It is now almost exactly a hundred years since a heavier-than-air craft first took off and landed on a warship, and from the very beginning flying at sea made unique demands on men and machines. As warplanes grew larger,...

THIS BOOK IS A VOYAGE THROUGH the life of the passenger steamship, a voyage described by travellers who sailed on these vessels, and it carries within it their thoughts and experiences, mirrored here in words and pictures. The pictures...

The submarine was undoubtedly the most potent purely naval weapon of the twentieth century. In two world wars, enemy underwater campaigns were very nearly successful in thwarting Allied hopes of victory - indeed, annihilation of Japanese shipping by US...

The landing craft assault or LCA was one of the unsung heroes of the Second World War. It took part in practically every amphibious operation from Norway to Normandy and landed around 400,000 men in action conditions, plus many...

Winston Churchill famously claimed that the submarine war in the Atlantic was the only campaign of the Second World War that really frightened him. If the lifeline to north America had been cut, Britain would never have survived; there...

On the eve of Germany's surrender in May 1945, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz commanded thousands of loyal and active men of the U-boat service. Still fully armed and unbroken in morale, enclaves of these men occupied bases stretching from Norway...

For most of the twentieth century Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser – a...

In the late nineteenth century the advent of the modern torpedo woke the Royal Navy to a potent threat to its domination, not seriously challenged since Trafalgar. For the first time a relatively cheap weapon had the potential to...

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 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...