[Subnuts]

I just published my review of Jutland 1916: The Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield. Translation: there's a foot of snow on the ground, and have nothing better to do!

https://www.amazon.com/review/R22K7O...cm_cr_rdp_perm

Although a library of books seems to have been written on Jutland, this appears to be the first serious one to focus mainly on the condition and exploration of the wrecks. The author is a marine archaeologist who's spent the last 15 years locating and studying the wrecks of 23 of the 25* ships sunk during the battle. Although "Jutland 1916" won't force people to totally reconsider their preconceived notions about the battle in the same way that "Shattered Sword" did with Midway, it nonetheless adds some interesting new wrinkles to the Jutland story.

The book is divided into three sections, covering the battlecruiser, fleet, and night actions. Each of the major (light cruiser and larger) ships receives a chapter of its own. Each describes the general history of the ship and the role it played in the battle, eyewitness and photographic records of its loss, and a study of the condition of the wreck. The destroyers are covered in a separate chapter at the end of each section, which are similar in format to the major warship chapters, but obviously not quite as detailed.

The highlight of this book are the sections focusing on the condition of the wrecks themselves. Along with many ROV and free-dive photographs, there are multibeam sonar scans of each wreck site, showing details as small as one meter across. Considering the horrible underwater visibility in the North Sea, these images frequently provide revelatory details. We finally get a good idea of the devastation wrought by a magazine explosion (almost nothing of "Queen Mary" exists forward of Q turret), the effect of 100 years on the bottom upon lightly-built destroyer hulls, and the extent of the illegal salvage carried out on many of the wrecks.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from occasional moments of stylistic excess. Some of the pages have maps or photographs splashed across the background, which can be distracting. The pages featuring ROV images are printed on glossy black paper, which *looks* nice, but is an absolute fingerprint magnet. Considering Dr. McCartney's maritime historian credentials, I'm kind of surprised at how much landlubber terminology snuck into here. Barbettes become "armoured turret sleeves," a boiler's water drum becomes a "water trough," a scupper becomes a "drain," and so on. No doubt only us hardcore naval history geeks will notice (or care) about this, but they stuck out to me.

Although it does have some minor issues, "Jutland 1916" is a pretty enjoyable work on the whole. The author assumes the reader has a better than average understanding of the battle going in, and I'd recommend studying a good set of maps first. Based on the evidence here, it would seem that a "do or die" point is approaching for the Jutland wrecks. Should they be protected as war graves, and what can be done to prevent illegal salvaging? What artifacts should be preserved before they completely disappear? Innes McCartney doesn't provide easy answers to these questions, but he does do an excellent job raising them.

*The wrecks of the Sparrowhawk and V4 had not been located when this book was published in the UK in May 2016.