Heading "WW2 General Naval Books " - Click anywhere on this banner to go to the " World War II naval books page " at camberpete.co..uk !

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Click to go to David Woodward's "Sunk! How the Great Battleships Were Lost" page at camberpete.co.uk!
Click this image to go to Patrick Beesly's book " Very Special Admiral "; A biography of Admiral J. H. Godfrey who served as Director of Naval Intelligence in the early years of Woeld War Two
Click here to go to Rear-Admiral G. P. Thomson's " Blue Pencil Admiral " page at camberpete.co.uk !
Click to see Richard Deacon's history of Western Naval Intelligence ' The Silent War ' page at camberpete.co.uk !
Click on this image to go to Richard Hough's "MOUNTBATTEN: Hero of Our Time" page ! Click here to go to William Craig's " The Fall of Japan " page at camberpete.co.uk Click on this image to go to David A. thomas' " Japan's War at Sea page at camberpete.co.uk !
Essentially pictorial book, SUBMARINES WITH WINGS: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF AIRCRAFT CARRYING SUBMARINES by TERRY C. TREADWELL, with all these pioneering efforts well documented, with many extremely rare photographs of the boats and their purpose-built aircraft. However, much of the story relates to the post-1945 period, when the USA carried out many fascinating but little known developments in submarine aviation, including plans for a submarine-launched jet fighter.
The Great Ships Pass; British Battleships at War 1939-45.Peter C. Smith in this comprehensive volume presents a fresh and often controversial re-appraisal of the sometimes underrated role played by the British battleship in the closing years of its long history. He covers all the actions in which they took part during this last phase, the hunting down of the Graf Spec, the dramas of the chase after the Bismarck and the sinking of the Scharnhorst; the drubbing administered to the Italian fleet at Spartivento and Matapan. He also describes the disasters.
Click here to go to Patrick Beesly's "VERY SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE" page at camberpete.co.uk
Dan van der Vat maintains in this book "The Atlantic Campaign" (1986) says "at this distance the 'Battle of the Atlantic' can more clearly be seen as a campaign of many battles spread over nearly six years of war." Churchill used the phrase 'Battle of the Atlantic' to describe the struggle over the Anglo-American lifeline in the Second World War. Click here for more details.
For four years, merchantmen and escorts fought a long and bitter duel in the Atlantic against the U-boats intent on cutting Britain's vital supplies of food and arms. In the Mediterranean, British maritime forces, sea and air, kept Malta alive, whence vital German supplies to Africa were harried and cut, so making possible the victory at El Alamein; the British and US Navies then carried the Allied armies to the great amphibious assaults in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In the Arctic, the Royal Navy fought convoys through to Russia against impossible odds and the fury of the elements.
Click here to go to Friedrich Guge's study of the Soviets as naval opponents in WW2
BRITISH CARRIER AVIATION The Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft: From the seaplane carriers of 1914 to the success of the Falklands Taskforce the record of the Royal Navy carriers and naval aircraft for innovation and operational achievement has been unequalled among world navies. It is a record which has been maintained against a background of often limited resources and a British role in the world which has changed dramatically since 1918.
Click here to go to Volume IV in the Britain at War series entitled THE ROYAL NAVY. This volume covers the period fro m JULY 1943 to SEPTEMBER 1944. This and other naval books are for sale at camberpete.co.uk
History of the Second World War: WAR AT SEA; Three volumes in four parts by Captain S. W. Roskill, Royal Navy
As WW2 drew to a close German Naval archive documents were captured on a unprecedented scale. The most important from Schloss Tambach, near Coburg, where some 60,000 files and their archivists were captured, practically all the signals, ships' logs, diaries, memoranda, etc., relating to the German Navy from 1868 until the date of their capture—April 1945. Hitler and his Admirals by Anthony Martienssen
VALIANT OCCASIONS – J. E. MacDonnell: Nine-tenths of a naval war is made up of the unlightened drudgery of patrol work and convoy¬ing, in the search for enemy craft which were not there— but which would be there if the patrols were not. The nerve-tingling shout, "Enemy in sight!", is the climax to a preface of weeks, probably months, of monotonous drill, drill and more drill.
A splendid but large and heavy book illustrated in full colour on art quality paper; a portrait of the Allied navies engaged in a global naval war against determined enemies painted and described by John Hamilton the renowned naval artist.
This is the story of HMS Kelly, of the men who sailed in her, of her triumphs and disasters, of the Kelly Reunion Association which today still unites the survivors from her crew. Above all, it is the story of her Captain. Without Mountbatten there would still have been a Kelly, there might have been a Reunion Association, but it is his contribution that has made the spirit of HMS Kelly burn so bright and endure so long.
Click for David Bolster's " ROLL ON MY TWELVE " page at camberpete.co.uk !
THE PHONEY FLEET by Commander Justin Richardson, R.N.V.R.  was published just after the end of World War Two, many of these poems first appeared in PUNCH. They are entertaining ditties full of wartime naval lore illustrated with vignettes by Major J. S. Hicks, Royal Marines. These poems, although written in wartime superbly manage to convey a scathing yet affectionate tongue-in-cheek view of the Royal Navy's view of the war at sea. Click on this thumbnail to see larger images of book's front board, title page and spine.
The Merchant Service by Lt. Cdr. L. M. Bates, R.N.V.R.Lt. Cdr. L. M. Bates, R.N.V.R. a Royal Navy appreciation of the Merchant Navy's role in the Second World War"
Correlli Barnett demonstrates that the British Empire, with its oceanic communications, was less a source of strength to Britain than of weakness. He shows that Britain's dependence on seaborne imports of food, raw materials and American technology was also a liability and how the brunt of this and of Britain's global predicament fell upon the Royal Navy — but a Navy far too small for its tasks owing to the disarmament of the 1920s and the belated rearmament of the 1930s.