From Playing Field to Battlefield: Great Athletes Who Served in World War II

By Rob Newell

2006, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD

192 pages

ISBN: 1-59114-620-8

List Price: $29.95

For some young Americans in the prime of their lives, living the dream of a professional athlete was interrupted by war. 

“World War II was a unique time in our country's history,” says author Rob Newell.  “It was a time when American's really sensed that their freedoms and way of life were in danger, and that everyone - no matter what their profession - needed to step up and do their part.  That included professional and college athletes.  It was a truly national effort, and everything was secondary to winning the war.  It was a time when service mattered most.   

In his book, From Playing Field to Battlefield: Great Athletes Who Served in World War II, Newell shares true stories of gifted players who answered the call to serve.

I asked Newell, a Navy Captain, about the motivation for writing his book.  “I had written a magazine article about the impact WWII had on baseball,” he says.  “In the course of writing that story I interviewed several baseball players whose careers had been either interrupted or ended by their military service during the war.  Their stories were very moving, and a real testament to the values and ideals we sometimes lose sight of, specifically service to others and service to country.  It was those stories - and many others like them - that served as the inspiration for the book.”   

Newell wrote about stories that were both unique and reflective of what was happening in the world of sports during that time.  “While there were many well-known athletes who served - people such as Ted Williams, Tom Landry, Bob Feller - there were also hundreds and hundreds of young men whose dreams to become professional or collegiate athletes were never realized because they voluntarily enlisted to serve their country.  I thought it was important to also include some of those stories.”

Newell says that some famous athletes received special treatment.  “Many athletes who were well-known - and Joe DiMaggio is one example that comes to mind - joined the military and then ended up playing their specific sport throughout the war with various service teams in exhibitions to help raise money for the war effort.”

But, he says, “around the country, all Americans - whatever their profession - felt they had an obligation to do their part.  Something Cecil Travis, a great shortstop with the Washington Senators who I wrote about in the book, said, ‘We all felt we needed to go in and do our part, being a baseball player didn't and shouldn't, have anything to do with that.’"   

In research his book, Newell found learned about many exceptional people.  He sought to

Write about stories and experiences that were unique and different. 

There was one particular conversation with Dr. Tom Brown that he’ll always remember.  Brown was a Navy surgeon who went ashore with the Marines at Iwo Jima and who worked on Lieut. Jack Lummus, a football player with the New York Giants who became a Marine Corps officer.  He’s one of the profiles in the book. 

“In the course my interview with Dr. Brown I asked him how difficult it was - with the battle literally taking place all around him - for him to do his job and work on the wounded Marines that were brought to him.  His answer was so honest and so humble,” Newell recalls. 

Brown said, ‘Well, you know it was very difficult, but after that first day of fighting, I remember lying down in the foxhole that I had dug for myself and staring up into the night sky.  It was a beautiful night with lots of stars.  And as I looked up at the sky, sense of calm came over me, and I remember thinking, 'I need to get a hold of myself. There are people counting on you.'  And after that, I was okay.”

“It was such a personal story and remembrance...from someone who was actually on that island saving the lives of young Marines...and I don't think I'll ever forget that,” says Newell.       

In writing his book, Newell said the stories he gathered were inspiring.  “And I suspect everyone who has had a father or grandfather, friend or other family member who has served has had a similar experience when you begin to understand the depths of their sacrifice, dedication and service.  It was an honor to speak with these men, and in some cases their families...to learn and here about there experiences and lives...and I was very, very grateful for their generosity in sharing their stories with me.

Those who served during WWII have been labeled the "Greatest Generation."   I asked Newell if young people today serving for the same motivation?   “The young men and women who are serving in our military today are just as patriotic, just as dedicated, and just as willing to make sacrifices for their fellow Americans as those who served during WWII,” Newell says.  “I believe the generation of young men and women who serve our country today..in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other places around the world...are equally as great.”

“The young men and women serving in our military today are all volunteers,” Newell says.  “They are tremendous examples and role models for us all.”  

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Edward Lundquist is a senior science advisor with Alion Science and Technology in Washington, D.C.  He is a retired U.S. Navy captain.

John Paul Jones’ victory changed course of a new nation

John Paul Jones: America’s First Sea Warrior

By Joseph Callo

Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD

ISBN:  1-59114-102-8

$29.95

252 pages.

Reviewed by Edward Lundquist

Of course you know all about John Paul Jones.  Or do you?

Admiral Joe Callorealized that there had not been a major biography of his life for nearly fifty years.  So he wrote one.

“As I began to research the subject, several additional circumstances supported the idea that it was time to reexamine Jones’s career,” says Callo.  “For example, much of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing about Jones positioned him in a predominantly heroic role. Phrases like ‘knight of the seas,’ ‘one chosen by fate,’ and ‘the sailor whom England feared,’ were used.  In contrast, many contemporary views are basically deconstructionist, with recent pejoratives, such as ‘glory-seeking, theatrical zeal’ and ‘a tiresome crank’ being typical.”

So, who was he, and why should we care?

Jones’ came to America with the shirt on his back.  He wasn’t a blueblood, but he made some powerful friends.  His patron was Joseph Hewes of South Carolina, a networking contact from the Masonic Lodge who also happened to be on the Naval Committee of the First Continental Congress.  It’s not surprising that Jones was caught up in the revolutionary fervor.  Jones dated Dorothea Dandridge, who eventually wed Patrick Henry.

“I believe that Jones’ career is more relevant to our own lives and times than many are willing to admit,” Callo says.  “For example, Jones’ deployments in the Continental Ships Ranger and Bonhomme Richard were focused upon issues that are similar to those in the news today.  Two examples include forward projection of national power and the concept of civilian control of the military.”

Callo set out to make a fresh examination of Jones, a native of Scotland, as a self-taught naval officer whose impact on the outcome of the American Revolution has been underestimated.

“My biography illuminates Jones as a self-taught naval officer, who was a seaman warrior, not a warrior seaman.  That had a significant influence on what he did and particularly how he did it.  Within months of his joining the Continental Navy in 1775, he was in command of his own ship in a navy without a single purpose-built warship.  As he took on the American cause of liberty, he was also striving for recognition as a professional naval officer.  Most biographers emphasize Jones’ combat victories.  I have put more emphasis on the strategic impact of his deployments, particularly in Ranger and Bonhomme Richard, than others,” he says.

The early American naval experiences against the Royal Navy were not outstanding.  So Jones’ tactical successes were quite noteworthy for a Navy and a Nation that needed a victory.

“Not outstanding” is putting it mildly,” says Callo.  “On the face of it, the impact of the Continental Navy was minimal.”

With serious analysis, however, Callo says it becomes apparent that there were three components to the American naval strategy that emerged during the American Revolution.  First, the Americans must attack Britain’s merchant marine.  Second, project naval forces against the British Isles.  And third, establish naval control in key situations and key places.

Jones took on the British, the major naval power of the day, on its own terms and in its home waters.  To be sure, the Royal Navy had other pressing concerns, and Jones might be viewed as little more than a distraction.  Britain was facing a much graver threat in its ongoing, global war against France.  Jones’ battle with HMS Serapis was a case in point.  Serapis was not a capital ship, but a lesser frigate.  Both ships were virtually destroyed.  But a win is a win, and nobody expected the Americans to put up such a good fight.

“Jones’s deployments in Ranger and Bonhomme Richard were the prime examples of the second component, and achievements as commodore of a small squadron deployed around the British Isles in 1779 came at a time when there were growing doubts at the Admiralty and Whitehall about the war with the American Colonies, and this deployment, which ended with his astonishing victory in single-ship combat off Flamborough Head, actually became a critical tipping point in the American Revolution.”

Callo’s research incorporated previous biographies of John Paul Jones., including Samuel Eliot Morison’s John Paul Jones—A Sailor’s Biography (Little, Brown & Company, 1959), The Life and Character of John Paul Jones by John Henry Sherburne (Adriance, Sherman & Co., 1851) and Life and Correspondence of John Paul Jones edited by Robert C. Sands (A. Chandler, 1830).  He also avoided several biographies that are not accurate.  Much of my research involved primary sources.  One of the best sources was the Naval Documents of the American Revolution series, published by the Naval Historical Center’s Early History Branch.

Jones naval reputation earned him a commission in Russia after his service for the United States.  Callo says he’s been toldthat his description of Jones’ experience in the navy of Catherine the Great goes beyond what others have done with that phase of Jones’s life.

While some biographers have claimed that Jones was consumed by his position and career, Callo says that has been grossly exaggerated.  “His primary motivation was the American cause of liberty.  His concerns about his position and career were natural consequences of his position as a seaman warrior, one whose career was in the hands of political leaders who were getting on-the-job training in civilian control of the military.”

While Jones served in the age of sail, Callo says contemporary naval officers should learn today from an examination of what John Paul Jones accomplished in the Revolutionary War. 

“His iron determination in the face of military and political obstacles (“I have not yet begun to fight” in the face of defeat by almost any measure) is a quality that is as important today as it was in 1779,” Callo says.          

“The inscription that marks Jones’ final resting place in his crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., says: ‘He Gave Our Navy its Earliest Traditions of Heroism and Victory.’  That’s something every current officer in the U.S. Navy should focus on.”

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Captain Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.) is a senior science advisor with Alion Science and Technology in Washington, D.C. 

This could happen to you

Saving a ship is serious business

“As darkness was falling, the ship was sinking, it was on fire, it had lost electrical power, it was dead in the water, alone in a minefield, forty miles off the coast of a hostile Iran, and the ship was surrounded by sharks and sea snakes.  It’s hard to imagine it getting much worse.”

- Brad Peniston

No Higher Honor – Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf

By Bradley Peniston

2006, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD

ISBN 1-59114-661-5

List Price: USD $29.95

Reviewed By Captain Edward H. Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Sailors on Navy ships must always be mindful of the fact that a worst-case scenario can happen to you and your ship. 

No Higher Honor, written by journalist Brad Peniston, is the story about the guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58), which struck a mine on April 14, 1988 in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war.  Her crew not only saved their ship and exited the minefield without further damage, but the ship was eventually repaired and returned to duty.  The Samuel B. Roberts serves in the U.S. Fleet today. 

Peniston, a writer familiar with naval matters, interviewed the skipper, the wardroom, Chief’s mess, and crew to share with us what really happened, with his own observations and in their own words. 

“As darkness was falling, the ship was sinking, it was on fire, it had lost electrical power, it was dead in the water, alone in a minefield, forty miles off the coast of a hostile Iran, and the ship was surrounded by sharks and sea snakes,” Peniston writes.  “It’s hard to imagine it getting much worse.”

The story of this incident begins long before the frigate entered the Persian Gulf.  It begins when the ship is built and the crew is formed and trained.

Peniston introduces us to the “Sammy B.” crew as they come together in the shipyard at Bath, Maine.  We learn about the respect and reverence the crew gains for their namesake, a coxswain killed while rescuing Marines at Guadalcanal; and for the two ships subsequently named Samuel B. Roberts, DE 413 and DD 823.  We get to know the crew as they get to know their ship.  When it is time for Samuel B. Roberts to make her first deployment, she sails to the dangerous Persian Gulf where the Iran and Iraq war was escalating and the U.S. was vigorously protecting American shipping.  Both Iran and Iraq had been attacking oil tankers, including those under neutral flags, to harm the trade of their enemy. 

A good ship is a proud ship, Peniston told me in an interview.  Cmdr. Paul Rinn established the command climate when he arrived at Bath Iron Works where the frigate was being built.  “He gathered the very first crewmembers to report aboard when the ship was being built, and he told them ‘we’re going to be the best ship in the Navy,’ and ‘the best ship that ever was.’  He wanted them to be proud of their ship, and themselves.  He wanted his crewmembers to look back on their years on the Samuel B. Roberts as the best years of their lives,” Peniston says.  “He told his officers and chief petty officers to look after their people with that in mind.”

Rinn was especially mindful of the heritage of the sailors who served aboard one of the earlier ships named Samuel B. Roberts, the destroyer escort that fought at the Battle off Samar.  That ship took on an overwhelming force of Japanese cruisers for two hours before being sunk.  Lt. Cmdr. Robert Copeland, who commanded the DE 413, later wrote that “no higher honor could be conceived than to command such a group of men.”  Rinn had a plaque mounted at the quarterdeck, listing the names of everyone of the DE 413 crewmembers that took part in that battle, to instill pride in the crew of FFG 58, and the frigate adopted the motto “No higher honor.”

When the ship deployed to the Persian Gulf, Rinn and his crew were acutely aware of the risk.  Iran and Iraq was a war and any ship in the Gulf found itself in the middle.  Hundreds of merchant ships had been hit by both sides.  USS Stark (FFG 31) was surprised by an Iraqi Exocet missile a year earlier, nearly sinking the frigate and eventually killing 37 crew.  An American tanker, M/V Bridgeton struck a mine.  The Gulf was a dangerous place.  Vigilance was warranted. 

When the lookout on the Sammy B. spotted a mine ahead of the frigate, the crew was alert.  But nevertheless it was unexpected when the ship hit a mine, ripping a huge hole in her hull and shattering the main propulsion equipment.  Peniston provides us with an eyewitness account of what was happening to the ship and what the crew was doing about it.  These crewmembers put their knowledge, experience, training and pride into action.  The ship slowly exited the mined area while the crew put out the fires and controlled the flooding.   Willpower was certainly a factor, but no amount of willpower can save a crippled ship if the ship is not sound to begin with and the crew doesn’t know what to do under adverse conditions.

No Higher Honor underscores the danger posed by mines.  This is not the first story of a ship severely damaged by a mine they didn’t know was there, nor would it be the last.  The crews of USS Princeton (CG 59) and USS Tripoli (LPH 10) found that out in February 1991.  Mines are inexpensive, easily attainable by third world nations, and can cripple the proudest warships from the most potent navies.  But that is a story for another book. 

“This is a story of what a good crew – well trained and well led – can accomplish,” author Peniston says. 

Any Sailor who goes to sea on a naval ship must remember that: the unexpected and undesired can happen to you. 

Says Rinn, “if you are not ready when it happens, it’s already too late.”

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(Photos, audio and video clips, and excerpts are posted at

http://www.nohigherhonor.com.)

Renegade destroyer wasn’t escaping Soviet Union, it was attacking it

The Last Sentry

The True Story that Inspired the Hunt for Red October

Gregory D. Young and Nate Braden

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, MD

Reviewed by Edward H. Lundquist

Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Truth is stranger than fiction.  The story of Valery Sablin is true, and the inspiration for  Tom Clancy’s “Hunt for Red October,” but unlike Clancy’s Captain Marko Ramius, Sablin was not escaping the Soviet Union in search of freedom. 

For Valery Sablin, his idealistic dedication to true communism in its pure form led him to take over the Soviet Navy destroyer Storozhevoy (which translates to Sentry) in a futile attempt to return the Soviet state to its uncorrupted egalitarian Marxist roots by leading a revolt against Leonid Brezhnev and his party elite.  That he failed should not surprise you.  That he was executed for his treason shouldn’t surprise you, either.  That his story was kept under wraps for years by Soviet officials is no surprise.  What is surprising, perhaps shocking, is the fact that Valery Sablin was so dedicated to communism, and was able to convince most of his shipmates to lock up the captain and take control of a Soviet warship in port and get underway.

Author Gregory Young came across clues to the Storozhevoy affair while studying at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. His report was itself discovered by aspiring writer Tom Clancy who went on to launch his career with The Hunt for Red October.  Young, along with Nate Braden, bring the story of Valery Sablin to life, and shines light on how and why a Soviet naval officer nearly sailed his warship to a new revolution.

“The Sentry story, as you know, has been twenty years in the making.  What was frustrating to me was that twenty years ago I uncovered the external details of the mutiny, but did not know not what truly motivated Valery Sablin to undertake such a desperate act. I tried to get the story published in 1985 and 1992, but it took the fall of the Soviet Union and a few years until a "kindler-gentler" KGB was less of a threat to family members and crew members so that they might relate their stories to Nate and to me,” says author Greg Young.

Sablin was a family man, with a wife and a child.  He was loyal to the ideals of the party.  He served as a Zampolit, a political officer who provided party doctrine and ensured the purity of thought of the officers and men aboard Soviet warships.  How ironic that the role of the Zampolit was to make ensure the naval officers and ratings didn’t stage a coup d’etat.

Sablin became bitterly disillusioned with a system that ostensibly served all the people equally, but which felt obliged to maintain a totalitarian regime.  The real Communist Party did not treat all people equally, but rather gave perks to a loyal elite.  Most of this book discusses Sablin’s life and times, his family, education and naval career.  He admired the sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin who spontaneously revolted against their Tsarist masters, and eventually fire upon Tsarist forces.  Sablin, unlike many Soviet officers, cared for his men and showed concern for them, and they came to trust him in a system where conscripts are treated with disdain.  In context, one understands the fateful decision he made.   But it does come to a thrilling climax in November of 1975, when Captain 2nd Rank Valery Sablin, Zampolit of the Storozhevoy, took the fateful steps of asking his shipmates to join him in igniting a new revolution. 

Author Braden explained to me that the mutiny on the Potemkin had two big consequences for Sablin; one intended, the other unintended.  “Sablin's great hero was Lieutenant Peter Schmidt, a participant in the 1905 revolution (though not a Potemkin officer). Sablin admired that mutiny and the 1905 revolution because it was an avowedly socialist one and it almost led to the overthrow of the tsar,” says Braden.  “He hoped to follow in Schmidt's footsteps and have the same kind of impact with Storozhevoy in 1975 that Potemkin had in 1905.”

According to Braden, the unintended consequence was alluded to by Seaman Alexander Shein, Sablin's right-hand man during the mutiny. “The Potemkin revolt was basically sparked by an argument over bad borsch soup - spoiled meat was used in its preparation for the crew that morning and the men's refusal to eat it led to a series of events that culminated in the mutiny. Fast forward to 1975 and Shein recalled on Storozhevoy's return from Cuba that the supply officer had given them bread which was infested with worms. Like their counterparts on Potemkin, the crewmen of Storozhevoy refused to eat it. Six months later, when Sablin was appealing to the enlisted men for their support in his mutiny, Shein recalled, ‘we remembered that bread.’”

One officer, a senior lieutenant named Firsov, managed to get off the ship, and reported to the commander of  the submarine S-163, moored next to the Storozhevoy.  Sablin’s plan had been compromised.  He weighed anchor as the first reports of the Storozhevoy’s takeover worked their way up the chain of command.  It was midnight, and Sablin’s ship was traveling at 30 knots up the Daugava River and for the Baltic Sea and open water.  It would be four hours before the naval command and KGB would hear the reports and take action.  A vice admiral from the Baltic Fleet called the Storozhevoy to speak with the captain, to be told that the captain had been relived of his duties (he was in fact, locked in a compartment below, with a guard posted outside), and that Storozhevoy was now a “free and independent territory of the Soviet Union.” 

By now the top brass were aware of the situation.  Commander of the Soviet Navy Admiral Sergei Gorshkov told the defense minister, Marshal Grechko, who told Brezhnev.  After being awakened with this disturbing news, Brezhnev said “Bomb the ship and sink it.”

The Swedes had intercepted enough information to know something was going on, but it didn’t make sense.  The Soviets thought Sablin would make a run for international waters and head for Sweden, and they intended to stop the ship from doing so.  An armada descended upon  Storozhevoy.   Il-38 May patrol aircraft, Tu-16 Badger and Yak-28 Brewer bombers searched for the destroyer as it broadcast its political statements, for some reason on encrypted channels.  The Yak-28s, with bombs and 30mm cannon made firing runs on the ship but were not effective.  New Su-24 Fencer fighter bombers were next to join in the fight.  Another Krivak-class destroyer got underway to chase down Storozhevoy, only to be attacked herself by the aircraft, mistaken for Sablin’s renegade warship.  But eventually the attackers found their mark.  Storozhevoy received direct hits from 500-pound bombs and 300-mm cannon.  The rudder jammed and Storozhevoy steamed in a circle.  The show was over.

One can speculate what might have happened if Lieutenant Firsov had not raised the alarm. 

Had Firsov not jumped ship, Braden says, Storozhevoy might have made it to Leningrad and dropped anchor, but it would have needed another full day to reach the city; in ten hours it had only covered about a third of the distance from Riga to Leningrad. “Even if Sablin had made it unscathed, as soon as his intent became clear, Storozhevoy would have been boarded or blown out of the water (my opinion).”

Just what the Swedes thought as Sablin’s ship and her pursuers came closer and closer to Swedish territory can only be imagined.  “The Swedes won't tell us what they thought because everything that happened that night is still classified and will be for another 40 years!” says Braden. 

“Since the Swedes are the originating agency on all SIGINT (signals intelligence) from the mutiny, the US government has to follow their lead when it comes to declassifying this stuff. That's why our FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request was denied by them and NSA (National Security Agency). But all you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of that Swedish radar operator on Gotland Island who all the sudden gets dozens of hits lighting up his radar screen - every ship and plane in the Baltic taking off and heading straight for him! Until their translators were able to sort out the COMINT (communications intelligence) and tell their chain of command that it was just a search for a mutinous vessel, the Swedes must have been very, very nervous.”

What remained was the investigation and the trial of the mutineers, all documented but highly classified until recently.  Sablin’s wife, Nina, had to endure the burden of shame and humiliation placed upon her by the system, and the loss of her husband.  But she admired and respected his noble idealism.

“After meeting Nina, Valery's widow, the real challenge to me was both to tell the human interest story of Valery as well as the importance of this story in assessing the strength of the Cold War Soviet military in view of this incident,” says Greg Young.  “These are two very disparate themes, both compelling but from different perspectives.”

Today Sablin is widely regarded in Russia as a hero, says Braden.  “As more and more of the dirt the Soviets had swept under the carpet over the years came out, however, his became just one more story of a brave man who lost to the system. What we'd like to see from the publication of this book is not only to tell his extraordinary story, but also to give some closure to his widow, Nina, on two issues: what the KGB did with Sablin's body after they executed him and what they did with his personal effects from prison.”

Young says that when asked why she did not remarry, Nina replied, "There can only be one Valery."

“They were truly in love,” Young says, “yet Valery chose not to tell his wife what he intended to do. Possibly it was to shield her, but we now know she had a much shrewder sense of the political realities than her husband did and perhaps he was afraid she might deter him from acting.” 

“It was this human side that was also the most surprising to me,” Young adds. “Twenty years ago I (and therefore Tom Clancy) thought that Sablin was going to defect with the Storozhevoy. We now know that his motivations were much more complex.”

“Sablin was a true believer,” says Braden.  “He never lost faith in his belief that Communism was the best system in the world to meet the people's social and economic needs. It never occurred to him that tyranny was the inevitable consequence of a one-party state. Sablin thought Communism was a good system that was simply in the hands of bad people.”

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Edward H. Lundquist is a retired U.S. Navy captain and naval analyst who lives in Springfield, Virginia.  He is director of corporate communication for the Center for Security Strategies and Operations, Anteon Corporation, Washington, D.C., and supports the U.S. Navy’s Surface Warfare Directorate.

Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet

Eighteenth Edition by Norman Polmar

U.S. Naval Institute (www.usni.org)

Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, offered by the U.S. Naval Institute, is an essential reference book for any military, naval or maritime library.  But it is more than a resource to be consulted when a question arises, for anyone who is mildly interested in ships; this book is very enjoyable to browse or study. 

First published in 1939, “Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet” is now edited by naval analyst and historian Norman Polmar.  Prior to that, James C. Fahey and then Samuel L. Morison compiled the book.

You will be able to find any and all U.S. warship, auxiliary or craft in naval service that you may possibly encounter at sea or in port.  “This includes the Coast Guard, Army, NOAA and other ‘fleets,’” Polmar says. 

The book covers vessels and aircraft as well as weapons, sensors and people.  It’s been an indispensable resource for years.  I remember consulting it when I stood watches at sea. 

I have the reprints of the wartime editions that the Naval Institute re-released a few years ago as a boxed-set, and I keep my earlier editions.  These older editions are very useful for research.  The current 672-page edition has more than 900 pictures and drawings.  Polmar updates the book every three years or so, but don’t throw out your old copy when you get your new edition, because each volume has information not found in other editions. 

“I have authored the 11th through 18th editions and have already begun work on the 19th edition,” Polmar says.

The 18^th edition features a listing of all major warships built since World War II.  Naval aircraft, wings and squadrons are displayed, including those discarded or disbanded in the last decade.  Beyond organizational charts and discussions of the structure of the Navy, Marine Corps, the reader will also find the Department of Defense and the Unified Commands to whom the operational naval forces report. 

As new technologies evolve, the book has stays up to date.  For example such as a new chapter that covers unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).  The Navy’s new ships, the Littoral Combat Ship and the DD(X) destroyer, are covered in detail.  The  submarine conversion program for the Ohio-class cruise missile and special forces transport submarines is presented.  Polmar shares his expert knowledge on the new Virginia and Seawolf classes of attack submarines.  Experimental craft like the X-craft research vessel called Sea Fighter and the Sea Flyer “lifting body” experimental craft and discussed.  Navy coastal patrol craft (PCs) have joined the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard’s “Deepwater” fleet recapitalization effort is explained.  High-speed catamarans, designed for passenger ferries, have demonstrated utility and flexibility in naval service.  HSV-2 Swift and Westpac Expressed have brought a futuristic look to the waterfront.  The new expeditionary warfare ship San Antonio (LPD-17) is in commission and others will soon follow.  The next generation of assault ship, the LHA(R) is on the drawing board.  New weapons are discussed, like the Advanced Gun System and the Mk 110 57mm gun. 

With the new there is also much about the old.  You’ll still find a chapter on battleships, although the remaining BBs are no longer active in the fleet.

There are a great many obscure and unusual vessels in the service of the Navy and Coast Guard.  And they are in this book.  There are floating instrumentation platforms (FLIP); cable repair ships, floating dry docks; buoy tenders; survey ships; torpedo retrievers; missile range instrumentation ships; Maritime Prepositioning Force RO/RO; crane ships, self-defense test ships; acoustic test barges; and nuclear-propelled submersibles.  You can find exactly what you or looking for in Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet.  Or, like me, you can lose yourself for hours looking for nothing in particular.

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Edward Lundquist is a naval analyst and strategic communicator.  He is a retired U.S. Navy captain and is currently the director of corporate communications for the Center for Security Strategies and Operations, Anteon Corporation, Washington, D.C.

Pirates often find their prey to be easy pickings

These stories about Pirates are Fact, not Fiction

Dangerous Waters

Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas

John S. Burnett

Dutton

New York, New York

Reviewed By Captain E.H. Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Even author John Burnett might have though pirates were the stuff of storybooks, of vivid imaginations, of swashbucklers and Peter Pan and Captain Hook.  But Burnett found out the hard way that thieves prowl the sea-lanes in search of easy victims.  Himself a victim of a pirate attack, he set out to shed light on the subject of crime and terrorism on the high seas.  Piracy is real, and a deadly serious problem.

According to Burnett, piracy is a crime that has been around since the earliest hunter-gatherer floated down some wilderness river on a log raft and was robbed of his prized piece of meat.  “He probably defended himself better than the lumbering slow moving merchant ships that are so often attacked today.  As we’ve seen, every vessel at sea is vulnerable to piracy or act of maritime terrorism.  From the state-of-the-art warship USS Cole to the modern VLCC M/V Limburg, from fishing boats and yachts to large passenger ferries and cruise ships.” 

Burnett narrowly survived a 1992 pirate attack while on a solo voyage aboard his own sloop Unicorn within just hours of Singapore.  In 2001 he joined the 300,000-ton very large crude carrier (VLCC) Montrose, carrying oil from the Middle East.  Carrying as much 2 million barrels of crude, could such a huge ship be victimized by pirates?    Burnett set out to see for himself.  Later, Burnett sailed with Petro Concord, a smaller tanker, but a large ship nonetheless, in the South China Sea.

Burnett also share other pirate stories, like the tale of the tanker Valiant Carrier, which was firebombed by pirates who turned violent, and severely beat the master, his wife and their child. 

The “Anti-Shipping Activity Message” about Valiant Carrier is an officious understatement:

STRAIT OF SINGAPORE-Vicinity of Bintan Island. 242200LAPR92 ten armed pirates boarded the VALIANT CARRIER unnoticed despite illumination, piracy watch set, and additional precautions. Stolen were $4000.00 cash and personal possessions. Injured were the Captain's infant daughter, Captain's wife, Captain, and Navigation Officer.

Piracy is not only a nasty business, it is deadly.  When pirates attacked the Baltimar Zephyr in 1992, they killed the ship’s master and first officer and threw three seamen overboard.  The pirates absconded with several hundred dollars, leaving the moving ship’s bridge unattended for ninety minutes until the crew freed themselves. 

Montrose’s captain reads the daily situation reports from the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur as they come off the telex.  “Very useful,” the skipper says.  “This could happen to us as well.” 

I confess that I check these reports myself every week (http://www.icc-ccs.org/prc/piracyreport.php).

Pirates are smart.  They catch their prey largely unaware, and make of with cash, cargo, consumables and whatever valuables they can carry.  In some cases the pirates are part of a crime syndicate.  In other cases they are poor villagers who see a ship as an easy mark.  One ship had the clothes taken from the laundry.  One crew arrived in port and requested clothing.  Authorities found the captain standing naked behind the wheel.  Ships may have strong boxes, but carry little cash. 

Some pirates take mooring lines so they can be taken apart and the fibers used to make fishing nets.  Pirates may be armed with guns, or perhaps just machetes known as “long knives.”  They may have masks to conceal their identity and for shock value.  Mariners are instructed not to resist or fight back.  But they don’t have to make it easy for the pirates, either.

A VLCC is big.  It takes a half hour just to stop. 

Shipping lanes like the Singapore Straits are crowded.  As many as 25 ships pass through them each hour.  With Malaysia to the North and Indonesia to the south, there are many places for pirates to hide.  Most ships have watch standers patrol the decks and keep deck lights on during transits in pirate-prone waters, and many rig fire hoses to make it harder for pirates to board.  The Montrose’s skipper had a pair of dummies rigged to simulate watchful eyes.

The seafarers unions in the United Kingdom chided ship owners about their reluctance to rig video camera systems topside, remarking the petrol companies spend more money on a service station surveillance cameras than on a system for a supertanker.  Some ships have mercenaries (Said one such professional, “We really try not to kill them.  There are administrative problems.”), such as retired Special Forces personnel, or even Nepalese Gurkhas.  All for good reason.  Piracy reportedly costs $16 billion a year.

Pirates have been known to steal a ship, paint out the name and give it a new identity.  New technology allows for transponders to use satellites to track the whereabouts of ships.  But most ships don’t have these “automated voyage monitoring system” devices.

The pirates often find their prey to be easy pickings.  “Merchant ships are the lowest hanging fruit of world commerce,” Burnett says.  “Nearly ninety-five percent of world commerce is transported by ship. The most essential of all commodities shipped in bulk is oil. Sixty percent of the world’s crude oil is carried on supertankers and even larger Very Large Crude Carriers.  And they are defenseless.  Fire hoses blasting outboard, an extra crewmember patrolling the decks, the transom illuminated by halogen lamps; these precautions cannot stop a pirate determine to board the vessel. Indeed, they these only serve to alert pirates that this ship is aware it is steaming through pirate territory and that another ship without these obvious defenses might present a softer target.

Piracy today is a crime, and it is out of control, Burnett says, no matter the well-meaning efforts of governments.  “A ship is easy to take down.  Pirates know that it is far less risky to rob a ship than it is to rob a bank.  Few pirates are ever caught and fewer prosecuted.”

Burnett reports that the highest number of attacks last year occurred in Indonesian waters, followed by attacks in the Malacca Straits and then Nigeria. “The greatest concern at the present is piracy in the congested Malacca Straits, through which half of the world’s supply of oil and a third of world’s commerce passes.  The straits winds through numerous islands, with many places for pirates to hide ands await the target of their choosing.”

Because of the strategic importance of the straits, he says, the high number of attacks and the threat that terrorists in the region will learn to become pirates, the littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have established joint patrols, increased intelligence sharing, and formed a joint radar surveillance project.  Yet an indispensable tool to combat piracy, hot pursuit, the right to chase pirates back to their liars in another country’s territory, has not been resolved. Most attacks are launched from the Indonesian side of the Straits. When Indonesian pirates attack a ship on the Malaysian side, the Malaysian Navy or Royal Malaysian Marine Police can only chase them to the territorial limits and then watch helplessly as the pirates on their fast boats flee to their kampongs in the mangrove swamps.  Certainly in this area, if hot pursuit were permitted, piracy would be severely curtailed, Burnett says.

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Edward Lundquist is a senior technical director for the Center for Security Strategies and Operations, Anteon Corporation, Washington, D.C.  He is a retired U.S. Navy captain.

Picture this:  The Army’s Fleet

Sail Army

A Pictorial Guide to Current U.S. Army Watercraft

By Stephen Harding

Pictorial Histories Publishing Company

Missoula, Montana

Reviewed by Edward Lundquist

Detailed Data for world’s warships

The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World 2005-2006

Their Ships, Aircraft and Systems

By Eric Wertheim

The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World” is an authoritative and thorough compendium about warships, aircraft and auxiliaries that serve in navies and coast guards worldwide.  

Combat Fleets is massive, with 1,104 pages and more than 4,000 photos and illustrations.  It’s even bigger than Jane’s Fighting Ships (but costs less).  If the seven-pound book is too heavy to handle, save both money and weight and get the CD version instead.

Combat Fleets covers the waterfront.  From large aircraft carriers and complex cruisers to speedy patrol craft and diminutive utility boats, they are covered in detail.

If you are interested in aircraft carriers, you can study the entries from the U.S., Brazil, the U.K., India, France, Italy, and others.  Submarine devotees will find nuclear boats in navies such as the U.S., Russia and U.K.  Small diesel boats can be found in the listings for Portugal, Singapore, Sweden or Turkey, or mini-subs operated by Croatia or North Korea.  The book is filled with unique or highly specialized auxiliaries; from oilers and tankers to repair and ammo ships; from towing and salvage ships to converted merchantmen carrying prepositioning supplies.  If you seek an obscure vessel, like a ship to tend harbor nets, you’ll find that Turkey still operates net layers.   Poland has a deperming ship.  Myanmar has a presidential yacht. Brunei has two new very capable frigates and the Swiss Army operates a fleet of patrol boats on Lake Geneva.

As a personal preference, I always look for the ex-U.S. Navy salvage ships still serving in navies around the world.  As my first ship was the ocean-going fleet tug USS Tawakoni, I always crack open books like this and search for Taiwan where I see she is still commissioned as ATF 553, the Ta Mo, in the Republic of China Navy.

Wertheim is able to observe trends in maritime affairs.  Wertheim finds some developments interesting, such as Israel’s growing interest in an amphibious force.  He has been watching India and China as their navies have grown dramatically, but along two very different routes to maritime power.”

China is focusing on submarines and surface forces, he says.  “India, on the other hand, is taking the aircraft carrier route.  India appears to be looking at the U.S. Navy as their model, where China is drawing from Russia and the former Soviet navy.”  

As larger navies are forced to reduce their fleets, smaller navies are able to receive newer, more capable ships.  Many third-world navies are becoming high-tech.

“Second-tier nations are able to get first class ships because larger navies are not able to keep them.”

For example, Belgium's Navy is dwindling in size and power as of late, Wertheim explains.  “There was talk of purchasing frigates from the Netherlands but that failed to pan out -- instead Belgium has sold one of its three remaining frigates to Bulgaria, which is seeking to modernize while Belgium seeks to cut costs.”

The process of compiling this book never ends, the author says.    By the time it starts running on the presses he’s already working on the next edition.  But, he says, monthly updates are available online at www.combatfleets.com.

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Edward Lundquist is a senior technical director for the Center for Security Strategies and Operations, Anteon Corporation, Washington, D.C. 

Set sail on an epic voyage into the world of epic voyages

A Speck on the Sea

Epic Voyages of the Most Improbable Vessels

By William H. Longyard

Reviewed by Edward Lundquist

Most mariners can appreciate a good ending to a bad voyage.  Many of us have been in heavy weather and felt our ship just wasn’t big enough.  I can recall being in stormy seas aboard a U.S. Navy ocean-going fleet tug and thinking my ship was just too tiny for those big waves. 

Compared to the craft that William Longyard tells us about in his book, “A Speck of the Sea,” my 195-foot tug is a giant.  This compendium is itself an epic voyage into the world of epic voyages: journeys of daring, desperation, danger and drama.  These are heroic stories about great ocean adventures accomplished in the most unusual and smallest craft imaginable.

Some incredible tales result from necessity or calamity, such as a shipwreck or a plane crash. 

Longyard sheds light on legends, offering evidence that kayaking Inuits were the original long-distance solo-voyagers who sailed as far as Europe.    We get the whole story of cast-off Captain William Bligh, set adrift near the Friendly Islands by the unfriendly crewmembers of HMS Bounty in 1789.  He didn’t set out to perform an amazing feat in a small boat.  But despite the unanticipated consequences, Bligh and his shipmates traveled 4,000 westward to Kupang, Timor with just one casualty, a sailor killed very early in the voyage in an altercation with the Tongans.

Naval aviators Harold Dixon, Anthony Pastula and Gene Aldrich ditched their Douglass Devastator in the drink in the South Pacific early in World War II.  They survived their crash and crawled into a small inflatable rubber raft to discover their boat contained no water or food or even a signaling device.  Their survival gear consisted of a .45 pistol, a whistle and rubber repair kit for the boat.  They had no success shooting birds or catching fish with their makeshift hook (fabricated from a spring mechanism from an ammo clip); but they did have some modest success spearing fish and birds, with a spear fashioned from a small knife.   Any landfall would be welcome after being adrift for 34 days, but they were just as concerned about making landfall on a Japanese-held island as they were about food and water.  They finally came ashore at the isolated Pukapuka, in the isolated Danger islands, part of the isolated Cook Islands.  Let’s just say they were isolated, but safe!  And they had traveled a distance of more than a thousand miles from where they went down!

Some of these voyages were planned with a larger purpose, and some with really no purpose at all.  The most unusual voyages were intentional journeys by unusual mariners seeking fame, fortune, fun, or something not even they could fathom.  

Some adventurers are driven by an idea.  American boat builder O. K. Ingersoll set out to build a better lifeboat, and sailed his 26-foot square-rigged “Ingersoll’s Improved Metallic Lifeboat,” named the Red, White & Blue, from New Jersey to England in 35 days. 

In 1874, another American, Paul Boyton set out to demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel lifesaving outfit called the Merriman Inflatable Immersion Suit, by jumping over the side of a steamship Queen 30 miles off the Irish coast in a fierce storm.  During the night, 56 ships were lost around the British Isles.  Not, however, Boyton, who remained safe and sound inside his buoyant suit.  He paddled ashore, then continued paddling another ten miles to Cork, where the Irish-born Boyton was hailed as a hero.  He liked the role of hero, because he later paddled in his Merriman suit across the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar and Messina, down the Hudson, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. 

John MacGregor is said to have practically invented the sport of canoeing or kayaking.  He conducted some epic voyages in his small craft for a greater purpose, that of saving souls by handing out religious tracts from his canoe.  He called it "Muscular Christianity," and he wrote about it in his 1866 book, “A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe.”  He built 21-foot yawl-rigged catboat and sailed it alone across the English Channel and up the Seine to Paris, and later kayaked around the Holy land and conducted other such voyages for the acclaim and adventure, and the chance to convert non-believers.

Few commercial fishing boats are smaller than a dory.  For Danish-born Alfred Johnson, a Grand banks dory man out of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, his small flat-bottomed dory was a perfectly good boat to sail across the Atlantic.  Doing so, he thought, would bring his some favorable attention at the upcoming 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.  He decked over a dory, built a small hatch to sit in, fitted the boat with a tiller, modified it to carry stores, and named his craft the Centennial.  He took a compass, some charts and supplies for the trip.  Despite being battered by a gale, losing part of the hatch combing, taking on a great deal of water, actually rolling over at one point, and losing his stove and spoiling much of his stores, he still made it.  He had one sail left, and dead-reckoned himself toward the Irish coast.  Several ships came along side, offering him some food and water, and gave him his bearings.   On Aug. 12, he arrived at Abercastle in Wales, and then continued on to Liverpool.  If he was seeking fame, he had missed out on the Centennial Exposition.  But he had earned fame as being the first solo Atlantic crossing in a small boat.

Thomas Crapo would find fame.  But to achieve it, he would need to sail the Atlantic in a smaller boat (establishing a pattern that continues to this day).  For Crapo that meant doing what Johnson did, but with a boat half the size.  His motivation was money.  His dory, New Bedford, was just 19-feet, seven inches long.  Crapo’s wife, Joanna, insisted on going along, but to make his feat meaningful he forbade his wife from helping in any way.   If he thought her presence might diminish his own accomplishment, having his young bride on the voyage contributed to the publicity value.  The couple sailed on may 28, 1877.  The 1,100 mile voyage was difficult.  It took a toll on both of them, particularly Joanna.   Although not allowed to help, she did serve as a lookout and contributed to the safe conclusion of the trip in crowded sea lanes.  On July 21 they arrived at Penzance.  There bought became a popular attraction around Europe and they earned a large sum of money.  According to Longyard, Joanna Crapo was the first woman to sail across an ocean in a small boat.  Later, Thomas would try to duplicate his glorious voyage in 1899, sailing from New Bedford to Cuba.  Joanna was not with him on this trip.  His body washed up in South Carolina after a fierce storm.

What could be smaller?  How about a 19-and-a-half-foot “folding kayak?” This well-engineered craft, built by German Franziskus Romer, was complete with foot-operated bilge pump, inflatable gasbags and sponsons.  Romer even had the foresight to conduct sea trials before embarking on an impetuous voyage.  On June 3, 1938, he set out from the Canary Islands to the Antilles, a 3,000-mile journey.  After 58 days at sea, fighting fatigue, hunger and sharks, Romer arrived at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.  He was hailed as the new Lindberg.  After recovering his strength, Romer decided to sail the rest of the way to New York, but was lost in a force-12 hurricane shortly after departing St. Thomas.

How about driving across the Atlantic?  Australian Ben Carlin bought an Army surplus amphibious GP-A (General Purpose – Amphibious) craft at government auction, modified it with a “cabin” and large fuel tank, “waterproofed” the underside with neoprene rubber, recruited his wife, Elinore, as first mate, and in 1950, after months of fits and starts, left Halifax for the Azores.  Carlin named his improbable craft Half Safe.  It took 32 demanding and difficult days to reach the Azores, at about three knots, but after replenishing and some voyage repairs they continued to Cape Juby in the Azores.   Elinore had seen enough, and divorced Carlin. Ben enjoyed the experience, and set out to cross from Hong Kong to Japan, this time with another friend.  In 1957, with yet another mate, he crossed from Japan to Anchorage, island hopping along the way, then drove to Montreal.  The irascible Carlin couldn’t get along with his partner, a journalist, on this trip either.

Floridian Hugo Vihlen wanted to cross the Atlantic in the smallest craft ever.  In 1968, after several failed starts, Vihlen took his six-foot-long boat, April Fool, from Morocco and traveled the 4,480 miles in 69 days.

There is a common thread among the adventurers and their feats.  If not necessity, then what would motivate a mariner to dodge severe storms in a decked-over dinghy while drugged on Dexedrine.  What could persuade a person to pilot a puny pleasure craft with precious and paltry provisions; dealing with demons, dementia, deprivation, despair, doubt, for a variety of motivations to demonstrate that they could do something no one else could possibly imagine?  Fame?  Fortune?  Faith?  Or perhaps nothing better to do?

This collection of maritime memoirs and sea-going sagas is an adventure in and of itself.

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Lynn Schooler’s book “The Last Shot - The Incredible Journey of the CSS Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the American Civil War,” (Harper Collins, $25.95 U.S.) about the last Confederate Navy ship to conduct operations is a scholarly historical account and a riveting sea story. 

The Confederacy took several cruisers up from the British merchant trade to prey on Yankee shipping.  One such ship, the 220-foot Indiaman Sea King, was outfitted for a wartime role and commissioned as CSS Shenandoah.  Her orders were to capture and destroy Yankee merchant shipping and "seek out and utterly destroy" the Yankee whaling fleet.