A Man Called Jane

"How Fighting Ships Became Jane’s" by Richard Brooks, in Proceedings (Dec. 1996), U.S. Naval Institute, 2062 Generals Hwy., Annapolis, Md. 21401.

Civilian "strategic analysts" are accepted figures in public life, populating think tanks, holding forth on op-ed pages, and even landing jobs on network TV news shows. Their analyses are looked to as a counterweight to military views. It wasn’t always so. One of the pioneers was Fred T. Jane, says Brooks, author of a forthcoming biography. In turn-of-the-century Britain, his All The World’s Fighting Ships helped break the British Royal Navy’s monopoly on naval affairs.

Born the son of an Anglican curate in 1865 in a London suburb, Jane had forebears on his mother’s side who had served in the Royal Navy and Marines. When poor health prevented him from shipping out, he used his talent for drawing to make a career in journalism, sketching naval maneuvers for the Illustrated London News and other periodicals in the 1890s. He not only built up his collection of warship sketches but picked the brains of naval officers and enlisted men to get information about the ships’ strengths and weaknesses. By 1897 he was ready to launch the visual warship atlas that came to be known as Jane’s Fighting Ships, complete with pungent comments about ships’ performance from engineering officers he had cultivated.

Jane systematically categorized ships by their appearance, and even provided a visual index of ship silhouettes. Lookouts or officers of the watch could thus quickly identify unknown vessels and their pertinent characteristics, such as speed and weaponry.

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