Naval Battles Of World War Ii

Captain Bennett discusses the traumatic effects of the Washington and London Naval Treaties on the fleets of the principal powers between the wars, and their astonishing growth and technical progress between 1939 and 1945. He then deals with the war in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Battle of the River Plate, the struggle for Narvik, the hunt for the Bismarck, the destruction of the Italian Fleet at Taranto and Matapan are all vividly described and authoritatively analysed.

From the sinking of the British passenger liner Athenia on September 3, 1939, by a German U-boat (against orders) to the Japanese surrender on board the Missouri on September 2, 1945, War at Sea covers every major naveal battle of World War II. "A first-rate work and the best history of its kind yet written".--Vice Admiral William P. Mack, U.S.N. (Ret.). 30 photos.

Naval combat underwent a significant metamorphosis during World War II. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan launched some of the most powerful battleships ever to sail the world's oceans, yet the conflict witnessed the emergence and triumph of the aircraft carrier as the 20th century's true monarch of the seas. Submarine warfare expanded and developed, while aircraft technology and doctrine experienced several revolutionary changes due to the unforgiving demands of the new combat environment. Popular accounts of World War II frequently focus on the dominance of German panzers over the more lightly armored, lightly armed tanks of the Soviets, British, and Americans, or the superb fighting skills of the Waffen SS and ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers. Germany's land forces enjoyed an undoubted advantage over their enemies thanks to excellent vehicle technology, while German soldiers slaughtered vast numbers of Soviet conscripts and proved formidable opponents even to their better-trained English and American counterparts. However, the Axis failed to secure either the seas or the skies, and their defeat in these theaters ultimately led to their doom. Many highly advanced aircraft designs languished on the drawing boards of Junkers and Messerschmitt engineers, left undeveloped due to high command disinterest or simple lack of resources. The most advanced fighters developed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were equaled or outmatched by such aircraft as the U.S. F6F Hellcat (which achieved kill ratios of between 13 to 1 and 19 to 1 against Japanese "Zero" fighters) or P-51 Mustang. America, with its vast productive resources and immense manufacturing capacity, single-handedly supplied the materiel that saved Britain and the Soviet Union from defeat. It did so by controlling the sea lanes and eventually ending much of the threat of U-boat attack, supplying England and Russia with staggering quantities of food, weapons, raw materials, trucks, tanks, aircraft, prefabricated buildings, boots, ammunition, medicines, and even entire locomotives and sets of railway rolling stock. Over 50% of the Soviet Union's entire wartime supply base, from food and clothing to weapons and vehicles, came directly from the United States. In time, the American and British navies progressively destroyed their Axis counterparts, ensuring clear sea lanes, high strategic mobility for seaborne invasions, and large-scale air support that eventually battered the Axis armies into submission. Just as the Luftwaffe paralyzed Poland's defenders in 1939 with air superiority, so the Allies' mastery of naval and aerial warfare turned the tables to paralyze the Nazis and Japanese: "The fate of Germany and Japan was sealed [...] by the many-layered application of Anglo-American air and sea power. The totality of this pressure [...] eventually choked off Axis mobility. [...] Air and sea power could operate throughout the productive process, not only to affect the battlefield, but to determine how much and what kinds of military equipment were produced and deployed." (O'Brien, 2015, 480). Indeed, the "ultimate weapon" of World War II proved to be not a powerful tank or a specific type of aircraft, but a gigantic piece of military hardware combining the newly augmented power of both air and naval operations, the aircraft carrier. Every diverse element of the military machine had a crucial role to play, but the aircraft carrier stood head and shoulders above any other single system as the key to victory in the mid 1940s.

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 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.

From a British Royal Navy officer, a detailed history of World War I’s principal battles at sea. With the call to action stations in August 1914, the Royal Navy faced its greatest test since the time of Nelson . . . This classic history of the Great War at sea combines graphic and stirring accounts of all the principal naval engagements—battles overseas, in home waters and, for the first time, under the sea—with analysis of the strategy and tactics of both sides. Geoffrey Bennett brings these sea battles dramatically to life, and confirms the Allied navies’ vital contribution to victory. Praise for Naval Battles of the First World War “Strongly recommended.” —RUSI Journal “Excellent balanced accounts and judgements.” —Richard Hough, historian and author “Extensive photographs, include key aspects such as the German battle cruiser Blucher at the Dogger Bank battle, the destruction of the British battle cruiser Queen Mary, as well as the German dreadnaught Bayern sinking after being scuttled at Scapa Flow. A fascinating diagram shows Battleship Turrets, which provides insight into the process of action, such as the shell room, cordage charge, magazine, to the cordite hoist and gun.” —Jon Sandison, historian