Customer Reviews

The Treaty Navy: The Story of the US Naval Service Between the World Wars

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An excellent book which fills out the, to some, unexciting era of the Navy between the wars. Good breakdown of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921, and its subsequent modifications - not to be found elsewhere outside of scholarly doctoral-type theses.
A superior book for those who grew up between 1920 - 1940, but who were too young to be in the Navy during those two decades. The annual Battle Problems are excellently described, particularly to those of us "Navy Juniors" who were aware that our fathers were away, but not why or where. The postcards or letters from "exotic" locations like Panama, Chile, Brazil, Guantanamo Bay, Lahaina, Pearl Harbor etc, along with the Battle Problem discussions, to me filled in a lot of my father's three battleship, one cruiser and three destroyer "cruises".
Accurate history (like why the Battle Fleet was in Hawaii on several occasions) interspersed with "sea stories" of those years, make this book a delight to read. Additionally, as a plugged-in Marine, Col Hammond covers the Caribbean "wars" and the development of amphibious warfare, which was so important in our march across the Pacific in WWII. Extremely readable, detailed in a manner which makes one realize that dusty academic tomes don't contribute much to an understanding of the sacrifices that navy men and their families went through in the 20's and 30's.

Reading an on demand published, self edited, book, I didn't know what to expect. What I found was in a sense a reminisance by someone who wasn't actually there but absorbed and is able to pass on the culture and outlook of those who were. From that point of view this is really a quite valuable book though perhaps not the last word on what the US Naval Service was about between the wars.

The strong points of the book include the clear explanation of the cause and effect of the naval treaties that led to the title of the work, a fair and balanced view of the professional innovations and ineptitudes that characterized the performance and activity of the USN at this time, a good sense of the US political and economic context, a good review of Marine Corps committments and doctrine development, and just the overall sense of the character and nature of the USN leadership and sailor force. The author is not shy of pointing out the political nature of higher command in the USN but he clearly sees this as natural and inevitable.

The major point of naval policy that Hammond covers is the so-called battleship vs carrier controversy. He convincingly advocates the point of view that the real disagreement was between those who saw the UK as the nominal opponent and wanted a strong line of battleships to deter/defeat the RN and those who saw Japan as the nominal opponent and wanted strong air power and submarine force to impose our will on the vast territory of the Pacific.

The weak points of this book are some minor editorial errors, the unfortunate lack of photographs and the lack of some academic rigor and accuracy. For example, on page 92 Hammond says "...[the Royal Navy] hadn't recognized the threat from the air." A reference to "British Seapower and Procurement Between the Wars" by G.A.H. Gordon will show clearly that this wasn't true. The RN was well aware of the issue, expected its ships to be attacked from the air, designed and developed multiple new AA mounts and embarked on a program of deck armoring. However, due to the British determination to rearm within a balanced budget, they didn't have enough money to get enough done on enough ships before the bombs started falling. Another nice to have for Hammond's book would have been some naval maps of the East and West coast in this time frame. Maybe a front line publisher will pick this up and fill it out. I don't know why the Naval Institue Press didn't publish this - maybe the author wonders that as well.

All in all, there isn't another work like this and it fills a gap no other single work does. Perhaps some professional historian will do for the USN the type of work Marder did for the RN in an earlier period. They should be inspired by this effort.