"TIN HATS, OILSKINS & SEABOOTS
A Naval Journey 1938-1945"

This is an evocative book; it will evoke memories not only for those who have seen naval service, but also those who have had the temerity to venture their lives upon the High Seas. Essentially, this is the story of a sailor's war; a sea-war that ranged from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic, Nova Scotia to North Cape, and ended with the D-Day bombardments and convoys to Russia. It is a story vividly told with droll undercurrents, understated heroism and stoic endurance buoyed by the navy's soul-sustaining humour.

The story begins with a short account of the author's family and background, and a youthful enthusiasm for the navy channelled into the Sea Cadets; an unspoken tribute to RAdm. Hose's vision of making the Canadian Navy visible across the nation.

The first half of the book describes a young officer's typical training in the larger ships of the Royal Navy, their names invested with great traditions, Vindictive and Renown. The latter would act as escort for HMS Exeter, battle-scarred from the historic action off the River Plate.

"Small ship time" was spent in a new Tribal-class destroyer, HMS Matabele off the Faėroes and Iceland, or the Norwegian coast. Matabele would be sunk with all hands off North Cape shortly after Mid. Jenson left her.

"Big ship time" was served in the great battlecruiser that was symbolic of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood. Mid. Jenson having passed well in his exams, left the "Mighty Hood" before she sailed for her fatal encounter with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.

Through all of that we see the Royal Navy's training system at possibly its best while preparing for, and engaging in, a war for which it had not been provided a sufficiency of resources.

A cornerstone of that training was the Midshipman's Journal wherein he was encouraged to note not only the niceties of seamanship, but also any features of interest that would expand the young gentleman's general knowledge and hone his skills of observation. Jenson, with his talent for meticulous drawing, achieved 100% for his Journal, rewritten and re-illustrated after his first effort was lost due to shell damage during Renown's engagement with the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. His second Journal was lost also, having been retained in HMS Hood for eventual transmission to the British Admiralty as a classified document.

Commander Jenson is already widely known for the many illustrations in his previous books, Nova Scotia Sketchbook and Bluenose II to name a couple. Anyone who has enjoyed these will be delighted here by the many detailed depictions of ships (see example above, Ed.) and naval life on the bridge or in the messdecks, with an elegant epitome of the "great waters" in the sketch of an albatross winging its way across the South Atlantic.

The drawings also evince the humour of naval life, its discomforts and its tragedies, the latter most evident in the recreation of an indelible incident, the last moments of HMCS Ottawa as the author clings to the end of a Dan-buoy spar.

And as in any naval memoir there are the "characters," some almost Run-yonesque like "Two Gun Ryan" and the "Mad Spaniard," in addition to the more professionally celebrated "Debby" Piers, the brothers Pullen and "Chummy" Prentice.

For the technically-minded there is a plenitude of diagrams painstakingly and precisely executed-Details of Convoy Routes, the Principle of the Submarine, Torpedo and Mine Types, ASDIC, the Type 271 Radar and the ARL Plotting Table, Depth Charges and Hedgehog-small wonder that his Midshipman's Journal rated 100%!

Two years of the author's time with the RN had their base in Scapa Flow, a place which, he says, "suited me." It was Britain's vital northern base, and I was reminded of my own Special Entry interview where a gimlet-eyed Vice-Admiral, RN, asked me why it was so important to the Navy. I wish that I had then possessed the knowledge of Scapa Flow as narrated and drawn by Jenson.

After "Subs' Course" he returned to Canada, to a Halifax that seemed run-down and dismal in the extreme. Thereafter, Canada's War at Sea is described undra-matically but starkly.

There Commander Jenson's service almost covers the spectrum of the RCN's warships; the River-class destroyer Ottawa, an old ex-USN "four-stacker" Niagara, the V-class destroyer Algonquin, in the latter two as a very young 1st Lieutenant; there is even a very brief spell as CO of the Flower-class corvette Long Branch.

There is much of convoy work that was "for just a little under 100% of the time, extraordinarily dull work." The conditions, nonetheless, were an Olympic-standard test of endurance. In the course of this we are given insights into officer training in the RCN, the tremendous wartime expansion and the diverse backgrounds introduced into the Navy by the RCNVR and RCNR, and the "Conscription Crisis."

The end comes with Algonquin's part in the bombardment for the invasion of Normandy, with an excellent diagram of the invasion beaches and operational recollections provided by the ship's navigating officer.. After that, the convoys to Russia seem almost anti-climatic.

The final chapter is a monument to the lore and traditions of the Navy as vested in its dress, badges and routines. And all is by a man who loved the Navy, and to whom much is owed for this contribution to its history and its legend.

("Hamish" Berchem is of course, "Our Ships" contributor to STARSHELL and a noted author and artist in his own right. He is a former Commanding Officer of HMCS York in Toronto.)

(Originally Published in Vol. VII, No. 12, Autumn 2000 issue of Starshell)