace of communication meant that American ratification didn't occur until February and naval hostilities continued in remote places for weeks thereafter. One of these late encounters involved the brig USS Hornet, which had been trapped in New London by the Royal Navy blockade early in the war. Escaping in 1814, Hornet went on to participate in several operations, among them the defeat of HMS Penguin in the South Atlantic in March, 1815, three months after the treaty was signed and five weeks after the Senate ratified it.
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Kevin D. McCranie
UTMOST GALLANTRY
The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812
Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2011
Not so long ago the War of 1812 was thought of as a "forgotten" war, if one thought of it at all: a "second war of independence" opposed by many and accomplishing little. Its Bicentennial gave rise to new books re-examining an old subject, and the War of 1812 re-entered the public consciousness. This is due in no small part to the national anthem, that expression of national pride born during the red glare of rockets exploding over Fort McHenry in September, 1814, just a month after the bombardment of Stonington, Connecticut. By virtue of skill and discipline our small Navy had prevailed over the Royal Navy, the world's most powerful. In spite of its disastrous effect on New England seaborne commerce, the war ultimately aroused a new sense of national vigor that kick-started the westward expansion.
One of the latest accounts is told by Professor Kevin McCranie of Newport's Naval War College. A reader comes away as impressed as our forebears were when learning of the "utmost gallantry" displayed by American officers and sailors against all odds, from the first encounter in 1812 to engagements in the far-off Indian Ocean in 1815. One of the last encounters involved USS Hornet, which had been trapped with Commodore Stephen Decatur's squadron at New London since 1813, but in late 1814 had slipped through the British blockade to continue the fight.
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Ronald J. Dale
THE INVASION OF CANADA
Battles of the War of 1812
Toronto, James Lorimer & Co, 2013
It is unsettling to read about the War of 1812 from the Canadian perspective for the simple reason that we were the invaders. This and previous invasions did much to foster the Canadian national pride celebrated during the recent bicentennial observances of the war. One of the 2012 bicentennial placards in Halifax declared "we are not Americans" because of the soldiers and sailors of the War of 1812 "who fought and died at sea and ashore to prevent the United States' invasion and annexation of our country." But the Canadians also grudgingly admired the exploits of the American Navy against the British, as when Capt. Stephen Decatur captured HMS Macedonian and brought her to New London, and Capt. Isaac Hull of the USS Constitution, a celebrated son of Connecticut, destroyed HMS Guerriere early in the war, dramatically demonstrating the capability of the Americans in a confrontation with the much larger, more experienced Royal Navy.
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Erik Larson
DEAD WAKE
The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
New York, Crown Publishers, 2015
Centennial commemorations of the First World War began in 2014 and are intensified in 2016 as we marked our entry into the conflict. The isolationist attitude of many Americans was weakened when the British liner Lusitania was torpedoed off Ireland in 1915 with the loss of nearly 1200 lives, 128 of them American. This selection is the latest account of what The New York Times called “one of the colossal tragedies of maritime history,” a disaster at sea even more shocking than the sinking of the Titanic three years before, and as unnecessary. After Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, and it was revealed through the infamous Zimmermann telegram that Germany had proposed helping Mexico take back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, did the United States enter the conflict.
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Richard Knowles Morris and William N . Still, Jr.
JOHN P. HOLLAND, 1841-1914
Inventor of the Modern Submarine
University of South Carolina Press, 1998
In this month of St. Patrick, 2016, as we prepare to celebrate the centennial of the U. S. Submarine Base in Groton, let us pay tribute to John Holland, the engineer-inventor from County Clare known as the “father of the modern submarine.” His story is well told in this book, reissued by the University of South Carolina Press in 1998. Born in 1841, the son of a lighthouse keeper, Holland became a math teacher before emigrating from Ireland to Boston in 1873 to develop his ideas on submarine design. In 1897 he oversaw the launch of the first “modern” submarine and three years later, on the decision of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, his Holland VI was the first submarine purchased by the U. S. Navy. Follow-up designs were soon under construction at the Electric Boat Company shipyard in Groton, and the rest is history.
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Thomas Parrish
THE SUBMARINE - A HISTORY
New York, Viking Penguin, 2004
Our library has benefited greatly from the book donations of friends interested in New London's maritime heritage. Among them is Gordon Napier of Westerly, introduced to the Maritime Society by late trustee and friend Archie Chester, whose donations reflect the professional interest in submarine design he shared with Archie. Thomas Parrish offers a comprehensive history of the mysterious "boats" (and locals know they are always referred to as boats) so important to the economy of southeastern Connecticut. The animated chronicle, full of facts and opinions and not overly technical, makes the subject both entertaining and instructive for the general reader. The thirty-seven references to the Electric Boat Co. indicate that much of this history happened right here on the Thames River, while the thirty-five references to the controversial Admiral Hyman Rickover bring back the volcanic controversies between the Navy and EB that one read about in the Seventies and Eighties before the octogenarian admiral was forced into retirement by President Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman.
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Dwight R. Messimer
THE MERCHANT U-BOAT
Adventures of the Deutschland 1916-1918
Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1988
While escorting the German cargo submarine Deutschland out of New London in the wee hours of November 17, 1916, a tugboat of the T. A. Scott Company was accidentally rammed by the submarine in a powerful flood tide near Race Rock Light and sank with all hands. Ironically, the completion of Race Rock in 1878 in treacherous waters was one of Capt. Scott’s most celebrated achievements. This disaster is but one piece of the strange story of Germany’s one-of-a-kind commercial submarine which called at New London during World War I while America was clinging to neutrality despite the torpedoing of the Lusitania. The murky relationship of the German cargo submarine and port of New London in those tense days suggested there was more going on than transshipment of civilian cargo at the State Pier. Deutschland was later converted to a fighting U-Boat preying on Allied shipping in the Atlantic.
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Griffith Baily Coale
VICTORY AT MIDWAY
New York and Toronto, Farrar & Rinehart, 1944
Annual commemorations of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, have become ever more poignant as the number of survivors declines with the passing years. More attention than usual was paid in 2016 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day observed the 75th anniversary of the attack. Griffith Coale (1890-1950), the Stonington, Connecticut-based marine artist and muralist, wrote and illustrated this narrative of his experiences as a Navy combat artist, first at Pearl Harbor then at the 1942 Battle of Midway, where the defeat of the Japanese marked the turning point of the Pacific war.
Of Coale’s narrative read in manuscript, Stephen Vincent Benet, another Stoningtonian, wrote: “A great many Americans who do not quite understand or appreciate just what the Navy is doing…will know those things when they read this story.” Two surviving panels of “Safe Haven,” Coale’s spectacular 1920 mural triptych, one of which depicts New London Harbor Light, were acquired in 2012 by the Maritime Society.
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William R. Anderson and Don Keith
THE ICE DIARIES
Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2008
January's New England chill prompted this account of the pioneering voyage of USS Nautilus to chart a route under the Arctic ice cap linking the Pacific and Atlantic. Capt. Anderson's earlier book, Nautilus 90 North, was a best seller in 1959, a year after Nautilus first reached the North Pole under ice. A half century later, The Ice Diaries describes much about the voyage which could not be revealed during the Cold War. With Russia now asserting her presence in the Arctic in a new Cold War, even as the ice melts with global warming, The Ice Diaries is a timely reminder of one of the most significant chapters of Connecticut's maritime heritage. The achievements of the Nautilus were due both to her remarkable design and construction at Groton's Electric Boat Co., and to the superior abilities of her officers and crew, trained at the Naval Submarine Base less three miles up the Thames River from her 1954 launch site.
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