BY AND LARGE
By Admiral Sir Barry Domvile
Admiral Domvile has produced a very readable book (Hutchinson, 12s. 6d.), well stocked with good stories and by no means devoid of solid reflections on naval matters, and much less solid reflections on political. The remark that " The Nazis have treated the Jews with great harshness and tactless- ness " may be commended to readers of The Yellow Spot. Having served in almost every kind of vessel from a fishing sloop to a-battleship (he commanded the ' Royal Sovereign' in the Mediterranean in 1925-6), Sir Barry feels strongly on importance of sea experience, and criticises .with some vigour a tendency to send every promising officer specialising-ashore. He had a fair share ashore himself in his time, and devotes rather disproportionate space to the naval pageant which he organised in 1932, as President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. Most of the distinguished naval figures of the last twenty years make an appearance somewhere in Sir Barry's pages, one of his earliest anecdotes dealing with the simultaneous arrival for the rescue of an overturned yacht (a) of Captain David Beatty and Captain Cradock (of Coronel)j, both with ladies with them, and (b) of a boatload of stark naked midshipmen who had dashed out from shore where they were bathing. A sailor's judgement of the Washington Naval Conference—Sir Barry Domavile was there with the British delegation—has its importance, and the personal touches like Mr. Balfour's plaintive query " What do I do ? " when the toast " Sweethearts and Wives " was given at a British Em- bassy dimmer, lighten the story considerably. The book altogether is better worth reading than the average-volume of memoirs.
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