Dive Truk Lagoon: The Japanese WWII Pacific Shipwrecks, by Rod Macdonald
Authors of factual books are hostages to what happens after their work has been committed to print, as that heaviest of hitters among wreck-diving authors Rod Macdonald is aware.
“No sooner had the first edition of Dive Truk Lagoon been published in 2014 than there were a few examples of significant collapsing of sections of several of the major wrecks,” he explains.
“The beautiful former liner Rio de Janeiro Maru, one of Chuuk’s most famous wrecks, lies on its starboard side. Its superstructure and smokestack were largely pristine in the years I dived it until 2013 – but almost as soon as the book was published, the superstructure and smokestack sagged and began their inexorable collapse towards the seabed.
“The atmospheric wreck of the requisitioned passenger cargo vessel Fujikawa Maru sits upright in about 35m. She is a big ship, so much so that her superstructure and smokestack had risen (since the war) to just 10m short of the surface. You can usually see her upper works from above in your dive-boat.
“Sadly, just shortly after the first edition was published, the smokestack and upper bridge superstructure collapsed.”
Then there are the new discoveries. In 2018, the wreck of a 300-tonne Imperial Japanese Navy tug was located off Weno Island by Truk Stop Dive Centre. Though known to have been built by Kawasaki in Kobe, its identity has yet to be established and there are no known archive photographs of it.
Macdonald’s Dive Truk Lagoon is already the go-to guide for scuba divers heading to Micronesia to experience what is arguably the planet’s greatest shipwreck location. The significance of this second edition nine years on is the extent to which it has been expanded – it’s almost 40% longer now – and the way it plugs some important gaps.
It begins by providing strong background to the ferocious Operation Hailstone, launched by Allied forces in February 1944 to leave 45 Japanese ships wrecked in Truk Lagoon. Two of these were destroyers, one a submarine but most were transport ships, and they survived remarkably intact with their cargoes of tanks, trucks, aircraft, armaments and ammunition.
The first edition carried 38 mini-chapters on the diveable wrecks, with plenty of background and diving commentary, as well as a round-up of the main aircraft wrecks, and the package was brought to life by the fine whole-wreck paintings of Macdonald’s long-time collaborator Rob Ward.
Not all the wrecks had previously been illustrated by Ward but now most have been – including that recently discovered fleet salvage tug. “Its identity will no doubt be revealed at some point – although I do quite like that the sea keeps some of its secrets,” says Macdonald.
Wrecks such as the Hanakawa Maru, Hoyo Maru and Kikukawa Maru are now illustrated, and deterioration in those such as the Rio de Janeiro Maru and Fujikawa Maru is recognised in both the illustrations and diving descriptions.
The only downside to Dive Truk Lagoon for me was always the blue mood cast by many of the photographs, a mood set as much by the cover of this second edition as it was by the first.
To be fair, however, the aim seems to have been to capture wide-angle shots that would convey the scale of Truk wrecks, rather than adding to the many images of engine-room instruments and gas-masks already associated with the destination.
Publisher Whittles justifiably claims the book to be the most comprehensive guide to diving the Truk wrecks yet produced. The price is up a fiver to £35 – also more than fair, considering inflation and the sheer amount of additional material. You now get 45 of those Ward illustrations and three maps, along with 160 photographs (90 in colour).
This is an essential package for Truk’ers and it comes out this September.
Whittles Publishing, ISBN 9781849955416
Hardback, 394pp, 24x17cm, £35
The Killer Whale Journals: Our Love and Fear of Orcas, by Hanne Strager
The Killer Whale Journals is essential reading for any diver or snorkeller who has ever encountered, or dreamt of encountering, orcas in the wild. It’s a collection of essays thoughtfully assembled by Danish whale researcher Strager, a former director of exhibitions at the country’s Natural History Museum and currently busy setting up a new museum in Norway called The Whale.
Her informed observations, starting from the arduous early stages of her career on the cold frontiers of marine biology, share a wealth of knowledge about how killer whales develop, interact and behave but especially how they have been treated by humans over time – with reverence, contempt and everything in-between.
Scientists usually insist on using the term “killer whale”, while conservationists prefer the less-threatening “orca”. It’s confusing, especially as it’s a type of dolphin, and even though Strager uses both terms even on her book cover, I hoped she might provide the definitive answer.
Not really: “I call them killer whales and I apologise if this is offensive,” she writes. “I do it partly out of habit (this is what the scientific community I first studied with called them) and partly because their scientific name, Orcinus orca, to me is not much better – it means “the demon from the underworld”, as Carl Linnaeus was well aware when he christened them.” I guess I’ll go on using both.
These cetaceans are intelligent, long-lived and display strong family bonds, as reported in Divernet recently with new research into how post-menopausal females tie their sons to their apron-strings. From Strager’s first outing as a student volunteer, doing the cooking on an expedition to Norway’s Lofoten Islands, we gain numerous insights into their lives through anecdotes and revealing interviews.
While killer whales have been cruelly hunted, I couldn’t get out of my mind the sections concerning those that became friends of, and respected by, certain whaling communities. In Australia the orcas would lead whalers to the humpbacks and, after the bigger cetaceans had been harpooned, would come in to claim their tasty reward – whale tongue and lips. Some whalers even thought their allies would protect them from sharks.
There is one very moving section about a killer whale called Old Tom of Twofold Bay in Australia who finally passed on in 1930 to sorrow that spread nationally.
Strager also makes the point that it took the horrors of orca captivity from the late 1960s to the present day to alter the public perception of them as ruthless killers. Turning killer whales into entertainers has not turned out well.
The book takes in a variety of experiences, often involving indigenous people, from the First Nations tribes in Pacific Canada who identify with killer whales through modern-day orca hunters in eastern Greenland to the “whale jails” of remote Kamchatka in Russia.
It covers everything from the persecution of killer whales in 1950s Iceland to how they were deemed to help fishing communities in Norway, the pendulum swinging endlessly between human cruelty or thoughtlessness to what is almost over-devotion to the species. Strager writes superbly, in a deft journalistic style, making this one of 2023’s most readable dive-related books.
There is also a small section of 15 photographs by Paul Nicklen, who contributes the foreword.
Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 9781421446226
Hardback, 280pp, 15-23cm, £25 (Kindle £23.33)
Nudibranchs of Britain, Ireland and Northwest Europe, by Bernard Picton & Christine Morrow
Last August Divernet reported on the discovery of a “rainbow nudibranch” in the Scilly Isles and, shortly afterwards, another in western Cornwall. It was a Babakina anadoni and, rare as that species is, it is of course included in this very impressive new release.
For any diver who thought that brightly coloured sea-slugs were the preserve of South-east Asia’s Coral Triangle and the like, this book will demonstrate that a kaleidoscope of nudibranchery lies waiting right on our doorstep. Granted, only a few home-grown species are as colourful as a Babakina and, also granted, UK diving conditions can make finding creatures this small more of a challenge than in the tropics, but aren’t challenges what diving is all about?
This is the second edition of the book – in fact the authors’ A Field Guide to the Nudibranchs of the British Isles first appeared almost 30 years ago, and this fat new guide is a big step up on that. Picton is curator of marine invertebrates at National Museums Northern Ireland and Morrow is researcher at Queen’s University, Belfast, so there can be little they don’t know about the subject by now.
The new edition covers 195 species, each accorded its own two-page spread with underwater photos that show not only the slugs but their distinctive spawn coils. In Babakina anadoni’s case they had to get that from Florida, but now you will know what to look out for.
There are also studio photos against black backgrounds that reveal the nudibranchs’ anatomy in detail. Key distinguishing features and information on size, habitat, diet and distribution should ensure that marine biologists and photographers alike have few questions left needing answers after consulting this guide.
Princeton is known for the high quality of its book production and this offering is no exception – the picture quality, especially, is spectacular. This book is a must for UK nudibranch divers – and watch out for what should be more marine-life crackers from this publishing house in September.
Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691208794
Paperback, 360pp, 14x22cm, £35 (Kindle £28)
Sharks Are Scary Aren’t They? by Christine Edwards
This review is way overdue. I received the book in January and, because the age-range was 12-18 (despite the infantilising title) I thought my 12-year-old grandson might care to review it. Somehow it seemed to stay buried under Sam’s school reading-list, so in the end I stepped up – and, I have to say, took a bullet on his behalf.
This book is an odd one. It isn’t that it’s badly written, but it’s indulgent and loses its way – and it isn’t too difficult to work out why.
The author, Christine Edwards, is an ex-teacher in her early 60s. Perhaps a traumatised Jaws teen, she once feared the sea and sharks, but took up scuba in 2006, has completed some 1,200 dives worldwide and, like most of us, learnt to love sharks along the way.
Her alter ego in the book is a female ex-dentist, also in her 60s – Jane Jones loves scuba but has decided she has to give it up, for reasons we discover later. On the beach during a UK seaside getaway she happens to meet the equivalent of her younger self, 12-year-old Charlie Parker. He has also developed a shark-shaped phobia about the sea.
Will this unlikely pair’s intense exchanges among the rock-pools result in both of them finding their way back into the briny? We suspect as much.
So far so good, and it’s clear that Edwards’ aim is to convince younger readers that sharks are more sinned against than sinning. The problem is her battering-ram approach.
Jane delivers lengthy lectures to Charlie (and later to his entire family) that would have the average 12-year-old glazing over in minutes. Her words could be spoken aloud only if she was reading from some incredibly detailed log-book: “Entering the water at 14:57, the first shadow emerged out of the dark at 15:04, dead ahead and heading our way…”
I could pick any number of examples, but try this, about Komodo: “Dragons up the pace when they want to, hitting speeds of 20kph (12mph), which is similar to that of the average human. Caught a few people out that way! They’re fast hey?”
“Bet Usain Bolt could beat one in a race.”
“You’re probably right there Charlie, he’s been clocked running at 44.64kph (27.8mph), but I wouldn’t want to be chased by a dragon even if I were him.”
This book is so well-intentioned and I admire the author’s motivation, but what kept nagging at me was that Christine/Jane’s extended shark-diving narratives are (multiple exclamation marks apart) excellently written.
Individually they would make the sort of articles any magazine editor would welcome. Meanwhile the story of Charlie and his family that frames the diving narratives seems insightful and inventive. It’s simply that the two elements don’t work together.
Sausages and custard: great eaten separately, yet combining them on a plate would make you feel more nauseous than tempted, whatever your age. Christine Edwards, please write either a book for grown divers, or a children’s book or both – but keep them separate.
The Book Guild, ISBN 9781915352613
Paperback, 272pp, £8.99 (Kindle £3.99)
More book reviews on Divernet: Apr 23, Feb 23, Dec 22, Aug 22, Apr 22
