GEOFFREY L. LOWIS

This is a gem of a book giving, as it does, a picture of the Royal Navy, and some of its eccentric leaders, some of its outstanding leaders too, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the foundation and training for these officers being in the period of the Victorian Navy and Pax Britannica.

Some of the characters were clearly martinets and they seem quite ghastly now, not just in the year 2020 but also to someone who served in the Royal Navy for the last two decades and more of the Cold War. Some were outstanding, too, of course. A common theme for many of the characters was just how much they were respected, sometimes loved, by naval ratings and marines on the lower deck. Another theme is the generally dreadful treatment of Midshipmen!

In my career, I think I served only one sea captain who would have merited a page or two in this book. How times had changed by the time I joined in 1967. How the Royal Navy had changed, too, as a result of its no longer being the biggest and most powerful - the US Navy was number one from 1942.

This a great book, though, for it is fun and gives an idea of the characters who formed the Navy that fought successfully in two world wars.… (meer)