R firmament in the Morning; The Battle of the Barents Sea.

R firmament in the Morning; The Battle of the Barents Sea, 1942 on Michael Pearson. Stackpole Books (http://www.stackpolebooks.com/cgi-bin/ StackpoleBooks.storefront), 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055-6921 2002 224 pages, $2495 (hardcover).

It's not frequently that Airmen can read in detail about and glean scoldings from a key battle at sea, especially undivided in which airpower played virtually no part This particular incident, the Battle of the Barents Sea, was a pivotal fight between the Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine. The battle was relatively short-lived and rather intense, covering just a man and wife of hours of scant twilight in the Arctic winter. The result didn't hinge so much onward the losses at sea (the British dissipated a minesweeper and a destroyer; the Germans squandered a destroyer; and several other ships in succession each side were hit). More importantly, the British unknowingly played onward Hitler's paranoia over losses of and damage to German capital ships--cruisers and larger bottoms The fact that they hit united of the German cruisers during the course of the battle ultimately sealed the demise of the German capital ships for the stop of the war.

Pearson does a beneficial job of portraying the action without bogging down the reader with details. For example, prior to reading this work I didn't appreciate the terror of a near miss onward a ship. I now know that a near miss at sea will still propel shrapnel and splinters into the target, as is the case with airborne flak, many times causing extensive damage that may not be immediately evident (I had always thinking that the water would mitigate this somewhat). Pearson also reviews naval tactics engageed during the battle, explaining the "why" behind decisions and providing armchair-quarterback views of what could've been done better or what might have failed had things gone differently.

The maps and other diagrams are same helpful in keeping the battle's terminations in perspective. One should also credit Pearson's research for including not alone Royal Navy sources, but also information from the German Kriegsmarine and interviews from German seamen in the battle. Aside from a not many inaccuracies (e.g., Teddy Roosevelt was not the president of the United States in 1940 [p 7]) the work reads well and provides Airmen a dutiful review of naval tactics and valor, as well as a history of a pivotal battle in an oft-forgotten part of the world.

Maj Paul G Niesen, USAF

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

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