Publisher: Pen and Sword, £19.99
Publication Date: 2007
There is no doubt, as the First Sea Lord points out in his Foreword, that the story of Admiralty salvage operations needs telling. Despite Sir Jonathan’s assertions of ‘meticulous research’ I found this book disappointing.
From early attempts to salvage HMS Royal George which sank in 1782, the author moves on to the major salvage of HMS Montagu from the rocks of Lundy Island in 1906, carrying us forward through two world wars, the salvage of Comet Yoke Peter and up to the Persian Gulf by way of the Falklands.
The book is at its best when detailing individual operations, the essential preservation of essential merchantmen in the two world wars, and the recovery of the remains of Comet YP. But the momentous work of clearing the harbours of north-west Europe in the wake of German defeat seemed superficially dealt with and the last pages relating events in the Gulf seemed bogged down in MoD jargon.
All this I could forgive, if it were not for the errors. There are too many misspelt ship’s names, but also of the architect of the Suez Canal (De Lessops, apparently) and Quinton, rather than Quintin, Hogg. The author’s location of Port Arthur seems very odd to me, and while mistaking the Harmartis’s owners as Harrisons of Liverpool rather than Harrisons of London is understandable, claiming the poor Athenia to be a ‘Cunard liner’ when she belonged to Donaldsons is not, given her place in history.
Nit-pickingly nerdish I might be, but I finally lost patience when I encountered the Kola ‘Peninsular’ substituted for the Kola Peninsula. Unfortunately this is a particular bug-bear of mine and to the adjective in both the text and index finally blighted my opinion. Sorry, but there it is.- RMW