Platapus
04-20-13, 07:54 PM
Review: Silent Killers
Delgado, J. P., (2011) Silent Killers: Submarines and underwater warfare. New York: Osprey Publishing
I received this book for Christmas. At first glance, this book appeared to be Yet Another History of Submarines. Many of us love submarine history. But after you read 3-4 histories of submarines it is kinda hard to get excited with YAHoS. But one to never let a book rest unread, I gave it a chance.
First of all, this is not YAHoS. It offers aspects of submarines that other YAHoS books overlook. Silent Killers is well cited and well organized.
The primary advantage of this book is the focusing on the early history of submarines. It is one of the few YAHoS that describe the ill-fated John Day’s 1774 submarine Maria. What I found especially refreshing was the inclusion of Richard Compton-Hall’s proofing of the 6 Sep 1776 Lee-Bushnell’s account of the Turtle’s attack on the Eagle. Not a lot of YAHoS offer up both sides of that story.
The other attractive aspect of this book is the inclusion of non-warfare type submarines. In the 1800’s there were several innovative salvage submersibles. While not war fighting submarines, these salvage submersibles and submarines helped develop designs seen in future submarines.
The best parts of the book are the first 6 chapters, which cover the 1600’s through the 1800’s. The next three chapters cover the years between 1900 and the 1930’s. The historical coverage of the development of submarines between WWI and WWII is an interesting subject. Silent Killers also balanced US development history with European and Asian development history. That is always a good sign in any history book.
Chapter 10 focused on WWII and here is where the book started dropping. This chapter was ok, but not as good as the other YAHoS.
Post WWII submarine history has been a special period of interest for me. Chapter 11 described the history from post WWII up to the first nuclear submarines. Also included was the history of testing of nuclear devices against submarines (operation crossroad) including a short description of the stupidity of the Navy concerning the parading of the USS Skate (damaged in the Able test (1 July 46)) in front of the admirals before testing the submarine for residual radiation… sorry crew, our bad. Yikes, we were dumb about nuclear radiation back then. :nope:
The final chapter (13) is an interesting chapter as it described different venues for memorializing submarines. It covers museums, displays, books and movies. It was nothing controversial, but a nice summation of where to go, what to read, and what to watch if you are a submarine history nut.
Silent Killers won’t replace any of the previous YAHoS as many of them go in to further detail about WWII. But this book will augment your submarine history library.
My only criticism is that the author, at times, published historical pictures and drawings taken from other sources. Many times these pictures and drawings were annotated. However, the author did not choose to include the annotation key. Since the chapters about the early submarines and especially the 1800’s salvage submarines included drawings I have not seen in other history books, this lack of an annotation key was annoying.
The other frustrating aspect of this book is the referencing of the Lamm Fireless Steam Engine, which was an steam engine that worked underwater. It was operational in the late 1800’s and allowed submarines to travel under steam power while completely underwater. Pretty cool technology but the author did not go further in detail on this innovative underwater propulsion system. I sure would like to learn more about this!
For its structure and its focus on the less covered history, I give this book an “A”. If you already have some YAHoS books, Silent Killers will augment them nicely. I would not recommend Silent Killers as your sole submarine history book due to way the author addressed WWII.
Delgado, J. P., (2011) Silent Killers: Submarines and underwater warfare. New York: Osprey Publishing
I received this book for Christmas. At first glance, this book appeared to be Yet Another History of Submarines. Many of us love submarine history. But after you read 3-4 histories of submarines it is kinda hard to get excited with YAHoS. But one to never let a book rest unread, I gave it a chance.
First of all, this is not YAHoS. It offers aspects of submarines that other YAHoS books overlook. Silent Killers is well cited and well organized.
The primary advantage of this book is the focusing on the early history of submarines. It is one of the few YAHoS that describe the ill-fated John Day’s 1774 submarine Maria. What I found especially refreshing was the inclusion of Richard Compton-Hall’s proofing of the 6 Sep 1776 Lee-Bushnell’s account of the Turtle’s attack on the Eagle. Not a lot of YAHoS offer up both sides of that story.
The other attractive aspect of this book is the inclusion of non-warfare type submarines. In the 1800’s there were several innovative salvage submersibles. While not war fighting submarines, these salvage submersibles and submarines helped develop designs seen in future submarines.
The best parts of the book are the first 6 chapters, which cover the 1600’s through the 1800’s. The next three chapters cover the years between 1900 and the 1930’s. The historical coverage of the development of submarines between WWI and WWII is an interesting subject. Silent Killers also balanced US development history with European and Asian development history. That is always a good sign in any history book.
Chapter 10 focused on WWII and here is where the book started dropping. This chapter was ok, but not as good as the other YAHoS.
Post WWII submarine history has been a special period of interest for me. Chapter 11 described the history from post WWII up to the first nuclear submarines. Also included was the history of testing of nuclear devices against submarines (operation crossroad) including a short description of the stupidity of the Navy concerning the parading of the USS Skate (damaged in the Able test (1 July 46)) in front of the admirals before testing the submarine for residual radiation… sorry crew, our bad. Yikes, we were dumb about nuclear radiation back then. :nope:
The final chapter (13) is an interesting chapter as it described different venues for memorializing submarines. It covers museums, displays, books and movies. It was nothing controversial, but a nice summation of where to go, what to read, and what to watch if you are a submarine history nut.
Silent Killers won’t replace any of the previous YAHoS as many of them go in to further detail about WWII. But this book will augment your submarine history library.
My only criticism is that the author, at times, published historical pictures and drawings taken from other sources. Many times these pictures and drawings were annotated. However, the author did not choose to include the annotation key. Since the chapters about the early submarines and especially the 1800’s salvage submarines included drawings I have not seen in other history books, this lack of an annotation key was annoying.
The other frustrating aspect of this book is the referencing of the Lamm Fireless Steam Engine, which was an steam engine that worked underwater. It was operational in the late 1800’s and allowed submarines to travel under steam power while completely underwater. Pretty cool technology but the author did not go further in detail on this innovative underwater propulsion system. I sure would like to learn more about this!
For its structure and its focus on the less covered history, I give this book an “A”. If you already have some YAHoS books, Silent Killers will augment them nicely. I would not recommend Silent Killers as your sole submarine history book due to way the author addressed WWII.