The Canadair Argus

The Canadair Argus

Title: The Canadair Argus:  The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Maritime Hunter
Authors: Major Cary Barker and Major Bert Campbell

The Canadair Argus plied the skies of Canada’s East and West Coast during the Cold War and, outside of a few preserved airframes, is almost forgotten.  Even in books about the RCAF, it gets, at best, mentioned for a few pages in chapters on Maritime Command.  This 190-page hardcover book changes all that.  It does what it says on the cover, it tells the story of the Argus from development to retirement.  Everything is here; weapon’s trials, stories of patrols, crew and maintenance tails, etc.  I was fascinated by the Bullpup missile trials, and the references to the use of the Argus during Cuban Missile crisis.  The book is well illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos and nicely down aircraft paintings.  A must for an RCAF fan of Maritime operations.

Reviewed by Jim Bates

THE ROYAL NAVY IN FOCUS 1980-89

Maritime Books ISBN 9781904459484

Steve Bush, Editor of Warship World Magazine, has done a credible job since assuming the authorship of this popular pictorial histories from company founder Mike Critchley. 
The 1980s was a period the began with the infamous John Nott cuts which were about to be implemented when the Falklands War broke out in 1982. Most of the remainder of the decade was an upbeat period of the future of the Royal Navy until the end of the Cold War in 1989 when cuts continuing to this day have reduced this proud service to a mere shadow of its former self.
The book contains about 150 full color photographs of ships of the  Royal Navy, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service and Ships Taken Up From Trade (STUFT).
This book makes a fine addition to the bookshelf of any ship lover.

Why the USS Scorpion (SSN 589) Was Lost: The Death of a Submarine in the North Atlantic By Bruce Rule

Why the USS Scorpion (SSN 589) Was Lost: The Death of a Submarine in the North Atlantic

By Bruce Rule

9781608881208 2011 Self-Published

This book is not a traditional historical text, but instead a compilation of materials related to the tragic loss of USS Scorpion in 1968.

The book contains a number of tables, correspondence and graphs that largely debunks, via information in the public domain, that Scorpion had been sunk by the Soviet Navy. Mr Rule has come to the same conclusion as many historians – Scorpion was sunk by one of her own MK37 torpedoes that somehow managed to start itself while in the tube. Although not mentioned in this work, the torpedo is widely believed to have been fitted with a nuclear warhead, a regular occurrence in Cold War ASW operations. Luckily it appears the warhead never exploded.

Such a detailed work, a labor of love by the author, will likely only be of interest to serious students of submarine operations and naval history. We certainly commend Mr Rule for his efforts to bring the Scorpion story to life again; a difficult undertaking as most official records are still classified.