Naval category: 2015 books

Halifax was surprised by the outbreak of war in August 1914 but within days the public mood had turned into a staggering display of unified support. Voluntary fund raising organisations sprang up and bore witness to an incredible self-help ethic that supported the troops at the front, their...

Part of our value-added professional format series of U.S. military manuals, this U.S. Marine Corps manual provides general information on the mission, concept of employment, organization, and equipment of the Marine Corps forces. This publication addresses the mission, organization, equipment,...

THE earliest record we have of the employment of an infernal machine at all resembling the torpedo of the present day, was in 1585 at the siege of Antwerp. Here by means of certain small vessels, drifted down the stream, in each of which was placed a magazine of gunpowder, to be fired either by a...

The battleships of the Third Reich have been written about exhaustively, but there is little in English devoted to their predecessors of the Second Reich. This new book fills an important gap in the literature of the period by covering these German capital ships in detail and studying the full span...

Between 1805 and 1807 the British mounted several expeditions into the South Atlantic aimed at weakening Napoleon's Spanish and Dutch allies. The targets were the Dutch colony on South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, which potentially threatened British shipping routes to India, and the Spanish colonies...

Many historians describe the First World War as the primary catastrophy of the 20th century. One of the many reasons that led to the outbreak of war, was the maritime arms race between Germany and Britain.    Although there was only one great battle between the German High Seas Fleet and...

The unrestricted U-Boat war threatened the very survival of Britain, whose reliance on imported food and war materials was her Achilles’ Heel. A significant element of the German submarine fleet operated from the occupied Belgian ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. After careful planning the Royal...

The new Hanoverian dynasty that came to power with the accession of George I in 1714 inherited the largest navy in the world. In the course of the century, this force would see a vast amount of action against nearly every major navy, reaching a pinnacle of success in the Seven Years War only to taste...

Horatio Nelson’s celebrated victory over the French at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 presented Britain with an unprecedented command of the seas. Yet the Royal Navy’s role in the struggle against Napoleonic France was far from over. This groundbreaking book asserts that, contrary to the accepted...

This new book explores innovation within the Royal Navy from the financial constraints of the 1930s to World War Two, the Cold War and the refocusing of the Royal Navy after 1990. Successful adaptation to new conditions has been critical to all navies at all times. To naval historians the significance and process of change is not new, but in r

From July 1862 until June 1864 the C.S.S. Alabama was the terror of the Atlantic Ocean. Built in secrecy in Liverpool, England, through the arrangement of Confederate agent Commander James Bulloch, it was built for the fledgling Confederate States Navy which was sorely in need of ships. Under...

With the approach of the 200th anniversary of the Royal Navy's greatest battle off Cape Trafalgar on October 21st 1805, much attention will be given to our most tangible symbol of that most ferocious engagement, Nelson's fully preserved flagship HMS Victory. Much has been written about HMS Victory...

HMS Belfast, originally a Royal Navy light cruiser, is now permanently moored on the Thames in London. One of ten Town-class cruisers she saw service on the icy Arctic convoys during the Second World War and was also present for the bombardment of the D-Day beaches in 1944. Later, she saw service...

Since the Second World War the old categories of destroyer and frigate have tended to merge, a process that this book traces back to the radically different 'Tribal' class destroyers of 1936. It deals with the development of all the modern destroyer classes that fought the war, looks at the emergency...