Admiral Schofields accounts of the Taranto and Bismarck battles make for unforgettable reading.The author traces the development of British naval aviation from its early beginnings in 1912, through the First World War and the frustrations of the inter-war years. The November 1940 attack on the Italian fleet in its strongly defended base at Taranto demonstrated for the first time the battle-winning capability of carrier-borne aircraft from HMS Illustrious. The lesson was quickly learnt by t...

A Royal Navy Vice Admiral describes the strategy and logistics in deploying ships and crafts for the D-Day amphibious landings in World War II.Operation NEPTUNE was the codeword for the naval side of the OVERLORD plan for the historic June 1944 landings in Normandy. Massive in its scale, its tasks were wide-ranging and varied, from beach reconnaissance, minesweeping, shore bombardment as well as the organization of loading, assembly and disembarkation; it was also r...

"I recommend The Rescue Ships and the Convoys to any person desiring an account of the Battle of the Atlantic told from a little known and unique perspective." -Nautical Research Journal The Rescue Ships and the Convoys tells the history of one of the least known aspects of Second World War maritime history. Despite the threat of heavy losses of ships and lives, no hospital ships, which had to be lit, could accompany the convoys as they would betray a convoy's position. The solution was to...

A gripping account of the epic hunt for Hitler’s most terrifying battleship – the legendary Tirpitz – and the brave men who risked their lives to attack and destroy this most potent symbol of the Nazi’s fearsome war machine.Tirpitz was the pride of Hitler’s navy. To Churchill, she was ‘the Beast’, a menace to Britain’s supply lines and a threat to the convoys sustaining Stalin’s armies. Tirpitz was said to be unsinkable, impregnable –no other target attracted so much attention....

"The dramatic career of the Queen Elizabeth class super-dreadnought, which fought with such distinction throughout two World Wars . . . a great story." —White Ensign AssociationNo warship name in British naval history has more battle honors than HMS Warspite. While this book looks at the lives of all eight vessels to bear the name (between 1596 and the 1990s), it concentrates on the truly epic story of the seventh vessel, a super-dreadnought battleship, con...

In February 1942, three of the major ships of the German surface fleet – the battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen – stormed out of the harbour at Brest on a dramatic voyage back to Germany. Passing through the straights of Dover, the ships faced everything the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy could throw at them. In a dramatic running fight, the ships managed to sail right under the nose of history's greatest maritime nation to reach the safety of ...

DESCRIPTIONJohn Moffat: Legend of the Bismarck tells the remarkable story of a Fleet Air Arm pilot and flying legend who, with a single torpedo strike, delivered from an obsolete biplane, in a force nine gale, in the middle of the Atlantic, brought about the sinking of Nazi Germany’s most powerful battleship, the Bismarck.This short book gives the reader a concise and straightforward insight into the achievements of John Moffat and one of ...

"An excellent account . . . A suspenseful narrative that will keep readers on the edge of their seats." — WWII History MagazineIn May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy's pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare.In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of t...

In the darkest days of World War II, the British planned a daring airborne operation to capture the secret of the new German radar.Lead by Major John Frost, a company of paratroopers dropped into Bruneval on the French coast, and quickly neutralized a small German garrison. Then began a desperate fight for time as the British tried to dismantle the German radar and evacuate back to England, as ever more German units converged on their position.Using artwork...

The Battle of Jutland was the greatest naval engagement of the First World War, if not any war. Admiral Scheer had adopted a policy of launching attacks against the British coast. What he did not know was that the British had broken his naval codes and that they knew of his plans. Consequently, when Scheer threw his entire fleet in a mission to attack the British mainland in May 1916, he could not know that the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow were underway.This is a fresh account of this greatest...

With the outbreak of World War II, Britain's Royal Navy and her fleet of battleships would be at the forefront of her defence.Yet ten of the 12 battleships were already over 20 years old, having served in World War I, and required extensive modifications to allow them to perform a vital service throughout the six long years of conflict. Angus Konstam offers a comprehensive review of the development of these British battleships from their initial commissioning to th...

Includes, 21 maps/diagrams and 23 Illustrations/photosThe Royal Air Force is the oldest independent air force in the world, having gained its spurs over the trenches of Flanders in the First World War it was officially established in 1918. However it was during the Second World War that it would achieve its greatest successes yet, from an inauspicious start following post war budget cuts it would rise to become a decisive factor in the campaign to remove the Nazis from Europe and th...