Ryan C. Walker's The Silent Service's First Hero is an examination of the life and military career of Henry Breault, a French-Canadian sailor who grew up in Putnam, Connecticut. Breault is notable for being the only enlisted submariner awarded the Medal of Honor, which he received when he rescued a comrade onboard the sinking submarine O-5 after it collided with another vessel in 1923. Walker's aim was not to write a biography of Breault, but instead to write a micro-history placing Breault's career into the wider context of the United States Navy during the inter-war era. Breault is shown to be a complex individual, who despite his heroism, often did not live up to the idealized version of a sailor that the Navy sought to portray.Walker makes this case in eleven chapters and a short conclusion. Chapters one and two set up the Navy's institutional canonization of Breault during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as providing a general historiography of Breault and the times in which he lived. Chapters three through five are organized chronologically as an overview of Breault's life and career, almost all of which was spent in the navies of Canada and the United States. The remaining chapters each tackle a different theme or subject important to Breault's life and to the experiences of naval personnel more broadly.Utilizing limited source material, Walker derives several important conclusions about Breault and his life which should be read with interest by anyone interested in the methodology of micro-history. For instance, Breault left little indication of his social circles to historians, yet cleverly, Walker utilized the close-knit nature of the submarine USS O-5 and Breault's rescue of a fellow sailor named Lawrence Brown to tease out some of Breault's possible friendships onboard the vessel. Chapter ten should be read with interest for its analysis of material culture owned by Breault and what an individual's material possessions can reveal to scholars. For example, Breault requested a replacement for the rosette on his Medal of Honor during the 1930s, indicating that he had lost it and thus was actively wearing it. Walker uses this request to ask questions about how Breault valued being seen by others through the act of him wearing his award.Walker is careful not to overstep with his analyses and keeps his conclusions measured, often presenting multiple plausible, but contradictory, explanations and stating clearly that while some conclusions may be more likely it is difficult to say for certain. While some readers may wish to see stronger conclusions, Walker's methods work well, as Breault left few clues behind as to his own thinking and more definitive conclusions would have gotten away from the available evidence.Walker does not paint Breault as a straightforward hero, but rather, like Odysseus before him, as a “complicated man.” Breault did not always live up to the Navy's ideals of a sailor's behavior. For instance, in 1929 he faced a Summary Court Martial for being absent without leave. Additionally, his marriage to a woman named Pearl Slaughter in the 1930s was not traditional. When the pair met, Slaughter was already married with a child, and Breault, intentionally or not, broke up Pearl's marriage before marrying her himself. These are not the actions of an uncomplicated hero, but of a flesh and blood human.Walker often compares Breault's experiences with that of submarine themed films from the 1930s. This provides a useful frame of reference for the Navy's image of the ideal sailor. Yet this comparison could have been strengthened through engagement with studies like Ryan D. Wadle's Selling Sea Power: Public Relations and the U.S. Navy, 1917–1941 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). Doing so would have helped to better situate the films that Walker considers and would have helped explore why the Navy sought to portray itself and its personnel the way it did.Henry Breault also had several connections to Connecticut throughout his life and the book touches on these. Breault grew up in the town of Putnam and was later stationed at Naval Submarine Base New London. It was at this latter posting that Breault would die in December 1941, aged 41, before being buried in his hometown.The Silent Service's First Hero is most suitable for general readers interested in naval history and provides readers with a swift and readable overview of Henry Breault's life and career. However, naval specialists with an interest in social history may find also value in the book's application of micro-historical methodologies. For those readers, Walker also signposted several areas in which future research can be conducted. Ultimately, Walker's study of Henry Breault's relatively short life provides a useful window through which to view the men who joined the Navy between the World Wars, showcasing how even a single individual's life can reveal multitudes about the past.
Matthew Novosad (Thu,) studied this question.