Nautical Research Journal
T e book makes a fascinating read. Not only are several myths about the admirals and offi cer class of the Revolutionary and First Empire dispelled, but we are introduced to the careers of many French offi cers who are far less familiar to us than those who commanded the French fl eets that
fought
the British in the great set-piece naval battles of the period, such as Villaret-Joyeuse, de Bruys and Villeneuve. T e naval and maritime careers of those three and all the others are, of course, traced right back to their childhood and youth as they joined the Royal French Navy or the merchant service as boy volunteers, aspirants (midshipmen), gardes de la marine or merchant pilotins. T eir lives take us as far back as service against the British in the Seven Years War (also known as the French and Indian War), the action against Hawke in the great French defeat at Quiberon Bay in 1759, and the American Revolutionary War. Six of
these future admirals
participated in junior ranks in 1781 under Admiral de Grasse at the Battle of the Chesapeake, one of the greatest strategic successes of the eighteenth-century French navy and one that eff ectively won the war for the American rebels and the French. T e book shines a fascinating spotlight on their naval careers in more junior ranks than admiral, at earlier dates than the French Revolution. French successes during the following Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars are not lacking in these accounts either, not least that of the only French admiral to defeat Nelson in battle, an action accorded little prominence in British history books.
Richard Humble writes lucidly and fl uently and has produced here a most readable and interesting work, the most complete account of its subject in the English language. It deserves a place on the shelves of anyone interested in war at sea during the Great French Wars and puts the experience of those naval commanders on ‘the other side’ into perspective.
Roger Marsh Killaloe, Co. Clare, Ireland
Submarines and Submarine Depot Ships: Selected Photos from the Archives of the Kure Maritime Museum
Edited by the Kure Maritime Museum and Kazushige Todaka
Translated by Robert D. Eldridge
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2020 12” x 8-1/2”, hardcover, 235 pages
Photographs, scale drawings. $75.00 ISBN: 9781591146376
T is book is the second volume I’ve reviewed in this series of six published by the Kure Maritime Museum upon its establishment in 2005. T is is, in the main, a photo album of full-page photographs of vessels of the Japanese Navy dating from about 1905 through the end of World War II. As such there is little text beyond the captions for each photograph. T ese captions give a date, a location, and explain what the reader is looking at. To balance the lack of text there is an appendix at the end of the book containing twenty pages of specifi cations of the vessels with a brief history of each.
T e book includes more vessels than are listed in the title, and it is broken down into sections of 1st Submarines; 2nd
Class Class and 3rd Class Submarines and
Special Purpose (Midget) Submarines; Submarine Depot Ships and Submarine Tenders; Minelayers; and Mine Sweepers.
T e photographs in this collection were the life’s work of Shizuo Fukui, a former Japanese Navy commander, technician, and ship builder, and were edited by Kazushige Todaka, the director of the Kure Maritime Museum in Hiroshima, Japan. T e museum is commonly known as the Yamato Museum and has
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