Under the Red Sea Sun

IN The Year of Stalingrad Alexander Werth, who interviewed Stalin recently, emphasizes what few of us under stand: that the Russians as a people know almost nothing of the war outside Continental Europe. But Massawa, that torrid and humid port in Eritrea, which Commander Edward Ellsberg converted into a naval base of vital importance in defeating Rommel in Africa, is probably just as unknown to Americans as to the Russians.

The Red Sea is not an easy area to make interesting. Those who have been in it usually want to get away from it and forget it. And Massawa is so much worse than any other part of the Red Sea that Port Sudan and Jedda are by comparison health resorts.

Rejoining the serviee at the age of fifty, Commander Ellsberg was offered a choice of Iceland or the Rod Sea for salvage work. lie chose the Red Sea.. Under the Red Sea Sun is his twelfth book. He is now a captain in the Naval Reserve, but he retains the rank of commander on his title page as a tram de guerre, one may say.

There are a number of novel features about Ellsberg’s career. He is the product of Annapolis and the United States Navy of the era of Admirals Sims and King. He has specialized in salvage with spectacular success. Salvage to Ellsberg is not merely a profession, a science, and an art. It is a passion. No vessel seems so lovely iu his eves as when she is on the bottom of the sea and lie is given the exquisite and delicate job of raising her, as from the dead.

In addition to his status as a naval officer, an engineer of remarkable originality, and an executive who can work miracles. Kllsberg is a writer. Ordinarily, when such a feat. as he records in Under the Red Sea Sun has been achieved — the restoration of a ruined harbor full of sabotaged German and Italian ships, docks, and a floating crane — the officer responsible would turn over his data to a professional writer, who would do a professional job. But no professional writer could do this so well as Ellsberg himself has done it. The intrusion of a journalistic mind, either as a collaborator or a ghost, would be fatal to the authenticity of such a tale. This gift of writing, quite apart from his gift of gett ing work done, was obvious in On the Bottom long ago. It is obvious here in his latest book. We cannot say that a writer has been lost in the salvage man. For most of ns laymen Ellsberg is salvage personified. He can explain the most technical thing so simply, dramatically, and entertainingly that it is as exciting as a mystery thriller: much more exciting than some of them. He has the art to dramatize disaster. When \ye gaze at Ids map of Massawa harbor, with its score of sunken wrecks, our eyes brighten, our blood pressure rises. We know’ thal Kllsberg is going to raise those wrecks. We know he will face incredible difficulties; lie will fight with the modern naval equivalent of beasts at Kphesus: but we know also that he will win. He always does. And he conveys his own fine feeling of triumph, of a job well done. Bead what the British Admiralty thought of him.

There is another side to the Ellsberg character, which has not been mentioned but. which is important. He is a diplomat. He cun get on with the British. He had Eritreans, Arabs, Italians, and Persians to work with, but his crowning glory was that he got along with British officers and dockyard civilians in Massawa. Take the whiskey that Grant list’d, this uncanny ability of Ellsherg should be isolated and packaged for the rest of the military personnel. Ellsberg was an ambassador, not so much of good will as of intelligence and character. When he met men of supreme technical ability if was dec]) calling unto deep. After reading this most excellent book one can only echo Napoleon’s remark after meeting Goethe: Voild un homme!

WILLIAM MCFEE