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The mere presence of the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord was enough to haunt Allied war planners and keep a significant part of Britain's fleet tied to home waters. Consequently, repeated attempts were made throughout the Second World War to sink the ship, including mini submarine raids and many bomber attacks. Patrick Bishop's book is a tale of technology, ingenuity and daring, culminating in the final, successful assault of Autumn 1944, using Barnes Wallis's 'Tallboy' bombs.

During the Battle of Crete in 1941, HMS Gloucester was attacked by dive bombers and sunk; 83 of the 810 crew were rescued by German vessels the following day. Including first-hand accounts from survivors, this volume tells the ship’s story from its launch in 1937, investigating in particular the controversial circumstances of its sinking and the failure of any British ship to search for survivors.

The Battle of the North Cape off the coast of Norway was one of the last ship-to-ship engagements fought and HMS Belfast was among the British contingent that sunk the German battleship Scharnhorst. This history of the cruiser tells its story in the context of the wider role of the Royal Navy in the Second World War as well as reviewing its post-war duties before it assumed its present role as a museum ship.

After a long history as a site of strategic importance, Gibraltar, the lone British stronghold in the Mediterranean, played a vital role in the Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). This history examines how the military and naval offensive potential of the hitherto defensive fortress was realized; the part Gibraltar played as the site of British and Spanish negotiations during the Peninsular War; and how its garrison and dockyard contributed to Nelson’s victories in the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar.

Information is power, and sea charts, with their details of harbour approaches, coastal hazards, tides and currents, have often been closely guarded secrets. Handsomely illustrated with historic maps drawn from maritime archives around the world, this large-format book explains how sea charts developed in response to changing military techniques and technology. Informative captions set the charts in context, and describe their function in planning, preventing, conducting and recording war at sea, from Francis Drake to the D-Day landings.

The Royal Navy took the lead in the highly complex task of delivering the largest invasion force in history to the Normandy beaches, supporting the attack with thousands of vessels and building temporary harbours to keep them supplied long after the first landings. This lesser-known side of the D-Day story is told through a collection of first-hand accounts of sailors aboard HMS Belfast and illustrated with contemporary photographs, sketches and paintings.

After the Acts of 1807 and 1833 that abolished slavery across the British Empire, the Royal Navy patrolled the African coast to enforce the law; yet there were still slave markets around the Indian Ocean in the 1860s. This book tells of four British naval officers who took direct action – against Admiralty guidelines which advised adjudication rather than violence – to free captives and disrupt the slave trade along the coasts of Africa and Arabia.

In the years before the First World War, British journalist Hector Bywater used his role as naval correspondent for the New York Herald to bluff his way into dockyards and naval installations across Germany. He would memorize important details then report his findings back to MI6 in London. First published in 1931, these remarkable memoirs recount Bywater’s years as an active secret service agent for the Royal Navy.

Following a tradition dating back to 1545, naval commanders would write an official despatch to the Admiralty to explain their actions during significant naval operations. This collection of despatches, published in association with the National Archives, covers events which impacted hugely on the Second World War, including the convoys in the Mediterranean and Russia, amphibious operations such as Dieppe, the evacuation of Crete, and the assault phase of the Normandy landings.

From the fall of Poland in September 1939, to the invasion of Norway in April 1940, the Norwegian historian Geirr Haarr describes fierce naval struggles, including the sinking of Courageous, the German mining of the British East Coast and the Altmark incident. In this meticulously detailed study, Haarr shows that there was no ‘phoney war’ at sea in those early months of the Second World War.

The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 by a German U-boat, drowning nearly 1,200 civilian passengers, including 128 Americans, was greeted with jubilation by the German establishment and press. Although it resulted in America’s entry into the First World War, it also marked the beginning of a new kind of brutality in German warfare which, Willi Jasper argues in this erudite study, precipitated the totalitarian violence for which Germany became notorious.

Brought to life here by a former Royal Navy captain, the war at sea was fought in three stages: between cruisers overseas; in home waters between rival battle fleets; and, for the first time in any war, under the sea. First published in 1968.

Uniforms were first sanctioned for officers in the Royal Navy in the 18th century, with the stripes on the cuff of captains' blue coats and lace adornment for admirals being the only insignia of rank. The uniform regulations of 1856 introduced a more complex system, with differences across rank and service distinguished by buttons, badges, epaulettes, cuff stripes, swords and styles of hat. This book catalogues all these variations with comprehensive illustrations and historical photographs of naval officers in uniform.

The 42-year naval career of Sir Thomas Fremantle (1765–1819) spanned a period when British naval power was crucial; his first experience of war was the American War of Independence, and he fought alongside his friend Nelson at Bastia, Tenerife, Copenhagen and, as captain of HMS Neptune, at Trafalgar. Drawing on personal letters and diaries, this biography paints a vivid picture of one of the Georgian navy’s greatest sea captains.

Facing defeat in 1945, Hitler ordered the destruction of official military documents. Admiral Dönitz defied the order, believing that the German navy had fought an honourable war and had nothing to hide. The result was the survival of these first-hand accounts, written without hindsight, of Hitler's meetings with his naval commanders-in-chief, Raeder and Dönitz, and other high-ranking officers. This edition contains the original Anthony Martienssen translation made for the British Admiralty and first published in 1947.

The first encounter at sea of the Second World War took place along the South American coast when three British ships inflicted enough damage on the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee to corner it in Montevideo harbour. The captain, encouraged by British misinformation, chose to scuttle his ship rather than face destruction. This account of the famous episode was first published in 1956 and also contains the official despatch from the British commander.

Both Britain and Germany claimed victory in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916; the Royal Navy losing more ships and men but successfully containing the German fleet for the duration of the war. The outcome, its significance and the performance of the commanders during the battle has been debated ever since, and this book provides a picture of how events unfolded and what people thought at the time through official records and despatches, newspaper reports and detailed personal accounts.

This illustrated introduction to Napoleonic naval history describes the ships that fought at sea, providing details of their construction and armaments; accounts of daily life on board and the problems faced by commanders; and an outline of the battles in which they took part.

In this follow-up to his much-acclaimed Maritime Supremacy, Padfield continues to trace the role of naval power in world history, here analysing the factors that led Britain to global dominance in the 19th century.

Admiral Reinhard Scheer (1863–1928) commanded the German High Seas Fleet during the First World War, and was the first frontline officer to publish his account of the naval conflict. Reprinted here with a new introduction, it provides a rare insight into the attitudes of German naval officers, and a unique first-hand account of the controversial Jutland operation of 1916, the unrestricted submarine warfare that brought the USA into the war, and the Zeppelin raids on Britain.

The first clash between ironclad battleships took place off the coast of Virginia during the American Civil War in 1862. The battle provided conclusive proof of the effectiveness of the new technology and proved a major turning point in naval design. This book examines the building of the Confederacy's armoured Merrimack and the Union's race to build a competitive vessel (the Monitor, in whose development Lincoln was personally involved), and assesses the profound legacy of their engagement.

The location, strength and operational status of enemy ships was of primary concern to the belligerent nations during the Second World War, with the threat of powerful vessels such as Tirpitz significantly affecting military planning. Aerial and surface reconnaissance photographs were acquired whenever possible and this book presents a collection of such images, drawn from contemporary intelligence files, assessing the vessels of the German, Italian, French and Japanese navies. Former USAF photo interpreter Roy Stanley provides expert commentary.

The mere presence of the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord was enough to haunt Allied war planners and keep a significant part of Britain's fleet tied to home waters. Consequently, repeated attempts were made throughout the Second World War to sink the ship, including mini submarine raids and many bomber attacks. Patrick Bishop's book is a tale of technology, ingenuity and daring, culminating in the final, successful assault of Autumn 1944, using Barnes Wallis's 'Tallboy' bombs.

Robert C Stern recounts twelve significant or unusual actions in the history of destroyer warfare, from the first use of torpedo craft during the Russo-Japanese War to an attack on USS Cole in Aden, 2000.

Horatio Nelson was undoubtedly Britain's greatest naval commander. Although his complex character often made him enemies and led to mistakes in both his public and private life, he was an unrivalled seaman, an original and brave tactician and a charismatic leader. In this volume, Brian Lavery describes a legend in naval history, from his first naval posting at the age of twelve to his heroic death at Trafalgar. Published in association with the National Maritime Museum.

It was while researching the Chesapeake Bay Campaign of 1814 that Bryan Perrett came across 'Captain Gordon RN' in CS Forester's Naval War of 1812 and began to see parallels between Gordon, who had commanded a diversionary force on the Potomac, and Forester's later fictional character, Horatio Hornblower. In this book, Perrett presents a full biography of Admiral Gordon and his long and extraordinarily distinguished career.

Having proved himself a remarkable fighting seaman during a circumnavigation of the globe attacking Spanish shipping, Woodes Rogers was appointed Governor of the Bahamas by George I and tasked with the job of ridding the colony of pirates. Drawing on his own memoir as well as other contemporary sources, including notes from the trials of notorious pirates, this book recounts Rogers's adventures, which include rescuing the marooned Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.

From the mid 18th century to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy was the nation's greatest expense and biggest employer. The ensuing public interest made household names of its commanders and established the 'Jack Tar' as an ideal of no-nonsense British pluck. This book explores the period through the lens of contemporary caricaturists such as Gillray, Rowlandson and Cruikshank; its selection of satirical and sometimes bawdy prints is drawn from the National Maritime Museum collection.

Strong-minded yet vulnerable, ambitious yet insecure, Britain's greatest naval hero was a man in need of constant reassurance. Wellington thought him 'so vain and silly as to surprise and almost disgust me'. This second volume of Sugden's authoritative biography charts Nelson's life from 1797 to his death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Drawing on letters and diaries, it interweaves his victories at the Nile and Copenhagen with his stormy relations with colleagues and his scandalous private life.

Although powerful and fast, the heavy cruisers and battleships of the German fleet, such as Graf Spee and Tirpitz, achieved comparatively little and were defeated by overwhelming numbers of smaller Royal Navy ships. Meanwhile, British battleships, notably HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Hood also succumbed to torpedoes and shelling. This volume presents despatches of the commanders of ships engaged in actions ranging from the Battle of the River Plate in 1939 to Pacific operations in 1945.

Louis Mountbatten's equivocal reputation as a war leader is typified by the contrast between his heroic actions as captain of HMS Kelly, the inspiration for the film In Which We Serve, and his masterminding of the disastrous raid on Dieppe in 1942. This analysis of his life examines the experiences that formed him, from his childhood among European royalty and naval apprenticeship up to these famous wartime engagements that preceded his appointment to South East Asia Command in 1943.

The story of German U-boat U-604, using official war diaries and survivors’ testimonies to tell of her engagement in some of the fiercest convoy battles of the Atlantic war, of the throughout

The civilian-manned Royal Fleet Auxiliary (its unofficial motto: 'Ready For Anything') provides worldwide support to the Royal Navy. This history discusses its rising importance, from inception in 1905, through two world wars, to 1950. The book features many little-known military operations, plus archive photographs and personal accounts of life in the auxiliary. Tables contain data on vessels that served in the fleet, while appendices include such information as colour schemes, battle honours and a detailed chronology.