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Book Synopsis Fire & Ice Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 by : Richard Porter
Download or read book Fire & Ice Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 written by Richard Porter and published by Paul Honeywill. This book was released on 2023-01-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arctic convoys run to the ports of Northern Russia from 1941 to 1945 combined the man-made and maritime horrors of the Battle of the Atlantic with the unforgiving ferocity of one of the most inhospitable of the world's climates. Maintaining that lifeline through the waters of the Arctic circle was essential to the development and maintenance of the Anglo-American alliance with the Soviet Union. With the massive campaign on Germany's Eastern front hanging in the balance in 1941 to 1942, the German Armed Forces deployed significant numbers of submarines, bomber and torpedo aircraft, together with heavy ships such as the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, against the slow-moving Allied convoys of merchant ships and their escorting forces. The challenge to maintain this lifeline placed a heavy burden on the resources of the Royal Navy. Here, in a contemporary battle summary, prepared by the Naval Staff of the Royal Navy, and supported by academic analysis and an extensive photographic section, those challenges and difficulties, the tragedies and the triumphs of the Arctic convoys, are laid bare. A Shared Strategic Goal. The Arctic Convoys reflect the need to be able to work with enemies who become allies, and vice versa, and understand the strategic circumstances and imperatives that drive those choices. This strategic perspective and agility characterised Churchill’s approach to Stalin and the Soviet Union. It is notable that British co-operation with the Soviet Union started before the US had entered the war, and continued to the end, reflecting British strategic national interests throughout. The intent and comradeship forged through the existence of a common foe survived the many operational set-backs and doubts on both sides, and speaks clearly to the need in these matters to have a clear, shared strategic goal and enduring commitment to its achievement. The Arctic convoys demonstrate the utility of seapower to deliver significant strategic effects even while operations had to be conducted at the limits of human endurance in the harshest of climates, at the geographical extremes of the global battlefront what Churchill is credited with calling ‘the worst journey in the world.’
Book Synopsis Fire & Ice Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 by : Vice-Admiral Simon Lister Kcb Obe
Download or read book Fire & Ice Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 written by Vice-Admiral Simon Lister Kcb Obe and published by . This book was released on 2023-01-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arctic convoys run to the ports of Northern Russia from 1941 to 1945 combined the man-made and maritime horrors of the Battle of the Atlantic with the unforgiving ferocity of one of the most inhospitable of the world's climates. Maintaining that lifeline through the waters of the Arctic circle was essential to the development and maintenance of the Anglo-American alliance with the Soviet Union. With the massive campaign on Germany's Eastern front hanging in the balance in 1941 to 1942, the German Armed Forces deployed significant numbers of submarines, bomber and torpedo aircraft, together with heavy ships such as the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, against the slow-moving Allied convoys of merchant ships and their escorting forces. The challenge to maintain this lifeline placed a heavy burden on the resources of the Royal Navy. Here, in a contemporary battle summary, prepared by the Naval Staff of the Royal Navy, and supported by academic analysis and an extensive photographic section, those challenges and difficulties, the tragedies and the triumphs of the Arctic convoys, are laid bare. A Shared Strategic Goal. The Arctic Convoys reflect the need to be able to work with enemies who become allies, and vice versa, and understand the strategic circumstances and imperatives that drive those choices. This strategic perspective and agility characterised Churchill's approach to Stalin and the Soviet Union. It is notable that British co-operation with the Soviet Union started before the US had entered the war, and continued to the end, reflecting British strategic national interests throughout. The intent and comradeship forged through the existence of a common foe survived the many operational set-backs and doubts on both sides, and speaks clearly to the need in these matters to have a clear, shared strategic goal and enduring commitment to its achievement. Leadership of Effective Collaboration. The collaboration and integration at a working level that was achieved in a short space of time was remarkable, given the suspicion and gulf of political outlook that existed at the outset. Genuine collaboration and integration delivered a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. what Churchill is credited with calling 'the worst journey in the world.'
Book Synopsis Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945 by : Richard Woodman
Download or read book Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945 written by Richard Woodman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Allied merchant ships and crews who braved the frigid far north to extend a lifeline to Russia, filled with “sheer heroism and brazen drama” (Literary Review). During the last four years of the Second World War, the Western Allies secured Russian defenses against Germany by supplying vital food and arms. The plight of those in Murmansk and Archangel who benefited is now well known, but few are aware of the courage, determination, and sacrifice of Allied merchant ships, which withstood unremitting U-boat attacks and aerial bombardment to maintain the lifeline to Russia. In the storms, fog, and numbing cold of the Arctic, where the sinking of a ten thousand–ton freighter was equal to a land battle in terms of destruction, the losses sustained were huge. Told from the perspective of their crews, this is the inspiring story of the long-suffering merchant ships without which Russia would almost certainly have fallen to Nazi Germany.
Book Synopsis Through Ice and Fire by : Leona J. Thomas
Download or read book Through Ice and Fire written by Leona J. Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Russian Arctic convoys in 1942, Leonard H. Thomas kept a secret notebook from which he later wrote his memoirs. These contained many well-observed details of life onboard his ship, HMS Ulster Queen. He detailed observations of the hardships that followed when they endured being at action stations and locked in the engine room, under fire from the skies above and the sea below, and only able to guess at what was happening from the cacophony of sounds they could hear. Thomas tells of how the crew suffered from an appalling lack of food, the intense cold, and the stark conditions endured for weeks on end berthed in Archangel in the cold of the approaching Russian winter. There are also insights about the morale of the men and lighter moments when their humor kept them going. These stories can now be told as his daughter has edited them into an account that illustrates the fortitude and bravery of the men who sailed through ice and fire to further the war effort so far from home.
Book Synopsis The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War by : Reagan Fancher
Download or read book The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War written by Reagan Fancher and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program, American leaders sought to keep Joseph Stalin’s Red Army in the field and fighting Adolf Hitler’s forces in the Second World War from 1941 forward. Delivered by the Anglo-American Arctic naval convoys, overland through the Iranian deserts and mountains, and through the skies from Alaska to Siberia, this much-needed material aid helped Stalin’s Red Army to continue fighting and thereby prevented a separate peace with Hitler’s Germany and a mechanized repeat of the First World War’s Brest-Litovsk fiasco. Yet Roosevelt and other U.S. officials, due to their severe underestimation of Stalin’s character and his rigid and fanatical devotion to exporting Communism at gunpoint, gambled incorrectly that they could win the Soviet premier’s heart and mind through several excessive wartime aid gestures, including the furnishing of atomic bomb materials to the Soviet regime. By 1945, American leaders had succeeded in their strategic goal of keeping Stalin and his Red Army in the war and hastening victory but failed in their efforts to purchase the Soviet premier’s goodwill and commitment to postwar peace, heralding the global Cold War, and setting the stage for later U.S. martial aid programs to those resisting aggression abroad. In addition to its primary focus on the American leadership’s perceptions of Stalin’s strategic importance to the Allied war effort in the Second World War, this work also includes a detailed assessment of Roosevelt’s Soviet Lend-Lease program alongside U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s later support for the Afghan Islamic guerrillas resisting Soviet occupation during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and a comparison of both martial aid programs with Washington’s recent revival of Lend-Lease aid for the Ukrainian war effort. It offers today’s American leaders and policymakers a chance to consult the lessons of history and apply them in the present.
Book Synopsis The Arctic Convoys, 1941-1945 by : Richard Woodman
Download or read book The Arctic Convoys, 1941-1945 written by Richard Woodman and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1941 the Royal Navy began running munitions & supply convoys to Northern Russia, battling through the Arctic Ocean & running a gauntlet of German air, surface & submarine attacks. Woodman describes these remarkable actions.
Book Synopsis A Hard Fought Ship by : John A Rodgaard
Download or read book A Hard Fought Ship written by John A Rodgaard and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the exhaustive and exhilarating story of HMS Venomous, one of sixty-seven V&W destroyers built at the end of the Great War that were to play a key role in the struggle to keep the sea lanes open in the Atlantic, Home Waters and the Mediterranean during the following war. Her story was perhaps the most memorable of all her class. When war broke out she was to find herself in the front line as the German blitzkrieg swept across Europe in 1940 and the V&Ws made high speed dashes across the Channel to bring troops and civilians back from Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk, and prepared for the expected invasion. Later that year she and her sister-ships escorted the Atlantic convoys which supplied our Russian allies with the weapons to halt the German advance. She returned to the Mediterranean and took part in Operation Pedestal to save Malta, and as the allies prepared for the landings in North Africa she was ordered to escort the destroyer depot ship, HMS Hecla to the invasion beaches. When Hecla was torpedoed off the coast off Morocco Venomous fought the attacking U-boat and rescued 500 survivors. She escorted convoys along the coast of North Africa including the first-through convoy from Gibraltar to Alexandria. and she joined the invasion force to Sicily during Operation Husky. In October 1943 she returned to Britain for a major refit at Falmouth when she was converted to an air target ship for training Barracuda torpedo bombers based at Douglas, Isle of Man, and then, after being transferred to the east coast, she was nearly lost in a hurricane before being sent to Kristiansand to accept the surrender of German naval forces. Venomous and her sister-ships were all scrapped after the War, but her extraordinary career, during which she fought without cessation, is brought to life in this rousing and beautifully told ship biography, a fitting memorial to the V&Ws and the men who served in them. ‘I would rate this as being in the same class as The Cruel Sea for a picture of small ship life in World War Two.’ The Naval Review ‘A portrayal of life on a wartime destroyer with a depth and insight that is possible unequalled by any previously published work.’ Warship Annual This book is outstanding for its detailed insight into the life on not just a single destroyer but, by extension, life at sea aboard and Royal Navy destroyer.’ The Northern Mariner ‘A Hard Fought Ship is a vivid portrait of a fighting vessel and the men who operated her.’ Warships International Fleet Review ‘Highly recommended to both naval historians and the general public.’ Mariner’s Mirror ‘It is an exemplary ship biography where a detailed narrative of the destroyer’s exploits are brought to life by a wealth of first-hand accounts.’ Navy News ‘This book is a detailed and thrilling account of the life of a typical V&W class destroyer.’ Sea Breezes
Download or read book Fire and Ice written by Vincent Hunt and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Hitler ordered the north of Nazi-occupied Norway to be destroyed in a scorched earth retreat in 1944, everything of potential use to the Soviet enemy was destroyed. Harbours, bridges and towns were dynamited and every building torched. Fifty thousand people were forcibly evacuated – thousands more fled to hide in caves in sub-zero temperatures. High above the Arctic Circle, the author crosses the region gathering scorched earth stories: of refugees starving on remote islands, fathers shot dead just days before the war ended, grandparents driven mad by relentless bombing, towns burned to the ground. He explores what remains of the Lyngen Line mountain bunkers in the Norwegian Alps, where the Allies feared a last stand by fanatical Nazis – and where starved Soviet prisoners of war too weak to work were dumped in death camps, some driven to cannibalism.With extracts from the Nuremberg trials of the generals who devastated northern Norway and modern reflections on the mental scars that have passed down generations, this is a journey into the heart of a brutal conflict set in a landscape of intense natural beauty.
Book Synopsis Forgotten Sacrifice by : Michael G. Walling
Download or read book Forgotten Sacrifice written by Michael G. Walling and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-20 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks. Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.
Book Synopsis Arctic Convoy PQ8 by : Michael Wadsworth
Download or read book Arctic Convoy PQ8 written by Michael Wadsworth and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-11-30 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Robert Brundle took the SS Harmatris to Russia with Convoy PQ8 he was 47 years of age. Both ship and master were veterans and had already sailed in convoys across the North Atlantic and to South Africa. The 5,395 ton coal fired ship, laden with 8,000 tons of armaments originally set sail on 27 November 1941 to join convoy PQ6 but encountered a fierce storm in which a lorry broke free in the hold and started a fierce blaze below decks. Despite valiant attempts to extinguish the fire the Harmatris was forced to return to Glasgow for repair. Having discharged its cargo, examined and repaired the holds, it restowed and finally put to sea again on 26 December. She was now to join PQ8 and Brundle was elected Convoy Commodore. Two minesweepers, a cruiser and two destroyers escorted the eight merchant vessels.On 8 January the convoy left Reykjavik bound for Murmansk. Harmatris was struck by two torpedoes in No 1 hold which caused flooding. A third torpedo struck her a few hours later and the crew evacuated to HMS Speedwell in attendance. A volunteer crew reboarded and Speedwell took the wounded ship in tow. During the night the same U Boat that had struck Harmatris sunk the destroyer Matabele with the loss of all but two of her crew. A tug eventually replaced Speedwell and the entire crew now returned to their still stricken vessel. On 18 January the ships were twice attacked by low flying Heinkels. The stricken Harmatris finally berthed in Murmansk at 0800 on 20 January. Once unloaded the battered ship entered dry dock on 10 February. The damage was considerable. In a temperature of 40 degrees below zero the crew set about the repairs. It was difficult to locate engine parts and local labor was scarce.During the following months the crew continued to work on the ship, food was scarce and the port was frequently bombed by the Luftwaffe. Several ships close to Harmatris were sunk. It was 21 July when the ship finally left for Archangel. She took aboard a cargo of 3,000 tons of steel pipes and on 13 September she was instructed to join a convoy of 20 ships, QP14 for her return voyage. On 19 September the minesweeper HMS Leda, steaming close by Harmartris, was torpedoed. The convoy was under almost continuous U Boat attack and suffered six losses. As a result of his heroic efforts to preserve his ship and crew Captain Brundle was awarded the OBE and the Lloyds War Medal. He died in 1960 at the age of 66.
Book Synopsis Ice Steel and Fire by : Linda Parker
Download or read book Ice Steel and Fire written by Linda Parker and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The generation that reached maturity in the inter war years had grown up in the shadow of the heroic age of Polar exploration and the sacrifices of a generation in the Great War. Their own adventures were to prove as astonishing and heroic as those of a previous generation. The members of the British Arctic air route expedition to Greenland, including Martin Lindsay, Quintin Riley and Freddie Spencer Chapman, were to pioneer the weather research methods necessary for Trans-Atlantic Flight. The university expeditions to Spitsbergen led by George Binney in the 1920s and Sandy Glen in the 1930s traversed and surveyed unexplored ground and contributed to developments in polar flight and radar. Glen's expeditions added to the knowledge of Arctic conditions by over-wintering. Other pre-war exploits of these adventurers included a voyage around the world the wrong way, and participation in the British Graham Land Antarctic expedition. Peter Fleming, brother to the creator of James Bond - Ian Fleming - spent the 1930s exploring Brazil, China and Tartary. Fleming's exploits are recounted in detail in this book. The character, skills and endurance obtained in these years set these adventurers and explorers apart as men who were to play a distinguished and heroic role in the Second World War. Their expertise in Arctic conditions, small boat handling, and exploring in all climatic conditions resulted in their participation in all aspects of warfare and arenas of battle, particularly as exponents of 'special operations', and as key members of Britain's first special forces. Their war service took them from the fjords of Norway and Spitsbergen to the jungles of Burma and Malaya and the beaches of Normandy and Italy. They were involved in blockade running, covert operations in Yugoslavia, Corsica and France and took part in major initiatives such as Ian Fleming's Intelligence gathering force, No 30 Assault unit, and the raid on St Nazaire. Most of these men had known each other before war came in 1939. In some cases they ended up serving alongside one another in wartime. The intertwined stories of these characters in peace and war are examples of how the spirit of adventure shown by men in the inter war years contributed to Britain's outstanding role in the Second World War. Linda Parker has written an important study that is equally relevant to both the history of British exploration and the genesis and early days of Britain's special forces 1939-45 - a quite unique and hitherto unexamined relationship. Linda Parker combines teaching History on a part time basis with her writing, and is currently completing a PhD at Birmingham University. Her main areas of interest are 20th Century Military History, Church History and the History of Polar exploration. She is a member of the Western Front Association. She was born and educated in Wales, but now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and their dog. She enjoys walking and travelling, ideally together, and her ambition is to visit Antarctica. Her first book published by Helion was The Whole Armour of God: Anglican Army Chaplains in the Great War (2009).
Book Synopsis The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys by : Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones
Download or read book The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys written by Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published here for the first time, this volume presents a superb range of insights into this crucial effort of the Second World War. This Naval Staff History describes the vital role of the Arctic Convoys, 1941-1945 and was first issued by the Historical Section of the Admiralty as a confidential study for use within the Royal Navy in 1954. It grew out of the earlier Battle Summary No. 22 compiled by Commander J. Owen of the Admiralty’s Historical Section and issued in 1943 to cover the convoys run to North Russia in the last half of 1942 and early 1943. That wartime Battle Summary was subsequently revised and expanded by Commander L.J. Pitcairn-Jones to include all the main convoys run from August 1941 until the end of the war using all the historical records which were at hand after the war. A new preface provides additional context for the convoys, highlighting support provided to Russian forces in their struggle against Germany, for the original Staff History was narrowly focused on the naval aspects of the Arctic Convoys to Russia. This is an excellent resource for all students with a particular interest in the Arctic Convoys, the Second World War and in maritime and military history.
Book Synopsis Voices from the Arctic Convoys by : Peter C. Brown
Download or read book Voices from the Arctic Convoys written by Peter C. Brown and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the invasion of Russia by Germany in 1941, Britain gained a new ally and a responsibility to provide material for the new front. More than four million tonnes of supplies such as tanks, fighters, bombers, ammunition, raw materials and food were transported to Russia during a four-year period. The cost was high and by May 1945, the campaign had seen the loss of 104 merchant ships and sixteen military vessels, and the thousands of seamen they carried. The Arctic route was the most arduous of all convoy routes. The ever-present threat of attack from German U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers such as the dreaded Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor were not all the Arctic convoys had to contend with. They had to deal with severe cold, storms, fog, ice floes and waves so huge they tore at the ships armour plating. It is to the memory of these brave men that this book is dedicated and the stories of the immeasurable contribution they made to the Allied efforts during the Second World War have been collected for this book by their veteran comrades.
Book Synopsis Steel and Ice by : Lawrence Paterson
Download or read book Steel and Ice written by Lawrence Paterson and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the land war raged along the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945, an equally fierce and unrelenting war ensued on the seas. From German Wolf Pack attacks on Russian convoy traffic and military vessels to close-quarter combat undertaken by small U-boats transported by land and river to the Black Sea, the Kriegsmarine wrestled for control of the seas fringing an embattled Soviet Union. Combined with the fortitude of U-boat crews who fought in some of the harshest weather conditions found at sea, ingenuity on behalf of German military engineers also facilitated the transfer of U-boats from Germany to Romania. From there, the Kriegsmarine engaged Soviet military might and pioneered the use of submarine-based rocket firing technology against land targets. The struggle between the Kriegsmarine s U-boats and the Red Navy lasted from the opening salvos of Operation Barbarossa to the final chaotic days of Germany s defeat. Available in English for the first time, "Steel and Ice" is well-illustrated, containing never-before-published color and black and white photos."
Book Synopsis The Road to Russia by : Bernard Edwards
Download or read book The Road to Russia written by Bernard Edwards and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bernard Edwards, the formidable naval historian, has researched the fate of Convoys PQ13 and PQ17 bound from Iceland to Northern Russia as well as the westbound Convoy QP13. Attacked relentlessly by aircraft and U-boats, the former lost a total of thirty ships while QP13 ran into a British minefield off Iceland, losing seven vessels. The Road to Russia is an important addition to the bibliography of this bitterly fought campaign.
Book Synopsis Ordeal Below Zero by : Georges Blond
Download or read book Ordeal Below Zero written by Georges Blond and published by Souvenir Press. This book was released on 2018-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From August 1941 convoys of merchant ships gathered in Scottish ports or at Reykjavik and crossed the Arctic Ocean carrying war materials and Red Cross supplies for the Russian cities of Murmansk and Archangel. Each voyage was a struggle for survival through treacherous seas, ice-packs, snowstorms, and the Arctic darkness. The sailors struggled against German bomber planes, U-Boats, and destroyers, as well as the battleship Tirpitz. To survive the sea crossing was just the beginning as they also had to survive the Arctic winter. Georges Blond recreates these voyages, and the heroism of the ships' crews, through official documents, ships' logs, and eye-witness testimony. He conveys the drama and feats of endurance that led Winston Churchill to describe the Arctic convoys as "the worst journey in the world."
Download or read book The Royal Navy written by Duncan Redford and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1900, the Royal Navy has seen vast changes to the way it operates. This book tells the story, not just of defeats and victories, but also of how the navy has adjusted to over 100 years of rapid technological and social change. The navy has changed almost beyond recognition since the far-reaching reforms made by Admiral Fisher at the turn of the century. Fisher radically overhauled the fleet, replacing the nineteenth-century wooden crafts with the latest in modern naval technology, including battleships (such as the iconic dreadnoughts), aircraft carriers and submarines. In World War I and World War II, the navy played a central role, especially as unrestricted submarine warfare and supply blockades became an integral part of twentieth-century combat. However it was the development of nuclear and missile technology during the Cold War era which drastically changed the face of naval warfare - today the navy can launch sea-based strikes across thousands of miles to reach targets deep inland. This book navigates the cross currents of over 100 years of British naval history. As well as operational issues, the authors also consider the symbolism attached to the navy in popular culture and the way naval personnel have been treated, looking at the changes in on-board life and service during the period, as well as the role of women in the navy. In addition to providing full coverage of the Royal Navy's wartime operations, the authors also consider the functions of the navy in periods of nominal peace - including disaster relief, diplomacy and exercises. Even in peacetime the Royal Navy had a substantial role to play. Covering the whole span of naval history from 1900 to the present, this book places the wars and battles fought by the navy within a wider context, looking at domestic politics, economic issues and international affairs. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in naval history and operations, as well as military history more generally.
