Author : J. Levy
Publisher : Springer
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 31,99 MB
Release : 2003-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 0230511562
This book marks the first comprehensive history of Britain's naval bulwark, the Home Fleet. It illuminates the vital role that fleet played in preserving Britain as a base of operations against Hitler. We see portrayed the hard days of blockade, patrol, and battle that encompassed the Home Fleet's war. And we see how that war was made harder by weaknesses at the Admiralty and by the damaging interference of the Minister of Defence - Winston Churchill.
Author : United States. Bureau of Yards and Docks
Publisher :
Page : 482 pages
File Size : 42,44 MB
Release : 1947
Category : Air bases
ISBN :
Author : Correlli Barnett
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 1104 pages
File Size : 27,88 MB
Release : 2013-02-01
Category : World War, 1939-1945
ISBN : 9780571300396
The accepted interpretation of Britain's wartime role as an island sea power is challenged by Correlli Barnett's brilliant demonstration that the dependence on seashore imports of food and raw materials, together with the obligations of Empire, were less a form of strength to Britain than a weakness. Topics discussed in this book range from strategic debates in London and Washington to gripping descriptions of the Royal Navy in action: the remorseless struggle against the U-boat in the Atlantic, the desperate convoy battles in the Mediterranean and the Arctic, and the battles in the Far East. It weaves in the rivalry between Allied and German technology and the all-important secret war of the cryptographers. 'This outstanding military historian has turned to maritime war and written an authoritative, meticulously researched and stirring account of the Royal Navy's part in World War II.' Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin of Greenwich, KG, GCB, LVO, DSC
Author : Theodore Roosevelt
Publisher : Franklin Classics
Page : 398 pages
File Size : 10,15 MB
Release : 2018-10-12
Category :
ISBN : 9780342577903
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Author : Ryan K. Noppen
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 49 pages
File Size : 29,70 MB
Release : 2020-08-20
Category : History
ISBN : 1472841891
In the late 19th and early 20th century, a combination of coastal defence for the homeland and fleet defence for the East Indies became the established naval strategy for the Royal Dutch Navy and set the template for the world wars. Battleships were too expensive to build and maintain, so after World War I, there was significant investment in submarine development and construction. A handful of modern light cruisers and a new class of destroyers were also constructed during the interwar years to serve as a small Fleet-in-Being in the East Indies, as well as to support the actions of the navy's submarines. The light cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter and the Java-class light cruisers were the most powerful units of the new fleet whilst the backbone of the destroyer fleet was the Admiralen-class and the Tromp-class of destroyer leaders. Beginning in December 1941, the Dutch Navy played a very active role in the defence of the East Indies against the Japanese during World War II. The Battle of the Java Sea at the end of February 1942 crushed Dutch naval power in the East Indies, sinking the cruisers Java and De Ruyter and killing Admiral Karel Doorman. However, several Dutch surface warships and submarines continued the fight against the Axis powers alongside the Allies until the end of World War II, including a pair of British-built destroyers, Van Galen and Tjerk Hiddes. This beautifully illustrated book from a leading scholar on Dutch military history provides a comprehensive guide to the Royal Netherlands Navy of the World War II period, complete with detailed cutaways and battleplates of the fleet in action.
Author : Jon Sutherland
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 28,80 MB
Release : 2011-02-23
Category : History
ISBN : 1844687805
The Royal Naval Patrol Service, or Harry Tates Navy as it was commonly known, was a unique service with its own rules and regulations. The officers and seamen were mainly ex-fishermen who had manned trawlers in Icelandic waters. The service was armed mostly with obsolete weaponry and suffered heavy casualties in the early stages of the war. The service was not confined to the seas around Britain and their small trawlers, drifters, paddle steamers, yachts and tugs saw service as far away as the Mediterranean and Newfoundland coast. Their main tasks included convoy escort duties, mine sweeping and anti-submarine work. Many awards for bravery were won including a VC.
Author : David Hobbs
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 49,62 MB
Release : 2012-03-07
Category : History
ISBN : 1783469226
“Magnificent and important . . . should be on the shelves of anyone with a genuine interest in the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War.” —Military History Monthly In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the US Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy and dogged persistence all played a part. As much a political as a technical triumph, the BPF was uniquely complex in its make-up: its C-in-C was responsible to the Admiralty for the general direction of his Fleet; took operational orders from the American Admiral Nimitz; answered to the Government of Australia for the construction and maintenance of a vast base infrastructure, and to other Commonwealth Governments for the ships and men that formed his fully-integrated multi-national fleet. This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background, creation and expansion of the BPF from its first tentative strikes, through operations off the coast of Japan to its impact on the immediate post-war period, including the opinions of USN liaison officers attached to the British flagships. The book is the first to demonstrate the real scope and scale of the BPF’s impressive achievement. “Perhaps the greatest Royal Navy story of, at least, the twentieth century.” —Aircrew Book Review
Author : Duncan Redford
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 45,13 MB
Release : 2014-03-27
Category : History
ISBN : 0857723456
The Royal Navy's operations in World War II started on 3 September 1939 and continued until the surrender of Japan in August 1945 - there was no 'phoney war' at sea. The navy played a central role in the evacuation of the retreating British army at Dunkirk, and later orchestrated the sinking of Germany's mighty battleship and Hitler's pride, the Bismarck. Without the Royal Navy's attention to the defence of Britain's seaborne trade - especially in the struggle against German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic - there would not have been food for the country, fuel for the RAF's operations or supplies to keep the army fighting in Europe, North Africa and the Far East. Yet the outstanding naval contribution to Britain's survival and eventual victory came at a heavy cost in terms of ships and to the men who had to face not just the violence of the enemy, but also the violence of the sea. This book argues that World War II was, effectively, a maritime war; it was the Royal Navy's war.
Author : Craig L. Symonds
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 793 pages
File Size : 23,54 MB
Release : 2018-04-02
Category : History
ISBN : 0190243686
Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune, (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds has established himself as one of the finest naval historians at work today. World War II at Sea represents his crowning achievement: a complete narrative of the naval war and all of its belligerents, on all of the world's oceans and seas, between 1939 and 1945. Opening with the 1930 London Conference, Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up, as Europe erupted into conflict once more and its navies were brought to bear against each other. World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina-at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world-and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; the struggles of the Russian Navy and the scuttling of the French Fleet in Toulon in 1942; the landings in North Africa and then Normandy. Here as well are the notable naval leaders-FDR and Churchill, both self-proclaimed "Navy men," Karl Dönitz, François Darlan, Ernest King, Isoroku Yamamoto, Erich Raeder, Inigo Campioni, Louis Mountbatten, William Halsey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of seamen and officers of all nationalities whose live were imperiled and lost during the greatest naval conflicts in history, from small-scale assaults and amphibious operations to the largest armadas ever assembled. Many have argued that World War II was dominated by naval operations; few have shown and how and why this was the case. Symonds combines precision with story-telling verve, expertly illuminating not only the mechanics of large-scale warfare on (and below) the sea but offering wisdom into the nature of the war itself.
Author : Tony Ditcham
Publisher : Seaforth Publishing
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 35,32 MB
Release : 2013-06-17
Category : History
ISBN : 1848321759
From first joining the Royal Navy in 1940 until the end of the campaign against Japan, Tony Ditcham was in the front line of the naval war. After brief service in the battlecruiser Renown off Norway and against the Italians, he went into destroyers and saw action in most European theatres _ against S-boats and aircraft in 'bomb alley' off Britain's East Coast, on Arctic convoys to Russia, and eventually in a flotilla screening the Home Fleet. During the dramatic Battle of the North Cape in December 1943 he was probably the first man to actually see the Scharnhorst and from his position in the gun director of HMS Scorpion enjoyed a grandstand view of the sinking of the great German battleship (his account was so vivid that it formed the basis of the description in the official history). Later his ship operated off the American beaches during D-Day, where two of her sister ships were sunk with heavy loss of life, and he ended the war en route for the British Pacific Fleet and the invasion of Japan.??This incident-packed career is recounted with restraint, plenty of humour and colourful descriptive power _ his account of broaching and almost capsizing in an Arctic winter storm is as good as anything in the literature of the sea. The result makes enthralling reading, and as the surviving veterans rapidly decline in numbers, this may turn out to be one of the last great eyewitness narratives of the naval war.
