Admiral Horton
Tins interesting book unhappily falls between two stools. it is not, as its title suggests, an account solely of Max Horton's conduct of the Western Approaches Command, for of the 252 pages of Rear-Admiral Chalmers's text, the first 148 deal with his naval career before it. Nor, on the other hand, is it a full-scale biography.
Horton's was a complex and in many ways fascinating character. His mother was a Jewess, and at the age of nine he told her he wanted to go into the Navy `to fight for her.' As a young man he was, like his father, a keen gambler. He had an extraordinary degree of intuition or 'second sight,' and by rebel on this throughout his career was often rewarded. He instigated the 'Jolly Roger' flag for submarines in the first war, a practice which was continued by his heirs in the second. He was an able technician who knew as much if not more than his subordinates. He had a lifelong interest in Catholicism and, though not apparently a convert himself, 'went to Mass whenever he could.' In 1940 he refused command of the Home Fleet because he did not feel the C-in-C had sufficient indepen- dence of action. During the height of the Battle of the Atlantic he played golf every afternoon (to keep himself tit). His officers admired rather than liked him, and he had very few friends.
So much we learn from Rea, Admiral Chalmers. Even more revealing is Father Martindale's epilogue. Horton, he tells us, made frequent pilgrimages to the shrines of Italy : he had private audiences with Popes Pius XI and XII, 'for which he had prepared himself by a lengthy study of the great Encyclicals,' and was present at the beatification of Pope Pius X. He had intended to live on the Continent on his retirement, but was prevented by a succession of illnesses. He 'was a good judge of the theatre, and a devotee of opera, not only hearing every opera he could, but trying to be present also at rehearsals .... He was hardly less interested in archi- tecture.'
Ali this fragmentary information is highly interesting and shows Horton to have been a naval officer well out of the usual run. All the more pity that no attempt has been made to integrate it or present the man in the round. Rear-Admiral Chalmers excites our curiosity without gratifying it. The margin of my review copy is scored with question-marks. Why did Horton become so interested in Catholi- cism? Why did he want to live on the Continent and where? What sort of home life did he have and where did he spend his leaves? What were his relations with women and why did he never marry?
But if one is left dissatisfied with the picture of Horton the man, no complaints can be made about the presentation of Horton the sailor. Rear-Admiral Chalmers relates his naval career with the same lucidity, sympathy and technical insight which distinguished his life of Beatty. In retrospect, Horton's life, like Nelson's, seems predetermined; and as Trafalgar was the apogee of the one, so the Battle of the Atlantic was of the other. He had been in and out of submarines all his career, and it was in every way right that destiny should have chosen him to lead the Navy in the last round against the U-boats. He performed the task with the same determination and ruthlessness which had stamped every phase of his career. Always his eye was on the main chance. Once one of his officers reported that a cruiser had been lost and that his son was on board. 'Yes,' replied Horton instinctively, but what happened to the ship?' Such single-mindedness did not always endear him to his staff; yet there were many who appreciated, in the words of one of them, 'what a great man he really was.'
LUDOVIC KENNEDY
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