Puttering in the Study

Shadowplay - Joseph O'Connor

I will read almost any fiction that involves Bram Stoker, on the off chance that it adds an interesting twist to the genesis of Dracula.  As I have said many times, it just fascinates me how a dull, repressed Irishman managing a theater came up with such a masterpiece of horror.  Because he tried over, and over, and over, and could not come anywhere close again.

Of course Stoker was actually an interesting tale himself, even though had he not written the book about the vampire, he would've been merely a minor member of the cast of a book about Sir Henry Irving, the actor whose theater he managed.  Shadowplay focuses on Stoker's relationship with Irving and actress Ellen Terry, and throughout the book we see bits and pieces that later ended up in Dracula.  But the book is really about the relationship between the three, and is more of a word picture than a coherent novel, complete with plot.

I say word picture because close to the beginning, the chapter that began with Irving and Stoker in a train annoying each other without even having to speak was one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read.  I actually bought the audiobook as soon as I finished the scene just so I could hear someone read it out loud – it was that good.  Unfortunately, the pandemic prevented me from being in the car enough to listen to the rest of the book, so ended up reading almost the whole thing.

It's very close whether I would recommend the book as a piece of fiction as opposed to recommending it simply because the writing is so creative and beautifully done.  Probably closer to the latter.  But, again the scene in the train is just beyond my ability to describe it.  It's magnificent. 

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It - Adam Savage

Grayson recommended this book to me because he thought I might be interested in Adam Savage of MythBusters' recommendations on boosting and accommodating your creativity.

The book is a magnificent recitation of Savage's career as a "maker," including a stint making models for Industrial Light and Magic for the movie industry, which was probably my dream job through high school as well.  His advice on how to be a better maker, especially towards the end of the book, began giving intensely productive tips on how to manage your workshop, including the benefits of cleaning up after yourself at the end of each day so that you can start from a blank slate at the next session. There are other chapters analyzing subjects such as workshop organization and illustrating all the different types of a tool, all of which have an application they are best suited for.  He provides examples of this for objects as straightforward as glue and scissors, which really makes you stop and think about the characteristics of the tools you use, and whether there might really be a need to have different variants of a commonly used tool.

All in all, a great book, especially for kids or young people trying to figure out how to be better at maximizing their creativity and being productive with it.

The Fisherman's Tomb: The True Story of the Vatican's Secret Search - John O'Neill

I had this book recommended to me during a recent St. Thomas More Society meeting as a good recent book about the Scavi excavations for Peter's tomb under St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  It was a good addition to what I already had, and told more of the story of how the excavation was funded and the internal politics surrounding both the excavations and how what came out of them was treated.  It's a very, very interesting subject.

Daybreak For Our Carrier - Max Miller

I picked up an e-book Carrier! Life Aboard a World War II Aircraft Carrier for 99 cents the other day, despite the generally poor reviews - and ended up very happy that I did.

It turned out the book is actually a republication of the 1944 book Daybreak For Our Carrier by reserve officer Lt. Max Miller, a peacetime writer called into service during the war.  Miller was writing about what life on an aircraft carrier was like for people back home during the war, so the book is almost completely lacking in specifics - no ship or aircraft or island names at all - just his take on what it's like on this new type of warship.

The book began almost exactly the same as the narration for the movie The Fighting Lady, also released in 1944 about life on the same carrier.  It's only slightly sappy in places, but not overly so given the age - in fact it's one of the more restrained pieces of its era that I've read.  But his take is simply terrific.  He's not presenting life as an exercise in patriotism and duty but as simply what goes on on the ship. Three images in the book stood out to me.

First, he described the predawn General Quarters during which all the ship's planes would be warmed up and readied for possible launch on the flight deck.  But here's the picture he paints of what he sees when he looks down from the island through the complete darkness toward the tightly packed planes spotted aft:

"The blue-reddish flames from the multitude of exhausts, all bursting and roaring at the same time in the blackness, is what gives the flight deck its Dante’s Inferno complexion during such times. They do not throw out much light but they do throw out terrible shadows under the wings and against the fuselages; fiery shadows which appear to be leaping and shrieking in a mad effort to get the hell away from there. It is as if, too, the devil’s own little henchmen were having a lot to do with the affair, as if they deliberately were stirring it up, as if they were wanting a real fight to occur between flame and flame, the winner being the one which can out roar the other."

(Emphasis mine).

 

What an incredible mental image - one that had never occurred to me since I've never seen engine exhaust at night, and never thought about the shadows it'd throw under the packed aircraft.  You can catch a glimpse of it in these two paintings by his fellow reserve office William Draper who was aboard the same ship a few months later, and painted views from the island at night. 

 

Miller also paints metaphorical pictures of the ship during an operation, noting that due to its sending its planes out, it becomes hard to know how the day went.

For a carrier’s pattern of operations, as previously mentioned, continues to be a sort of fourth-dimensional one even during an engagement.... Each of these tangents is a thread then, and if under the pressure of the weaving, these threads get lost or snap, the day’s design automatically may change.... that is the trouble with engagements in general. They do not follow the rules of good theater any more than a day’s pattern will always stick to its original design.

Another great example of writing that conveys what carrier life must have been like.  Unlike the ships around it, the carrier's life is tied up in what happens to its aircraft.

 

He also refers several times to the dark catwalk under the flight deck that led from the squadron ready rooms to the flight deck.  This would have been suspended above the hangar deck, and would have been the place all the pilots traversed on their way to their planes - a sort of tunnel suspended in space.  Pointing it out just really brought home to me the journey that these men were about to make.

 

Finally, he narrates his trip as an observer in a plane on a bombing mission, and provides yet another unique description of the carrier.  Every account I've ever read refers to the carrier in maternal terms - as a mother hen to her fliers.  His experience after leaving her deck was different - he writes that "[i]n shoving us out of the nest she merely had turned from a mother ship into a rather stern old dad." And a dad that expected results, he continues.  That's a completely unique observation about a carrier.

 

In summary, a great little book.  I hunted a good copy down online after I read the e-book. I want my own copy of this one.

Bringing Back a Hero - Robert D. Jornlin

Our last stop on our RV trip was LST 325 in Evansville, Indiana, where I picked up this book by its captain on its return voyage in 2000-2001.  The story is an incredible one.  A crew of retired LST sailors, average age 72, got the ship back in working condition and talked their way into bringing back over 6,000 miles across the Mediterranean and Atlantic to the United States - so we'd have an example of a World War II LST.

The ship was an incredible experience to visit, but the artifact pales compared to what these men did to bring her home.  Jornlin was a retired commander from the 1960's, but his experience on the vessels and in feed sales gave him both the technical and the personal skills to successfully negotiate the challenges of getting the ship restored and the necessary permissions to bring her home.

I highly, highly recommend this book. 

The US Navy and the War in Europe - Robert C. Stern

This is another relatively recent (2012) Naval Institute Press book by prolific naval author Robert Stern.  It explores the little-explored aspect of the Navy’s contribution to victory in World War II which was the Atlantic theater, and in so doing clarifies why it is little-explored.

The Navy’s role in the Atlantic war was a limited one initially, although not as limited as it should have been under principles of international law applying to neutral nations.  The book explains why FDR drew the lines differently prior to U.S. entry in the war, and the practical effect that this had.  It also explains the cooperation between the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy in beginning protecting shipping from U-boat attack.

One thing this book shows that none other I have read does is the extremely secondary nature of the theater in U.S. naval planning.  The Atlantic only got the assets that the Navy could spare from the Pacific, and those assets started being raided after December 7, making this the first book I’ve read that make the Pacific Fleet in WW II look well-taken care of by comparison.  The carrier Yorktown left immediately after the attack, and the three relatively modern New Mexico class battleships (they were WW I vintage but had been modernized during the interwar period) followed soon after, effectively making good the battleship losses sustained in the attack - a little-known fact.  The Navy had eight battleships at Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred (with one refitting on the West Coast).  Several weeks later it still had eight battleships in fighting trim in the Pacific, but they were stuck on the West Coast for lack of tankers and air cover.  

After the U.S. began losing carriers at Coral Sea and Midway the Wasp - which had been making runs into the Mediterranean to deliver Spitfires and otherwise making herself useful - was also pulled out.  The only carrier to remain - Ranger - was left because, as Stern points out - she wasn’t wanted in the Pacific. FDR himself apologized for her condition to Churchill on 16 April 1942 saying that she was best suited for use as a “ferry boat” for aircraft because “we are not proud” of her compartmentation and structural strength. Stern later identifies another problem - due to her hull shape she could only operate aircraft in a mild swell, which would have made her unsuited for operations in the Pacific.  Nor was that all - due to her slow top speed she could not launch fully loaded aircraft without help from the wind.  At one point in late 1943 an entire task force sat drumming its hands for 20 minutes off the Norwegian coast waiting for her to find a couple of knots of wind so she could launch her CAP and then strike aircraft.  All this reminds me that someone needs to write on how the Navy learned enough from 1934 to 1940 that it could build an effective carrier (Wasp) using the same tonnage as the ineffective Ranger.  Wasp was slightly slower and less well-protected that her Yorktown-class half-sisters, but she could and did operate with them effectively in August and September of 1942 off Guadalcanal. Ranger could not have, apparently.

The story of the Atlantic war that Stern tells is largely one of small engagements between destroyers, submarines and merchant shipping, where small U.S. ships sustained frequent losses due to German attacks.  The surface engagements are there, but they are rare, usually small, and often between unevenly matched combatants.

Oddly, Stern does not cover at all a couple of significant U.S. Navy operations in the Atlantic.  There is no mention of the new battleship Iowa carrying FDR to the conferences in Cairo and Teheran in late 1943. It was specifically forbidden by Admiral King from going out and looking for trouble while waiting on FDR’s return, but still - it was a major fleet unit and should have been noted.

And most significantly, while he covers the damage suffered by Navy vessels, especially destroyers, in great detail throughout the book, including at D-Day, he leaves out completely the major role played by the destroyers during the June 6 landings in battling shore emplacements at extreme risk to themselves.  Stephen Ambrose addresses these incidents extensively in his D-Day book, but they are completely absent here, despite the high drama they represent.  In many ways they were the high point of the Navy’s contribution to the shooting war in the theater, and their omission in a book largely missing high drama is an odd one.

Another omission is showing the increasing strength of the Atlantic fleet as the war went on.  Stern makes clear at the beginning just how phenomenally weak the Navy’s forces in the Atlantic were, which is helpful, but doesn’t note quantitatively how that changed as the war went on.  It would be something like telling the war in the Pacific beginning by noting the Navy’s limited supply of carriers in 1942, and then never noting that they were replaced four or five-fold with new construction.  Having those additional assets changed the picture of what the U.S. could do, and there’s nothing comparable in this book with respect to the Atlantic theater.  He does make mention of new construction, but not in a way that shows how the Navy’s ability to fight the war in the Atlantic changed between 1941 and 1945, and when the shortages in warships were remedied.  Or whether they were remedied effectively or resulted in unnecessary units in some areas which excess construction occurred in others.

Overall an interesting book, but a highly specialized one, which tells a fairly small slice of the story.  Other books provide a more comprehensive analysis of the Battle of the Atlantic (I don’t have a recommendation on this one), the Mediterranean campaigns (the first two Atkinson books) and the naval side of D-Day (Symonds’ Neptune). But if you want the ship by ship engagements that the Navy’s destroyers fought, with damage accounts, this is your source.  The sources at the end are also going to be very valuable to you if you’re interested in this subject, since Stern identifies all the good books, references and cites for this area.

Allied Master Strategists The Combined Chiefs of Staff in World War II - David Rigby

This is a 2012 Naval Institute Press book that analyzes the role played by the Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.  It’s a good source of information, although I was a bit annoyed with the way the author periodically broke the fourth wall to discuss the writing of the book.  Yes, I get it - it’s a book you wrote.  I’ll call you (in the notes) if I need any help, thanks.

But the topic is a good and underserved one, since the Chiefs’ role in the war bears more attention that it has gotten.  The book covers the individual members of the two staffs, and well as their staff, all of which played an enormous role in the successful partnership between the British and American war machines during the conflict.

There were even some stories I had never seen before, including the American chiefs’ ham-handed party-crashing of the Azores bases that the British chiefs had painstakingly negotiated with neutral Portugal.  Or the back and forth neutral missions by the Swedish liner Gripsholm (shown in her wartime livery below - with the exception that the 5’ tall letters DIPLOMAT have been painted over) which  ferried exchanged prisoners and Red Cross supplies so often that the U.S. deliberately delayed releasing stories of Japanese mistreatment of U.S. prisoners so that it could continue sending supplies to American POWs.

The book is broken into chapters by topic, which makes it a little hard to follow what is happening during the war chronologically, and some of the opinions (Admiral King’s strategic genius) are a bit under supported, but it is still a useful addition to the bookshelf for untangling how exactly a particular dispute was handled if it involved a Chief.

Allied Master Strategists The Combined Chiefs of Staff in World War II - David Rigby

This is a 2012 Naval Institute Press book that analyzes the role played by the Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.  It’s a good source of information, although I was a bit annoyed with the way the author periodically broke the fourth wall to discuss the writing of the book.  Yes, I get it - it’s a book you wrote.  I’ll call you (in the notes) if I need any help, thanks.

But the topic is a good and underserved one, since the Chiefs’ role in the war bears more attention that it has gotten.  The book covers the individual members of the two staffs, and well as their staff, all of which played an enormous role in the successful partnership between the British and American war machines during the conflict.

There were even some stories I had never seen before, including the American chiefs’ ham-handed party-crashing of the Azores bases that the British chiefs had painstakingly negotiated with neutral Portugal.  Or the back and forth neutral missions by the Swedish liner Gripsholm (shown in her wartime livery below - with the exception that the 5’ tall letters DIPLOMAT have been painted over) which  ferried exchanged prisoners and Red Cross supplies so often that the U.S. deliberately delayed releasing stories of Japanese mistreatment of U.S. prisoners so that it could continue sending supplies to American POWs.

The book is broken into chapters by topic, which makes it a little hard to follow what is happening during the war chronologically, and some of the opinions (Admiral King’s strategic genius) are a bit under supported, but it is still a useful addition to the bookshelf for untangling how exactly a particular dispute was handled if it involved a Chief.

The Good Shepherd - C.S. Forester

When I realized the new Tom Hanks movie Greyhound is based on this book by the author of the Hornblower books I had to go back and reread it.  Terrific read - started it last night and finished it today.  I know I’ve read it before - notes say I got it in San Diego which means a long, long time ago, but I’m pretty sure I read it at the time.

Can’t wait to see the movie!

Moon Men Return: USS Hornet and the Recovery of the Apollo 11 Astronauts - Scott Carmichael

As part of my research into exactly how an Essex-class carrier operated when recovering an Apollo command module, I picked up this book direct from the U.S. Naval Institute about the experience of the USS Hornet (CV–12) which recovered the Apollo 11 astronauts in July 1969.

There good things and bad things about this book. Under the category of "inexplicable bad things" why in the world would you put a picture on the cover of the Hornet in the 1950s in a completely different configuration than when it recovered Apollo 11?  It is completely unrecognizable as the same ship.

Similarly, the book begins with a number of false notes, beginning with the overwrought praise of the Hornet's wartime record as making it a peculiarly appropriate choice as the recovery ship. Yes, the Hornet had an exemplary wartime record, but it was not uniquely appropriate that it was selected to recover Apollo 11. Once you get over that schmaltz, which is probably unavoidable given that the author spent years interviewing former crewmembers and clearly adopted their completely understandable pride in their ship, there are repeated instances, especially early in the book where some editing would've been in order, because the author frequently says things about persons two or three times, with each sentence having its complement of adjectives. It isn't as bad as reading '40's fiction, but it's close.

There are also some odd statements, such as the reference to an officer having assigned a young Lieut. John F. Kennedy to command of U.S. PT boats in the Pacific. It is technically correct that he assigned Kennedy to command a couple of boats – but the sentence could easily be read as that he assigned Kennedy to command of all U.S. PT boats in the Pacific, which would not be correct. Neil Armstrong is similarly called out for his positive qualities in "spaceflights " prior to his assignment to Apollo 11  But Armstrong only had one spaceflight before Apollo 11.

Either the writing got better or I stopped noticing, because before long the book had me very interested in the subject matter. It explained how the Hornet was run, and how it absorbed the new task of recovering the astronauts. It went into detail about the equipment used and how the crew was trained in the recovery, including a great deal of detail about the Navy and NASA personnel that went from ship to ship ensuring that the recovery would be done correctly. The sections dealing with how the ship managed to visit of President Nixon, who arrived on the Hornet to watch the recovery, but spent only three hours on the ship, were very interesting as well.

The point at which I realized that this book was not going to be a direct read on the Essex's recovery of Apollo 7 the previous October was when it began discussing the extreme fear at the time that the astronauts would bring back "moon germs" which would infect Earth and kill us all. Accordingly, detailed procedures were developed and followed during the recovery to limit as much as possible the extent to which the returning astronauts could contaminate the Hornet during the recovery process.

One thing this book did not do, which I appreciated, was focus on the popular obsession with Apollo 11 that was present in society at large at the time of the mission. It certainly mentions it in numerous places, but it avoids going into it in so much detail that a regular Apollo reader would get bored.

All in all, although I wish the book had been edited a little better, it was a very interesting story and literally kept me up at night.