Book Review - HMAS Melbourne by Timothy Hall

 HMAS Melbourne by Timothy Hall

Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1982      ISBN 0868612847

A nice little time-capsule of a book, if somewhat slapdash in execution. Written by a journalist, this book was published just as HMAS Melbourne was being prepared for decommissioning, and is a combination of reportage and potted history.

In a series of intertwined chapters, Hall relates what it was like for the sailors and airmen to live and work on what was by 1980 an obsolescent ship, that was kept running more by hope, will and ingenuity than anything else. He also delves into the history of the ship, initially constructed as a "disposable" wartime asset, but like many of her contemporaries, sent off to new lives all around the world. There are of course chapters on the collisions with HMAS Voyager and the USS Frank E. Evans.

In a fairly businesslike manner, Hall describes the lives of the sailors and airmen when they are on board at sea. Explaining the watches, the roles of the officers and men, and the ironically cramped conditions for those aboard. He describes in detail the immense power and responsibility vested in the Captain, and how difficult it is to coordinate flying activities from a rolling pitching deck moving at over twenty knots. In the case of HMAS Melbourne, everything is made more difficult because the ship itself was never designed to last forty years, so by 1980 everything was breaking.

A large part of the book is devoted to the two accidents, and the subsequent Royal Commissions and inquiries. Hall himself seems to have no love for the Navy particularly, but he describes the first Royal Commission into the sinking of the HMAS Voyager in a very scathing tone, pointing out that an inquiry into a naval accident is not a trial, and the facts of the matter (that the Voyager was in the wrong and there was little the Melbourne could do to avoid the collision) should have exonerated Captain Robertson. Hall holds much the same scorn for the US Navy inquiry into the sinking of the Frank E. Evans, which was the worst type of political stitch-up.

There are better books to read than this one on both of those disasters, and the sometimes flippant tone that Hall uses when describing life at sea can be grating. The fact that this book falls between the posts of a history of the ship, and reportage of what sailing on her was like is also frustrating, as there is not really enough of either. The captions on many of the photographs are obviously wrong, which makes me wonder how much of the rest of the text might also be inaccurate.

One other irony: this book was I imagine written quite quickly after the decision by the Australian Government to purchase HMS Invincible as a replacement for the Melbourne, and the final few pages look forward to the passing on of status of flagship, which never happened as the sale fell through. So when she was decommissioned in May 1982, the Melbourne ended Australia's dalliance with aircraft carriers.

This book was a trip down memory lane, but I can't really recommend it as worth hunting out.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Blood, Class and Nostalgia by Christopher Hitchens

 Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens

London: Vintage, 1991 (first published 1990)       ISBN 0099878003

This is a fascinating book of inter-connected essays about the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain. It's a highly personal view and written as a polemic, but when that view belongs to, and the polemic is written by, Christopher Hitchens, you know it's going to be well worth reading.

While we might (up until Trump's second coming anyway) take for granted the very close geo-political ties between Britain and America, there was never a guarantee that those ties would ever form or be enduring. One look at American history shows us why - America threw off the British yoke in the 1770s, and fought them again in the early 1800s; and through most of the 19th century England did what it could to thwart American expansion across the continent. Britain also supported, for its own reasons, the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Given that history, it was not given that both America and Britain would forge such close ties in the 20th century.

The theme that runs through the essays, which roam from Rudyard Kipling to nuclear warfare, is the idea expressed by Harold Macmillan, and noted at the beginning of this book, that Britain, on losing their status as a first rank power would play Greece to America's Rome ("We...are Greeks in this American Empire. You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans - great big, vulgar, bustling people, more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt. We must run Allied Forces Headquarters as the Greek slaves ran the operations of the Emperor Claudius."). Hitchens goes on to explain that in his view this is not an entirely correct explanation of what was happening.

There was actually something much more subtle going on. Britain, clinging on the the vestiges of its empire, was coming to the realisation that it would have to let go, and formed the view that America was the obvious successor, and so if it could guide and direct them in how to have, hold and run an empire, they could be an indispensable partner - providing intellectual heft and skill to ensure that America's power and treasure could be spent wisely. So rather than Britain's Greece to the Rome of the USA, what was envisaged was the Roman centre moving across the Atlantic, but with Britain still very much part of the infrastructure.  

Unfortunately, as Hitchens points out, what sounds good in theory doesn't always work out in practice. There were many in Britain who didn't like this idea, and tried to cling on to bits of the Empire, until they couldn't, and then essentially ran to the US cap in hand to get help. This put America in a stronger position, and also reinforced the idea that was held by some in power that they were being used in a way that they didn't like or want. 

While we are bombarded at the moment with news about Trump cutting ties with Europe and other places with his trade policy, he is in some ways merely the latest iteration of American exceptionalism and isolationism. Hitchens explains that, between the wars, there was a significant part of the American polity that didn't like Britain (for example those of Irish descent), and certainly didn't want America to "take up the white man's burden", or begin its own empire building.

World War Two changed the dynamic of the relationship between Britain and the USA. Britain during the war did assist the USA greatly in the spheres of atomic weaponry, and in spycraft and intelligence gathering in general. These lessons were gratefully received, and while America was later on grudging in the way it shared nuclear information, the genuine camaraderie between intelligence services was often a major fixative in the "special relationship" during the Cold War years.

So from enemies, to a connection that led to semi-serious discussions of a political merger between the two states, Hitchens chronicles the demise of the "special relationship" to something that doesn't really have much power anymore, beyond nostalgia and what he calls kitsch. While Britain still feels the bond, America it seems sees Britain as one among many powers that they deal with, just easier to talk to because they speak the same language.

Blood, Class and Nostalgia is well worth reading not only for Hitchens insight into the relationship between Britain and the US, but also for the interesting bits of information he imparts. From Kipling's correspondence with Teddy Roosevelt, to Churchill's conversation with Mark Twain, there are many fascinating insights into how major figures have crossed paths during the last century or so, and what they thought of the "special relationship".

A good read. 

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell