Great Naval Battles Of The Twentieth Century

In the history of civilizations, sea power has always played a preponderant role. This symbol of a nation's scientific and military genius has very often been the deciding factor during major conflicts, putting the names of several clashes down into legend. With this collection, Jean-Yves Delitte and Giuseppe Baiguera plunge into the heart of three of the twentieth century's greatest naval battles. TSUSHIMA. Newly opened to the world, Japan found itself to be weak and subject to the whims of larger nations. What followed was decades of industrialization and modernization as Japan sought to catch up to advanced nations and control its own destiny. In 1905, when Japan's expansionist policies clashed with the Russian Empire over Korea, Japan was poised to flex its muscle and stun the world using the same naval supremacy that opened its borders half a century earlier. JUTLAND. May 31, 1916: the British Royal Navy and the German Kaiserliche Marine are preparing to confront one another in the North Sea off the Danish coast of Jutland. This will be the final great confrontation of World War I by sea and one of the greatest epic battles in the history of seafaring. Despite heavy losses, which are greater than the Germans', the English reaffirm their naval supremacy over the seas of the world, and Germany, all too conscious of having escaped disaster, will opt to confine the majority of its ships to its ports. MIDWAY. December 7, 1941: the Empire of Japan strikes an early blow against the United States Navy at Pearl Harbor. In just a matter of hours, the era of the battleship would come to an end and the age of the aircraft carrier would begin. In June 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy and its carrier fleet would try to seize the initiative again by attacking the island of Midway. What unfolds is an epic carrier duel, the likes of which the world has never seen. In the end, Japan would never recover from the losses at Midway, and the United States would carry this momentum until Japan's ultimate defeat.

The major naval powers—Britain, America, Russia, and Japan—have all played a part in the theater of war at sea over the last one hundred years. Naval fighting has always been a rapidly developing affair, and in no century have changes been so swift and fundamental. In 1905, when this book begins, the first major engagement between ironclad fleets—the Battle of Tsu-Shima—took place in the Far East and decided the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war in Japan’s favor. What follows are the mighty sea battles of our century, graphically reconstructed for the reader. Victories, defeats, and mutinies at sea, from the battle with the Bismarck to the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal.

Drawing from more than 100 diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews, this book is a masterful narrative of the human side of combat at sea--real stories told from the point of view of the sailors themselves. of photos. 10 maps.

The era of modern naval warfare began with the Spanish-American War in 1898, one of the first occasions in which high-speed warships, precision artillery and high-explosive shell were tested in actual combat.

“The essential reappraisal of this seminal event in twentieth-century naval history . . . a ‘must have’ book for the Great War enthusiasts.” —Lone Star Review After months of skirmishes between Britain’s Royal Navy Grand Fleet and the German Navy’s outnumbered High Seas Fleet, conflict erupted on May 31, 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark, in what would become the most formidable battle in the history of the Royal Navy. In Jutland, international scholars reassess the strategies and tactics employed by the combatants as well as the political and military consequences of their actions. Most previous English-language military analysis has focused on British admiral Sir John Jellicoe, who was widely criticized for excessive caution and for allowing German vice admiral Reinhard Scheer to escape; but the contributors to this volume engage the German perspective, evaluating Scheer’s decisions and his skill in preserving his fleet and escaping Britain’s superior force. Together, the contributors lucidly demonstrate how both sides suffered from leadership that failed to move beyond outdated strategies of limited war between navies and to embrace the total war approach that came to dominate the twentieth century. The role of memory—comparing the way the battle has been portrayed in England and Germany—is also examined. Jutland is “suited not only for scholars, but also for a wider audience interested in knowing more about both the war at sea in World War I and its greatest contest” (Eric Osborne, author of The Battle of Heligoland Bight). “The documentation and scholarship reflected in these articles is outstanding.”—Paul Halpern, author of A Naval History of World War I

It is a century since Mahan and his disciples taught the world that a battlefleet was indispensable to a great power. Great and not-so-great powers till keep powerful navies today, but we have no generally accepted principles to explain why. In this book historians and naval officers from Britain, the United States and other countries study the use of naval power over the present century, and ask what it is for, and what it can do. It will be essential reading for modern historians, policy-makers and strategists.