Quintin Colville

Like its sister volume, albeit by a different author, this too is an excellent little book and profusely illustrated (many are the excellent works of the marine artist William L Wyllie). Life in the Royal Navy was not a comfortable existence in peacetime one hundred years ago but it was even more uncomfortable during the First World War and this book gives a good picture of that discomfort - it makes my naval career, in the last 22 years of the Cold War, seem pretty easy! Mistakes I can recall are (a) the photograph of Dame Katharine Furse is back to front (page 64) - it's the right way round in Shire Publication 828, about the WRNS (page 7) - and (b) modern authors tend, wrongly, to call a ship's company "a crew" - ship's boats have a crew, a warship has a ship's company - and (c) not describing knighted admirals as 'Sir'. One admiral who is styled with his knighthood is named incorrectly - Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee is how the victor of the Battle of the Falkland Islands (1914) is known. There are some silly mistakes in the index,… (mehr)