The Navigator
A GREAT SEAMAN: The Life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Oliver. By Admiral Sir William James. (Witherby, 18s.) THE subject of this biography was Chief of the Naval Staff for almost the whole of the First World War, and to most students
of naval affairs he probably fits into the same compartment of
he mind as Asquith, Kitchener, Fisher, Jellicoe and Beatty. Yet ne is still alive, and as senior Admiral of the Fleet heads the
official list of the officers of Her Majesty's Navy.
Admiral James's book is based on Oliver's own written reminiscences, and takes us from his cadetship in the Britannia in 1880 to his relinquishing command of the Atlantic Fleet in 1926. It is a charming and most readable story, the record of the
;le of a singularly wise, courageous and humorous man. Admiral James has sensibly not burdened us with too much of the political background against which Oliver often worked, but has been Content to comment briefly on Oliver's own description of events. Oliver was undoubtedly the most brilliant navigator of his
,time, instigating and carrying out evolutions that had hitherto been thought impossible. His success in this field led him to be appointed the first Director of the Navigation School and later Director of Naval Intelligence and Chief of the Naval Staff.
His memory of the war years has served him well and there are some splendid ungrammatical vignettes of familiar figures, especially Churchill and Fisher : The two used to have frequent tiffs and quarrels about many things, I used to go up to Churchill's bedroom about 7,15 a.m. and tell how things had been in the night, he would tell me about his tiffs and want to hold out an olive branch to Fisher and say twelve sloops ought to put the old man in a good temper, and several lots arrived that way. Jellicoe got the first twelve to my disgust.
Sometimes the two co-operated to bring into the war-room . . . MPs and Lords and Cabinet Ministers and Bishops and all sorts of club gossips and editors to see the Map. . . . I would
then shift the flags showing the places of any important move- ments to incorrect places . . an incorrect map impressed them just as much. . . .
And of the First Lord himself : Churchill would often look in on his way to bed to tell me how we would capture Borkum or Sylt. If I did not interrupt or ask questions he could capture Borkum in twenty minutes.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la Interne chose. LUDOVIC KENNEDY
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