The Second World War (3): The War at Sea

Osprey Essential Histories #30

by Alastair Finlan, Philip D. Grove, Mark J. Grove

This volume provides a comprehensive guide to three major theatres of combat; the battles for the Atlantic, the war in the Mediterranean and the contest in the Indian Ocean. The war at sea was a vital contest, which if lost would have irreversibly altered the balance of the military forces on land. The sea lanes were the logistical arteries of British and subsequent Allied armies fighting on the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Second World War was ultimately won by land forces but it could always have been lost at sea.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2002

Reviews

[Matthew Sowle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book World War Two: The War At Sea as the title shows; written by Alastair Finlan, the book is based upon the naval battles of World War Two in the time November-February 1921 to September 2nd, 1945 to when the Japanese signed a surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay: this book is one of four of the renounced World War Two books for the Sea Battles but One of Ten for the total series. This book describes a date to date summary of each sea battle that had or was planned.
Many times in this book it describes each battle almost down to the very shot of each cannon of each ship; the very first instance of this was on page 13 when there is an image shown of a World War One class battleship under the name of HMS Dreadnought. These images keep showing up throughout the book thanks to the imagery we had then we can also see admirals and war generals or leaders in the book next to important battle such as Pearl Harbor. This occurrence continues to occur on later days or nights as well as the wrecks of the ships of the “downed” ships who have been put in a watery grave. There is a quote from the book that gives a first hand experience to the sinking of a ship,”We had no guns to man and so everyone leaned through the scuttles and watched four German planes as they dived over the Iron Duke
-I actually saw the two bombs, dropped from about 150’, which burst just alongside this old battleship causing her to list heavily to starboard so that she was only saved by being pushed on the mud by about fifteen trawlers.” Through this quote we can now understand that the books talks about the best and worst parts of the war at sea.
Now that you have found the understanding of a War At Sea would you want to live on a boat to just get put into a watery grave or worse. If you can see yourself on the water then join the navy.