Customer Reviews

Forgotten Fleet: The Mothball Navy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Although the author can get a tad too wistful at times, the book did an excellent job of portraying the fate of much of the Navy post-WWII. I grew up in Norfolk and always enjoyed seeing shops. Visting a mothball squadron in Suisun Bay, CA made me want to learn more about the fleet. This book did a nice job. The pictures were fabulous. My only complaint is that there is not enough discussion about policy.

Forgotten Fleet: The Mothball Navy is an impressively illustrated history of the U.S. Navy's deactivated warships that were placed in rows and rows of ship storage lanes, a kind of coastal parking lot for decommissioned warships of all makes and categories. Originally intended for a reserve fleet, some were reactivated, but most of them have been broken up. Daniel Madsen takes the reader through berthing areas, repair shops, radio rooms and more -- all sealed up, frozen in time, looking exactly as they did when they were sealed decades before. Every kind of ship composing this forgotten fleet is represented in this fine history of a heretofore neglected aspect of America's contemporary military experience. Forgotten Fleet is an impressive and informative contribution to any personal or academic military studies collection.

A very interesting book that will appeal to anyone who has ever looked at an old ship and wondered what stories it had to tell. I agree that the focus and tone of this book are satisfying -- it is far more an emotional journey through the rusting relics of history than it is (or, in my opinion, should be) a review of the policy or technology of the mothball fleet. The author's obvious love and respect for these ships gives the book its considerable appeal. However, I opted for four stars instead of five because I thought the organization of the book was a little shaky, moving from the end of World War II; through the mothballing process; to later conflicts and reactivation; then back to World War II through the ship's histories. I also would have enjoyed more photo coverage, including some pictures of the interiors of mothballed ships (the author makes several, tantalizing remarks about the interiors of the mothballed being time capsules of the end of World War II) and pictures of the ultimate fates of mothballed ships (photos of the scrapping of the Enterprise and the listing, rusted hulk of the light carrier Cabot would enhance this book's wistful view of the subject). These thoughts aside, it was a very good book that made me fondly recall looking at one of the mothball fleets years ago with my father.

I'm not sure what book Bonner was reviewing, but it wasn't this one. And it wasn't much of a review, though he's entitled to his opinion and comments, of course, however baseless they are. Perhaps Bonner ("Naval Historian and Author") was influenced by the fact his own small mothball fleet book is coming out soon and Madsen's is competition.

If you are looking for a detailed history of the reserve fleet, its policies and practices, and instructions on preserving and reactivating a ship, then this book is not for you. And probably wasn't intended for you. If you are looking for a book that instead uses the mothball fleet as a link to the past, that views the ships as pieces of Americana that one could reach out and touch as tangible, rather than abstract, history, then it is a book you should look at. A few pages use the ships of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard reserve fleet as symbolic naval history books while others show the battleship Missouri as a time capsule during the long years she spent in mothballs. The book is nostalgic, but not morose. Veterans will understand the tone. The San Francisco Examiner did too, in a January 2000 review (which caused me to buy the book. Read it on-line). The book isn't without flaws. There are a few small factual errors, but they have apparently been corrected in subsequent reprints. Forgotten Fleet is not a recitation of facts, but a look back from old age, as veterans like to do, to a time gone by. It is obvious that Madsen knew exactly what he was writing about.

The New York Military Affairs Symposium winter 2000 review of this book said it for me. "To call this a history of the mothball fleet...is to miss the point...the book is much more than that. It is a meditation on the nature of history and the historical memory...". Some of the reviewers apparently did miss the point of this excellent look at the two lives of some of the well known and obscure ships of the fleet. No, it is not a look at policy, nor is it full of countless pictures of long dead ships. Instead, it is all about what these ships meant, both in service and in mothballs. It is precisely the look at the parallel lives of these vessels, active and then in mothballs, that makes this book unique.

Madsen writes a sentimental and sympathetic account about the post-WW2 Naval Reserve Fleet, but he hardly scratches the surface of this subject. The book takes the reader on a walk down memory lane, going to great lengths to describe the combat history of various warships, boarded-up and forgotten. Unfortunately, his focus is more on individual ships, rather than looking at the impact of the reserve fleet as a whole. While Madsen does provide some useful information about the mothball fleet, the author just doesn't delve very deep into the topic, which could have taken his work to a whole new level.

The author has a quirky writing style. He spends much of the book showing photographs of fleets of mothballed ships, and then goes to great lengths identifying each vessel. In addition to this exercise, he also digresses from the topic, such as his lengthy discussion of the submarine USS Wahoo (which was sunk during the war, and was never in the reserve fleet). He also has a tendency to repeat himself. Although he obviously wrote the book with great affection, he failed to provide much insight about the Mothball Fleet. I really wanted to like this book, but I'm afraid this tome, like the ships he writes about, will be consigned to mothballs on my bookshelf, rarely used, and then one day quietly discarded.

I was a little let down by the book. I find the subject matter extreamly interesting. I've always wanted to personally go through a mothball ship yard and explore the vessels. The book really doesn't do it for me. I wanted page after page of descriptions of layed up ships with information on how they were mothballed and being maintained. I did not like the way the book jumps from operational history to lay up. There are plenty of books about WW2 battles I can buy. I wanted to hear more about the process of deactivation and possibly more first hand accounts from the workers involved. I also wanted to know more about the reasons some were kept longer than others and how some were brought back to service. There is not enough info on more modern ships from the post WW2 era and almost nothing on current preserved ships. definatly a keeper but not all that the reviews so far have made it out to be.

This book may, at first glance, not be about what you think it is. True, it is about great warships and boneyards, but it's not really about warship boneyards. The author shows a crowded peir a reserve naval yard and givs a summary of how the ships are preserved. The real treat is that he says "These ships have untold, or "Forgotten" stories of how they served in the fleet. He presents us with stories of ships that never made the headlines, and honors all men that served in the fleets, not just the one that made the front pages of newspapers or that are recounted in scores of other books like Enterprise, Alabama, and New Jersy. This is a great book to have in conjunction with Warship Boneyards. They compliment eachother and it's highly recomended they be purchased as a set.

This book is not about the so-called mothball fleets per se. Instead it is a somewhat morose homage to selected US naval vessels from World War Two that seems to imply something better should have happened to each of them.

There is virtually no explanation of why these vessels were collected, how the process was carried out and what were the outcomes. There are a few - very few - good pictures showing the various ship collections from its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. Overall, one is left with the impression that the book is the output of a google/wikipedia search.

A really righteous history of many ships that served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and how they faded (and are fading away) to US Salvage yards, and now Indian beaches with no regard whatsoever for the parts they played in our nation's history....
After reading this book, you'd wish they would be used for Stateside reefs, instead of being sent to their demise, unappreciated, in Asia..... AND, like their sisters that went that route before WWII, we may just have them thrown back at us in the next war...... We really never learn from our mistakes.......