I’m the son of a wartime merchant seaman who in 1944 joined ship at age 16 after becoming an orphan. The sea remained his life’s passion even after he got kicked off ship in 1947 as a result of poor eyesight (he was long-sighted and you’d kinda think that a good thing on being a deck officer). I grew up with the stories of the war at sea and guess what: It rubbed off, and in his later life we wrote books together. And so, dear reader, here we are. Welcome to my world.
I wrote
The War for England's Shores: S-Boats and the Fight Against British Coastal Convoys
One of the official histories of the war at sea, Roskill was a distinguished naval officer and a brilliant historian.
This is history that is written with an eye to post-war British politics in which the Royal Navy was struggling for funds to meet the Soviet submarine menace. He also in his writings maintained the wall of secrecy around ultra-derived intelligence. This is a landmark history but one that has the added interest of being shaped by the exigencies of the Cold War.
Captain Roskill has long been recognised as the leading authority on the Royal Navy's part in the Second World War. His Official History (originally published for the HMSO) is unlikely ever to be superseded. His narrative is highly readable, and the analysis is clear.
Roskill describes sea battles, convoy actions and the contribution made by technology in the shape of ASDIC and Radar.
Contents: Maritime War and Maritime Strategy - Maritime War - The British Shore Organisation - The Development of Sea-Air Co-operation - Allied and Enemy War Plans and Dispositions - Opening Moves in Home Waters 3rd September-31st December…
During the Battle of the Atlantic, it was the Merchant Seamen of many nations that kept the flow of supplies running across the Atlantic despite attacks from ship, submarine, and aircraft, together with all the normal hazards of storm and sea.
Civilians from diverse backgrounds, multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-faith they came together as crews to fight their ships through. This is a sympathetic study that takes us into their world to understand why and how, by dogged determination, they withstood the constant dangers to bring their cargo home.
Just a great overall, concise, single-volume study of the Battle of the Atlantic and one that is written from a mid-Atlantic perspective (Milner is a Canadian academic). Great writing Milner conveys the challenges at the heart of the Battle of the Atlantic in which fortunes fluctuated considerably from 1939 to 1945.
World War II was only a few hours old when the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest campaign of the Second World War and the most complex submarine war in history, began with the sinking of the unarmed passenger liner Athenia by the German submarine U30. Based on the mastery of the latest research and written from a mid-Atlantic - rather than the traditional Anglo-centric - perspective, Marc Milner focuses on the confrontation between opposing forces and the attacks on Allied shipping that lay at the heart of the six-year struggle. Against the backdrop of the battle for the Atlantic…
After almost 80 years you might think that there was nothing new to say about the Battle of the Atlantic. This volume shows the scholarship remains vigorous and ongoing.
It highlights the multi-faceted nature and complexity of the Atlantic campaign the understanding of which goes well beyond traditional images of U-Boats hunting convoys in the mid-Atlantic. The team of scholars writing for this study provides fresh perspective on the Battle and the struggle for control of Britain’s sealines of communication between 1939 and 1945
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War. This volume highlights the scale and complexity of this bitterly contested campaign, one that encompassed far more than just attacks by German U-boats on Allied shipping.
The team of leading scholars assembled in this study situates the German assault on seaborne trade within the wider Allied war effort and provides a new understanding of its place within the Second World War. Individual chapters offer original perspectives on a range of neglected or previously overlooked subjects: how Allied grand strategy shaped the war at sea; the choices…
There are many valuable memoirs that can take you inside the stories of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Changing technologies and the grand strategy of winning the Second World War tend to dominate many accounts but memoirs give insight into the lives, emotions, and thoughts of those called on to fight in great waters. Gretton was one of the most capable Royal Navy commanders whose skills and professionalism helped to turn the tide in the Battle.
Read this and see the campaign through his eyes as a professional hunter of U-boats and a good shepherd to the merchant ships under his protection.
An engrossing memoir that uncovers the turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-boat menace.
Perfect for fans of Ian Toll, Jonathan Dimbleby or C. S. Forrester’s Greyhound.
Vice Admiral Sir Peter Gretton’s book is a brilliant account of his career in the navy through World War Two: fighting in the Second Battle of the Narvik, guarding convoys in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, before being placed in charge of Escort Group B7, which he described as “the finest job in the Navy for a new commander”.
The War for England's Shores examines the Kriegsmarine's S-boat offensive along the English Channel and the North Sea from 1940 to 1945, together with British and, later, Allied responses to nullify that threat. Very fast, and armed with torpedoes and mines, S-boats posed a serious threat to the convoys that were forced to run close along the British coast on a daily basis. Despite the significance of this campaign and the real threat to the whole British war economy, it has been, until now, strangely overlooked by historians. Indeed, the book highlights issues around the maritime identity of those states and navies that see themselves in oceanic terms, at the expense of engagement with, and operations in, coastal waters.
I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.
The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.
No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…
