The War at Sea Volume I. The Defensive

History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series

by Stephen Wentworth Roskill

Narrative version of the famous 'War at Sea' series by Roskill. Anyone familiar with these fascinatiing books will realise that it is impossible to reproduce the many maps, tables and appendixes of the original in 'Kindle' format - you can't squeeze an A3 map or table onto a A5 Kindle and still read it. Nevertheless the detailled and highly information text stands on his own as one of the greatest books about the Second World War. It is both a literary and historical masterpiece - a 20th Century 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The first volume takes from the pre war planing for war, through the Battle of the River Plate, The Campaign in Norway, and Dunkirk. and on into the the pivotal year of 1941. No aspect of the War at Sea is missed. In the final sections the stress of the Royal Navy is apparent with too few ships to cover too many commitments. The book culminates with the disasters at Singapor and Pearl Harbour. This is not just a book about the Royal Navy, succeeding volumes cover the operations of the US Navy with a detail and breath of strategic vision only surpassed by Morisons 'History of US Naval Operations in WWII' Not only is it a history and work of literature - it is also a textbook on Naval Strategy with references to many famous writers such as Mahan and Corbett that provide insight into to all the many and varied aspects of WWII.

Genres: History, World War II

950 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 9, 2013

About the author

Captain Stephen Wentworth Roskill, CBE, DSC, FBA, DLitt, was a career officer in the Royal Navy, serving during the Second World War and, after his enforced medical retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960. He is now chiefly remembered as a prodigious author of books on British maritime history.

Reviews

[Derek Nudd]

Comprehensive account, republished in paperback 2004. It suffers from having been written before the achievements of GCCS (or indeed other NID branches such as CSDIC) could be made public, so Roskill had to claim near-miraculous feats of guesswork and reconnaissance for (e.g.) the interception of German supply ships. My copy still has a forest of tags sticking out of it for further reference, so it must be good.

[Andrew Stone]

Impossible to underrate this highly detailed literary masterpiece. Not for someone who whats an exciting war story, it is a highly technical historical work, but it is without equal in terms of describing the naval war in WWII