BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 281, 23 August 1919, Page 11

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

A Naval Lieutenant 1914-1918. One of the most racily-written and eminently "readable" descriptions ot naval life during' the Great .War i* assuredly that contained in a volume entitled "A Knviil Lieutenant 1914-1918," by a writer who signs himself "Eticntio" (Methuen and Co.). It is a purely personal record of the author's experiences as an ollicor serving un. It..M.S. Southampton, not a monster battleship, but a comparatively small vessel of the light cruiser o.ass. The .Southampton can claim, says tho author, an honour denied to nearly every other ship in the Grand Fleet, namely, that on all tho four principal occasions when considerable German forces were encountered in the North Sea, her guns were in action. A"o other ship, with tho exception of H.M.S. Birmingham, can, says "Jitienncj" claim a 6hare in this record, as, though tho same squadrons, e.g., the battle-cruiser squadrons, were -present on nK'dates, yet ships that were in action on one day were away refitting on another day. The author's accounts of tho Battles of HeCigoland .Might,. Dogger Bank, and the greatest sea light ot all, (ho Battle of .In tin ml, a re moit thrilling, and are iiono tho less picturesque and impressive in their occasionally grim, indeed gruesome, realism, in that tho author adopts a stylo which i 6 pureiy colloquial and devoid of any pretenco to eloquence. And yet thcro were "many incidents in the Southampton's battle ex:jwriences which would lend themselves to a quite pardonable llajii boyance of description. 'lake, for in.v'tnnco, what "Jitienne" actually witnessed in the Unttlo of Jutland: lie had just SWII u lO disaster to tho Indefatigable, and was luvi'cuuig, "wr.ii siiiKing lieart," the five remaining battle-cruisers (of. which H.M.S. _\ew Zealand, now in our waters was one).

A V.onuered what would happen next; eaen tune tile splashes rose oil either sido of the . line of .ureal ships 11 was like a biow to tbe Ijoay. We could not see Horn our low decit where tne i3.c,incn snclis were lallmg on that sinister eastern Horizon, lrom which the maddenins jeis of .flame darted in and out.

At 4.ii, in the mener of an eyelid, the beautiiul Queen Jlary was no more. A huge fctem of ercy sinoke shot tin 10 perhaps lOttl feel, swaying siigntly ul Uie base. The top of 11ns tiem ol rinolie expanded and rolled downwards. Flames rose and fell 111 the stalk ol this monstrous mushroom. The bows of a ship, a bridge, a mast, slid out of ilie smoke; perhaps, after all, 1110 Queen Mary was still there.

Aol it waa the next astern-the Tiger. Incredible a 3 it may seem, tho Tiger passed right over the snot on which 1110 Queen Mary had been destroyed and lelt nothing, 'i'ne time interval between her passage over the grave of tho tjueen Mary and the destruction of the latter ship would be about 40-611 seconds.

Just beforo the appeared, I saw some pieceß of debris go whirling up a, full 1000 feet above the top of tho smoke— it might have been the armour plates from' the top of a turret. 1 remember that I found it impossible to realise that I had just Eccn 20CI) men, and many personal friends, killed; it seemed more like a wonderful Mnejuiutogranh picture. What, did worry me was that we wero now reduced to four. . . .

Later 011, in the night action, Ihe author discovered tor himself what modern naval warfare means at close quarters :

'ihp action lasted o, 1 ,- mimites. The. four leading German ships eom-cnlrnted their lights and guus en the boutiiauipton; the filth, and perhaps the fourth, tired at tho Dublin.

The iN'ottiugham aud Hirininghain, third and fourth in our ! line, with great wisdom did not snitch 011 their lighta and were not fired at.

In these 3j miuutos we ha<l. 89 casualties, aud 75 per cent, of the. personnel ou the upper dock were killed or wounded. It is impossible to uive a connected account of what happened.. Many BtraußO and unple'uaaut things happen when men And themselves in licll upon earth. Meu— Straus meu-jo mad and jump overboard. Wounded meu ore driven to the oblivion of death in the sea by the agony of their injuries. It is not good to look too closely into the things which are the realities, the plain, facts of battle.

Although "Eiienne" gives no "connected account" of what took placo on board the Southampton as the German shells fell upon- her, his narrative must nouo the less be possessed of a grim fascination l'or all who read it. Two instances of tho splendid spirit of officers and men, one and all, 1 cannot retrain from quoting:

A shell exploding in the half-deck had severeu tho connection to the upper deck fire main. I put my head down a luucji aud shouted tor a good hose. The wine steward eamo ui on deck witn one, some one turned ou tne water down below ami the fire was ouickly out.

'.Che wine steward forgot his servitude, lie l-oae lo tho licichtK'of an oliicer, he was my right-hand ;n«n. He spoke wonts of fierce exhortation to the wounded; thoee who could get up did so.

In a few minutes, all was over. "The Germans had tied," fled, says "Etionne," "because

A- —, our torpedo lieutenant, had ftred -a 21-inch torpedo. At .41 knots the torpedo had shot across, and striking the Frauenlob, had blown her iu liall. Out of K0 .Uun3 in her, seven survived." Later on, the ..uthor visits the "operating room —tile stoker.-,' bal'hrouin— temporarily utilised by the doctors. To the Commodore's message of inquiry an to the losses, a surgeon, engaged on the grim .business of removing a poor fellow's leg, replied: "About AO killed and ■10 or 50 wounded."

I thanked him and went back to the bridge.

He was hard at it for eleven hours; truly the doctor ia one of tho linest products of modern civilisation.

To do justice to this book of "Fltienne's," to my mind, ami I liavo read not' a few war' books, one of tho most notable of all the hundreds of books for which the war has been responsible, a couple of columns of space would be -inadequate. Its illustrations, charts, and diagrams are. numerous, ami add greutly to the interest and value of the narrative. By all means iel: °very public library in the country possess a copy of the "Naval •Lieutenants" thrilling story of the Southampton and the par; she played in the war.

The Final Campaign of the Australians,

A book of special importance and value as a contribution to the splendid history of Australia's part in the Great. War is that entitled "Tho-Australians; Their Final Campaign, 1018; an account of. the concluding operations of the Australian Divisions in France." (Sampson, Low and Co.). The author, Mr. l'\ M. Cutlack, who wa-s an official war correspondent with the A.I.F. in France, is to bo warmly congratulated upon the unfailing clarity and vigour of a narrative which every Australian reader of the book must pnruse with feelings of justifiable pride. Mr. Cutlaek's object in writing this story is, he says, to convey to the homo people of Australia some idea-of tho splendid army to which their sons, brothcis, husbands, and fathers have the citizen force raised by the Commonwealth, and of tho part the, Australians played iu tho spring campaign while the British Army generally was "climbing back from disorder to the renewed olTensive and tho assurance of victory." The Australians wore, ho says, "spared the full shock of the German assaults; they wero (lung into the breach after tho heaviest, local effort had spent itself; and at the crisis, by grace of this immunity, their fighting spirit,, their confidence, their confidence for battle wore of a measure such as tho exultation of this Germans, oven at the . height of their triumphant advance, never exceeded." "To say that the sturdy, unceasing aggression of the Australian brigades led tho British Army buck to tho offensive may be," remarks Mr. Cut lack, ''an exaggeration; ono can only say that at tho time, and acknowletlgimr the favourable circumstance, it looked like it."

l'Yom Sct»t embor. 1917, to Ortober, 1918. the Australian Corps waa never out of tho line; during May, .Juno, and July of the year (i9\B) on thuir front? alone in the British lino were the Hermans fondinpr off attacks; yet the energy and vitality of tlio five divisions still endured in August. September, and October, to enable thorn to taUo proiuiucal place in t> hard-(-

flehtins British drive through the Hindenbur? line, and then to the breakinir and ovcrw'iiulmini; of it.

Tho render will turn with special curiosity and interest to M'r. Cutlaek's account of tho determined and cpoclimaking conflicts a.t Villers Bretonnoux. It is n. bit of truly brilliant descriptive work in. a. narrative whoso every page chronicles some incident of splendid gallantry and dogged determination. When every chapter ntid almost every page invites riuotation selection is difficult, but as exemplifying the heroic spirit of the Australians and the fine cameraderie which prevailed between them ami the French the following story is chosen:

There is fine story of the savine of the wounded that morning (Jiny 3), ou the French part of the line, .The Frcnch Ooloniala had attracted the Australians l'rom tho outset, and Btruc); un great cordiality with. them. There was a private m tho Wth (Victorian) ilattaiion wearing several strange ribbons on his breast ■who knew somo of them intimately, tie had sewed l'or some years in'theji'oreicn ' Legion, and at tho beginning, of The war was with them in Hie Serbian fetreat. When the Australians camo to France he left the French Colonial Service, and joined hi 3 own countrjmen. lie knew the Algerian Eeßimeilt at the time adjoining the 12th Urifjade in tho line, anil in tlie dayliKht following the combined attack on tho Monument, he went out voluntarily into No Man's band to help to brine in the French wounded. The Germans diu not allow the French the same truce they were Rivtne the Australians, further awa.y on the left, and fired machine-stuns on the Frcnch stretcher-bearers. The Australian ex-soldier of the Foreign would not stop in Ilia work. He told the French there was an oiticer ol' their regiment lyinc "out there,' - and the reinmeut-was an old friend of liis, anil he was soma to Ret that ofiieer. .He went out apam and was shot dead by a German snifA-r. The Frcnch rcKi'iiental commander sent a (flowiuc letter to the 12th and tho 46th Battalion about this devoted soldier expressing the entire reuinieui- s deep urief. lie further published a .special order-of-the-day to commemorate it, ami sent n Croix de Guerre to the Australian s relatives.

Mr. Cutlaek's pages contain mauy names—Deniaucourt, Villers llretouneaux. Morlanco'urt liidge, Ville-sur-Aucre, Sailly Laurette, Ilamel, Merris, Mont St. Quentin, among others, for ever to be honourably emblazoned on the record of the Australian campaigns in IDL and He follows each engagement, detail by detail, through its full course, punctuating his general narrative with mauy u stirring story of individual gallaiitiy. Well may he claim that as Lei'oro tho war "Aus'.rulia was known for many things-for her wool and wheal and gold', and political dovelopmsnt-sho is known to-day to the whole world, and respected by friend and loe alike for her Five Divisions." The book contains many admirable maps and well-drawn plans. It constitutes a record of national and individual courage and perBCYftrnnee of vHivH every Australian niay well be proud. How long. 1 wonder, will New Zealamlers have to wait lor some similarly well-written, lully-detailed and comprehensive record of the equally flue part played ou the Western front by the men from tho Dominion?