The most recommended naval history books

This was the first series of heroic historical fiction I ever read. Forester’s narratives had the power to pull me into the stories as if I was serving alongside Horatio Hornblower.

The series follows the exploits of seventeen-year-old Midshipman Hornblower in 1794 as he rises in rank and responsibilities to flag rank by 1815. During the course of the series, we watch Hornblower mature from an unsure, bookish teenager to become a self-confident and bold commander. Forester’s ability to meld true historical events and personages into his narratives captured me from the start and is a quality that I strive to accomplish in my own writing. I read these books decades ago and still keep them on my bookshelf for when I need inspiration or want to understand how Forester resolved certain authorly issues.

So much has been written on Operation Hawaii, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, that I doubted initially that Takuma Melber’s slim volume would be much different from the many accounts I have read on this iconic event in the past. But I was wrong! Melber’s authoritative and persuasive book brings another vital and welcome dimension into play by revealing the Japanese side of the narrative. Explaining the necessity for an attack that would unleash war with the US without guaranteeing victory thereafter, Tōjō Hideki remarked in October 1941: “Once in a lifetime, one must show courage, close one’s eyes and jump from the terrace of the Kiyomizu-dera.” In other words, a proverbial ‘leap into the unknown’ in the hope that one might survive it. Japan didn’t.

A lot of the fiction and non-fiction around the Age of Sail and the Georgian navy focuses on the officers and the larger battles, so this book, discussing the lives of ordinary sailors, is very refreshing.

I read it for research for my own writing and really enjoyed the excerpts from the letters and other documents of the diverse groups of men (and women) who sailed on the ships of the line.

There is an intimacy there of seeing how these various stories and lives played out against the backdrop of wider events and political issues. It is something I always bear in mind while writing my own (fictional) narratives. 

Also published by the Naval Institute Press, Goldrick’s work smashes the widely held view that the German navy, allegedly so demoralized by its lesser losses at Jutland – but casualties that included flagship battlecruiser Lützow – that it never ventured to sea again. On the contrary, the German fleet, emboldened by inflicting much greater losses on the British, set to sea again in August 1916 reinforced with two new 15-inch-gun battleships. Even stronger in April 1918, it went out again, this time with Lützow’s replacement, Hindenburg. Jutland-like engagements almost occurred, but interesting circumstances prevented the two fleets from missing one another and another slugfest. Goldrick also details operations in the Baltic Sea as well as many other aspects of North Sea warfare after Jutland (e.g. mining campaigns) left out of other works.  

An old army buddy of mine used to say that when he had trouble at work and was worried about being able to support his family and when life was beginning to be a little too much, he would pick up a copy of The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. Soon, he’d be transported to the deck of the USS San Pablo, during the 1920s, steaming up the Yangtze River in the heart of China and suddenly everything was right.

McKenna was a sailor in the US Navy for 22 years (1931 to 1953). He enlisted at the age of 18 and was assigned to the “China fleet,” patrolling largely between Guam, Okinawa, and Japan. He served through World War II and the Korean War. After finally retiring, he went to school on the GI Bill and started to write. His first and only novel was The Sand Pebbles,… show more.

The author’s first-hand interviews with the subjects, naval officers, crews, sailors, and naval pilots offered a front-row seat for me as a reader. Li brings China’s naval operations into a clear view and offers an insightful perspective on their navy’s operations in the South China Sea.

In short, he brings China’s naval history alive and offers us a better understanding of the current standoff between Washington and Beijing. I recommend it to anyone who wants a clear and unwavering picture of the evolving military balance in the Indo-Pacific region.

In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced laborers in the eighteenth century. In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Forced service robbed approximately 250,000 mariners of their livelihoods, and, not infrequently, their lives, while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones left behind. Press gangs, consisting of a navy officer backed by sailors and occasionally local toughs, often used violence or the threat of violence to supply the manpower necessary to maintain British naval supremacy. But impressment helped to unite Britain and its Atlantic coastal territories in a common system of maritime defense unmatched by any other European empire.

This is C.S. Forester’s famous naval hero Horatio Hornblower at his best. Captain Hornblower is in command of his first ship of the line. Forester knows ships from bowsprit to sternchasers and you can feel it in every word. There's a truth to the writing that puts you right down in the thick of it. Duty, skill and courage are on display throughout and the climax, when Captain Hornblower accepts an impossible task to protect his allies, and turns his ship to face three to one odds, knowing he cannot win? It’s a masterclass in writing a battle scene, sailors facing certain death with iron will. Nerve wracking doesn’t begin to cover it.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy was the largest employer in the world. It maintained a fleet of close on 1,000 ships, including over 100 line-of-battle ships, and was responsible for the entire organisation of maintaining them at sea. Through his evocative selection of 100 objects Glover takes you back in time to share his admiration for a golden age when Britain ruled the seas.

Gordon’s book delights and displeases in turn.

He shows how the baked in traditions of blind obedience to orders, together with the class-based culture and selection for command, hindered the actions of the Royal Navy during WW1. Not all of his statements are correct and sometimes his naval history is shaky but the tale is well told and it is an absorbing read.