Warships of the Bay of Quinte

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978-1-55488-929-7

April 2011

197pp, Paperback

$28.00 CAD

This is the story of six of Canada’s Warships HMCS Napanee, Belleville, Hallowell, Trentonian, Quinte (I), and Quinte (II). These histories give a unique account of the small ships that were the backbone of the Canadian Navy during the Second World War and the Cold War. The stories record the accomplishments of these hardworking ships as well as the mistakes. This rich and vivid account of an important part of Canada’s Naval Service draws from the records of the ships, interviews with their crews, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, community libraries and photographs. You will learn about HMCS Napanee as she fights a five day battle against twenty-four German submarines in on one of Canada’s most tragic convoy battles. Be with HMCS Belleville as she fights to rescue a torpedoed merchant ship and find out about how a German submarine sinks the HMCS Trentonian late in the war killing six of her crew.

This book is the first work of history by the author and unfortunately it shows.

A short list of errata is as follows:

·         Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty when term “corvette” coined; not Prime Minister

·         Incorrect usage of HMCS as “the HMCS” on numerous occasions

·         Rank of Captain (N) was not used in the Second World War

·         On page 66 a location “west” of Boston was used for an incident at sea

·         Bermuda is in the Atlantic Ocean NOT the Caribbean Sea

·         CANCOMINRONONE should have been capitalized

The most glaring error was the author missing the historical significance of the ground of HMS Indomitable in 1941. This event started a chain of events which had catastrophic consequences for the Royal Navy in that Indomitable was to be the air cover for HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse in the Far East.

There are a few good illustrations in the book however not enough to recommend it.

The Seabound Coast

The Seabound Coast

The Official History of the Royal Canadian Navy, 1867–1939, Volume I

By Richard H. Gimblett, William Johnston and William G.P. Rawling

978-1-55488-907-5

January 2011

1014pp, Hardback

From its creation in 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy was marked by political debate over the country’s need for a naval service. The Seabound Coast, Volume I of a three-volume official history of the RCN, traces the story of the navy’s first three decades, from its beginnings as Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s “tinpot” navy of two obsolescent British cruisers to the force of six modern destroyers and four minesweepers with which it began the Second World War. The previously published Volume II of this history, Part 1, No Higher Purpose, and Part 2, A Blue Water Navy, has already told the story of the RCN during the 1939–1945 conflict.
Based on extensive archival research, The Seabound Coast recounts the acrimonious debates that eventually led to the RCN’s establishment in 1910, its tenuous existence following the Laurier government’s sudden replacement by that of Robert Borden one year later, and the navy’s struggles during the First World War when it was forced to defend Canadian waters with only a handful of resources. From the effects of the devastating Halifax explosion in December 1917 to the U-boat campaign off Canada’s East Coast in 1918, the volume examines how the RCN’s task was made more difficult by the often inconsistent advice Ottawa received from the British Admiralty in London. In its final section, this important and well-illustrated history relates the RCN’s experience during the interwar years when anti-war sentiment and an economic depression threatened the service’s very survival.

The amount of information, graphics, photographs and maps in this book is indeed mind-boggling.

A couple of interesting things I learned from reading this book – Britain wanted to give Canada a coal-burning Bristol Class cruiser instead of HMS Aurora and the senior destroyer commanding officer of the RCN in the 1930s had a broad black funnel cap as per the Royal Navy leader tradition.

A very big well done to Dr Gimblett and his co-authors.

Whelks to Whales, Revised Second Edition

ISBN 13: 978-1-55017-491-5 
ISBN 10: 1-55017-491-6
Price: $25.95 CAD; $25.95 USD 
Paperback
500+ color photographs
5.5 x 8.5 - 328 pp 
March 2011

Whelks to Whales, Revised Second Edition

Coastal Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest

By Rick M. Harbo

One of the best-selling concise guidebooks to marine life of the Pacific Northwest now revised and updated.

Newly revised and updated in 2010 with additional photographs and up-to-date names, this full-color field guide to the marine life of coastal British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and northern California is perfect for divers, boaters and beachcombers. It is a ready reference to more than 400 of the most common species, the fascinating local sponges, jellyfish, crabs, shrimp, barnacles, clams, snails, seals, fish, whales, sea algae and hundreds of other living things that can be observed and identified without being disturbed. The book is arranged for quick identification with color-coded sections, full-color photographs and comprehensive but concise information on size, range, habitat and facts of interest about each species. A glossary, checklist, reading list and full index are included.

Yet another extraordinary work from Harbour Publishing, both well written and with an excellent look and feel. The size and weight make this book an excellent addition to a picnic basket, beach excursion or boat ride in the Pacific Northwest. 

A Field Guide to Sea Stars of the Pacific Northwest

ISBN 13: 978-1-55017-513-4 

ISBN 10: 1-55017-513-0 Price: $7.95 CAD; $7.95 USD  Pamphlet color photographs 37 x 9  March 2011

A Field Guide to Sea Stars of the Pacific Northwest

By Neil McDaniel

Sea stars are amongst the most common and conspicuous invertebrates that thrive in the rich waters of the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to southeast Alaska. Worldwide there are more than 2,000 different species, but no other temperate region has a greater variety and abundance of these colorful and often very large echinoderms, which are closely related to sea urchins, sea cucumbers, brittle stars and feather stars. An underwater photographer, journalist and naturalist with over 40 years of diving experience, Neil McDaniel provides many original field observations to accompany his remarkable images of these fascinating animals.

This durable, water-resistant 8-fold field guide describes how to identify more than 30 species likely to be encountered by beach walkers and scuba enthusiasts in the Pacific Northwest. It also provides intriguing details about their behavior, including how they move about, hunt for prey, reproduce and avoid predators. It is an ideal companion for family explorations to the sea shore, an invaluable reference in any scuba diver's kit bag and a useful addition to the home library.

As a big fan of the layout and design work of Harbour Publishing, they never cease to amaze with their ever increasing abilities for putting out an outstanding production. This fold out guide to Sea Stars should be a must for every lover of boating and beachcombing in the Pacific Northwest.

CATTALES

CATTALES

By Win Stites

ISBN 9781615846504 2008 

Published by PBY Museum www.pbyma.org

To meet the author Win Stites in person is to sense and adopt his enthusiasm for the PBY Catalina.

A veteran of World War II service including flight engineer and as a plane captain in 1945, Stites is now a director of the PBY Museum located in the former seaplane base at NAS Whidbey Island.

The book is a compilation of historical anecdotes which were frist published in the base newspaper “Crosswind.”

Illustrated with photos and artwork by the author, this book will be a welcome addition to the library of those interested in naval aviation.

For ordering information, pleasesee www.pbyma.org

British Cruisers By Norman Friedman

British Cruisers 

By Norman Friedman

Hardback 320 pages
ISBN: 9781848320789

Published: 24 January 2011

£45.00

For most of the twentieth century Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser – a multi-purpose warship needed in large numbers to defend trade routes and police the empire. Above all other types, the cruiser’s competing demands of quality and quantity placed a heavy burden on designers, and for most of the inter-war years Britain sought to square this circle through international treaties restricting both size and numbers. In the process she virtually invented the heavy cruiser and inspired the large 6in-armed cruiser, neither of which, ironically, served her best interests. For the first time this book seeks to comprehend the full policy background, from which a different and entirely original picture emerges of British cruiser development.
After the war the cruiser’s role was reconsidered and the final chapters of the book cover modernisations, the plans for missile-armed ships and the convoluted process that turned the ‘through-deck cruiser’ into the Invincible class light carriers. With detailed appendices of ship data, and illustrated in depth with photos and A D Baker’s specially commissioned plans, British Cruisers truly matches the lofty standards set by Friedman’s previous books on British destroyers.

Another classic from Norman Friedman, the standard for excellence in the technical history of naval ships.

The book covers the First World War era cruisers through the Invincible Class of the 1970s, which the author argues were more cruiser than carrier stemming from an earlier design and the fact they were fitted with extensive C4I capabilities.

A nice addition was the inclusion the cruiser minelayers, one of which operated briefly in the APD role with the US Seventh Fleet in the Pacific.

As with his other books, extensive detail of radio, radar, directors and other fittings is included except for little mention of searchlights, which were an integral part of cruisers before the advent of radar in night actions.

Numerous drawings by AD Baker III always make Dr Friedman’s books second to none and worth the price in themselves.

Cover art is a copy of a painting by Norman Wilkinson from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich portraying HMS Ajax and Achilles during the 1939 Battle of the River Plate.

A few observations from the manuscript:

·         Date for demolition of HMS Raleigh is the same as the commissioning date on page 66

·         Searchlight platform on page 148 actually a 20-inch signal light.

·         In the credits US Naval Historical Center Photo Curator Robert Hanshew’s name is misspelled.

·         Royal Canadian Navy plans in 1944 were to take over Minotaur and Superb, both under construction in the UK at the time, to become HMCS Ontario and Quebec respectively. Delays in construction of Superb led to the takeover instead of Uganda which was under repair at Charleston Naval Shipyard with a nucleus crew provided by corvette HMCS Snowberry, also in the yard at the time

Congratulations to Dr Friedman on another excellent work – 432 pages of bliss for the serious student of naval technical history.

Tales of the Galley

Tales of the Galley

By Doreen Armitage

Harbour Publishing P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

ISBN 13: 978-1-55017-438-0
ISBN 10: 1-55017-438-X
Price: $39.95 CAD; $39.95 USD
Hardback
8.5 x 11 - 198 pp
October 2007

Doreen Armitage, author of the bestselling From the Wheelhouse: Tugboaters Tell their own Stories is back with a fresh collection of salty tales from a varied collection of men who earn their living in, on or beside the sea. A former DFO skipper tells a heartrending story of trying to rescue the crew of a fish boat foundering off the west coast of Vancouver Island in wind so strong it cart wheeled their life raft "across the waves like a tumbleweed." A coastal pilot recounts the horrors of trying to scramble up the sides of towering ships in tossing seas, and a near-death experience after falling into the frigid ocean. A tugboat skipper tells of towing a mountainous bundle of logs—called a Davis raft—from the Queen Charlotte Islands only to have it hit rocks and break apart, scattering enough timber to build a small city. A commercial dive fisherman remembers the time his buddy befriended a big harmless-seeming octopus, who responded by trying to tear his helmet off.

The author of Tales from the Galley has compiled a group of entertaining stories from B.C.’s working waterfront.  She has the ability to transform these oral histories into a story where you feel that you are being told the tale personally.  She covers a wide range of waterfront activities from fishing to Coast Guard to deep sea oil drilling.  All stories are told with enthusiasm and a good understanding of the topic.  The great pictures throughout the book give the reader a good visual of the topics the author covers. 

This has been a delightful read and I would recommend that it would be a worthwhile addition to your bookshelf.