Archive Results For: English Channel
Book Review – ‘U-boat Ace: The story of Wolfgang Lüth; Teddy Suhren Ace of Aces: Memoirs of a U-boat rebel; U-boat 977: The true story of the U-Boat that escaped to Argentina’ by David Bowen
This is a small wolf pack of U-boat books which share a number of similarities. They all come from the Pen and Sword stable, share a high production quality and are new editions of works already published … Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Period | North Sea | WW2 | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Biography | Submarines
Review – ‘Britain and the Mine, 1900–1915: Culture, strategy and international law’ by Matthew S. Seligmann
Underwater weapons – specifically, mines and torpedoes – have had a profound influence on twentieth-century naval warfare. Despite this, studies of them to date have not been all they might be. Richard Dunley seeks to rectify this in respect of the mine with a major evaluation of its place in Royal Navy thinking and planning […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Period | North Sea | Other (Twentieth C) | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Miscellaneous | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy | Weapons
Book Review – ‘The Battleship Holiday: The naval treaties and capital ship design’ by Robert J. C. Mowat
This is a book which belies its title, and is much the better for doing so. The successive treaties that define the title enter the narrative late (p. 87) and leave it early (p. 188) but are discussed in commendable detail. The complex interplay of personalities, national objectives and priorities, economic limitations and developing technologies […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | English Channel | North Sea | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919–22: Naval and foreign policy under Lloyd George’ by Richard Dunley
The historiography of the Royal Navy in the periods before and during the First World War has grown and developed in an extraordinary fashion over the past 10 to 15 years. This has fundamentally changed how we view the organization which fought the conflict from a political, social, technological and strategic perspective. This development tends […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Interwar | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘We Die Like Brothers: The sinking of the SS ‘Mendi’’ by Clifford J. Pereira
The SS Mendi sank off the Isle of Wight in 1917, with the loss of over 600 South African passengers. The book underlines one of a number of instances where the courage and determination of men from the empire lost their lives through a mixture of incompetency and accident. However, it is the aspirations for […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | English Channel
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Miscellaneous | Navies
Book Review – ‘Coastal Patrol: Royal Navy Airship operations during the Great War 1914–1918’ by Frank Scott
This is a niche topic, but the author, Brian J. Turpin, has a solid grounding in aviation technology, and does an excellent job in detailing the rapid wartime development of the Royal Navy’s non-rigid airship types, from the earliest Submarine Scouts, through to the Sea Scout Zeros and Coastals, and ending with the well-regarded North […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | English Channel
Subjects include: Naval Aviation
Book Review – ‘Around Cape Horn Once More: The story of the French clipper ship ‘Montebello’’ by Frank Scott
This book centres on the life of the French barque Montebello (2,284 grt) from launch in October 1900 until it was wrecked in November 1906. The use of old postcards to illustrate places mentioned in the text works well, and the wreck photographs of the Montebello and Croisset are suitably poignant. However, the author, Paul Simpson, writes throughout […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Other (Twentieth C) | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Biography | Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Miscellaneous
Book Review-‘Catastrophe at Spithead: The sinking of the ‘Royal George’’ by H. L. Rubinstein
Hilary Rubinstein’s in-depth research has successfully collated all the relevant information to explain why the 100-gun Royal George should have foundered on 29 August 1782 while at anchor between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Certainly, to the many witnesses it was beyond belief that she could just disappear with only her mast visible in […] Read More
Filed under: English Channel | Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Book Review: ‘The Other Norfolk Admirals: Myngs, Narbrough and Shovell’ by Sam McLean
In this book retired consultant anaesthetist Simon Harris discusses the careers of three important Royal Navy flag officers in the period 1660 to 1707: Christopher Myngs, John Narborough (or Narbrough) and Cloudesley Shovell. The book begins with a short description of the lives of the three admirals before they joined the Royal Navy; however it […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Period | Eighteenth Century | Other (Early Modern)
Subjects include: Biography | Navies
Book Review – ‘The Royal Navy Lynx: An operational history’ by David Bowen
The naval version of the Lynx helicopter operated by the Royal Navy has this year (1918) been withdrawn after 40 years of distinguished service. Moreover, it is ‘an aircraft that has never really had its praises sung’, so an account is not only timely but long overdue. One may ask why a book about an […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | North Sea | Post WW2 | Indian Ocean | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Miscellaneous | Naval Aviation
Book Review – ‘French Battleships of World War One’ by Andrew Lambert
This book is the prequel to John Jordan’s French Battleships 1922–1956 of 2009, written with Robert Dumas. Anyone who has read that superb book will know what to expect. This time Philippe Caresse shares the writing credits. The opening section examines French naval policy and capital ship procurement after the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1 | English Channel | Interwar | WW2 | Mediterranean | Nineteenth Century | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘I Hope to Have a Good Passage: The business letters of Captain Daniel Jenkins, 1902–11’ by J. D. Davies
David Jenkins, the former principal curator of the transport collections at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, has done a splendid job of editing this remarkable collection of documents, and placing them before a wider audience. Daniel Jenkins (1871–1922; apparently no relation of the editor) was born in the village of Aberporth on Cardigan Bay, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | Irish Sea | Mediterranean | Other (Twentieth C) | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Biography | Harbours & Dockyards | Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines