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Warships: books - deployment at sea (Second World War)

A book on warships? Here are illustrated books on the deployment of warships at sea during the Second World War.


1939 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

The Second World War at sea began badly for the Allies. On the day that war was declared, the unarmed passenger liner Athenia was sunk off Rockall, creating an uproar on both sides of the Atlantic. The same month saw the loss of HMS Courageous, a badly needed aircraft carrier, as well as the daring raid by Günther Prien's U-49 on HMS Royal Oak while she was berthed in the supposedly safe anchorage of Scapa Flow during October.
In the meantime, German commerce raiders were creating havoc in the South Atlantic. It was only in December that the battlecruiser Graf Spee was finally cornered and scuttled off Montevideo, giving the hard-pressed Allies some good news to end the year.

In the first of a series of books, naval expert Phil Carradice takes us through the war at sea in 1939, using previously unpublished and rare images of the battles, the ships and the people involved.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:144 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 x 0.9 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 x 0.35 in, paperback
Illustrations:240 b&w photographs
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2014)
EAN:9781445622354
Book: 1939 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1939 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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1940 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

January 1940 saw the escalation of the sea war between Britain and Germany. U-boats would claim numerous casualties, including HMS Exmouth and all 135 of her crew on 21 January 1940. In February, Hitler ordered unrestricted submarine warfare, while HMS Cossack rescued crews of British ships sunk by the Graf Spee from the supply ship Altmark. An air raid on the naval base at Scapa Flow saw the first British civilian casualties of the war in March.
Two invasions of Norway began in April, with the Germans ultimate victors. HMS Glorious was sunk during the evacuation of British troops and aircraft. May saw Dunkirk, the British rescue of some 334,000 troops, and the Lancastria was sunk with the loss of over 6,000 lives in June.

July saw an attack on the French fleet by the British, in an effort to deny the battleships to the Germans. The Americans agreed to supply Britain with aged destroyers in exchange for bases and the invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion, was set for September.
November saw HMS Jervis Bay sunk while escorting a convoy, many of which managed to escape. The year ended with a continued assault on British ships by U-boats.

Using many rarely seen images, Phil Carradice tells the story of 1940: The War at Sea.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:144 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 in, paperback
Illustrations:240 b&w photographs
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2014)
EAN:9781445622408
Book: 1940 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1940 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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1941 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

At the beginning of 1941, Britain stood alone against Germany and Italy. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing. Hitler's U-boats were operating in packs, descending on convoys and sinking many millions of tons of shipping.
In May, the formidable German battleship Bismarck left port, heading out into the North Atlantic. After sinking the battlecruiser HMS Hood off Iceland, she was eventually cornered by the Royal Navy in the Bay of Biscay and sunk herself.

A major breakthrough came when a naval Enigma code machine was captured from the U-boat U-110.
With the attack by Hitler on Russia in June, convoys began to be sent up the coast of Norway to the northern ports of Murmansk and Archangel, carrying war material to support the struggling Soviets.
December 1941 saw the war become a truly global conflict, with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia bringing the United States into the war.

Using many rarely seen images, Phil Carradice tells the story of 1941: The War at Sea.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:136 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 x 0.8 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 x 0.31 in, paperback
Illustrations:illustrated
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2014)
EAN:9781445622453
Book: 1941 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1941 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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1942 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

As 1942, the fourth year of the war, began, victory for the Allies was still a long way off. German submarines were sinking ships off the coast of the United States in what would become known as the 'Second Happy Time' for the U-boat crews while Allied vessels were falling victim to Japanese aircraft and warships in the Far East.
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen made their dash through the Channel to German waters while in the Arctic the battleship Tirpitz and German aircraft and submarines menaced the convoys supplying Russia.

However, convoys continued to get through to supply beleaguered Malta despite heavy losses to submarines and aircraft, and in the Pacific the US Navy inflicted defeats on the Japanese at the key battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, battles in which the major vessels never actually saw each other, fighting with carrier-borne aircraft instead.
Troops were landed on the island of Guadalcanal and in North Africa.

In this book, Phil Carradice uses many rarely seen images to tell the story of the Second World War at Sea in 1942.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:136 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 in, paperback
Illustrations:200 b&w photographs
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2015)
EAN:9781445622491
Book: 1942 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1942 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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1943 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

At the beginning of the year, the Battle of Guadalcanal was still raging on, but the Americans had secured their first complete victory in the Pacific by the end of February, although the war in this theatre was far from over, with several further engagements taking place throughout the year.

'Black May', the point in the Battle of the Atlantic at which the German U-boat losses outnumbered how many ships they had sunk, forced Dönitz to order a withdrawal.

From July to August, the Allies were engaged in the invasion of Sicily, known as Operation Husky. The operation was successful, and allowed for the invasion of Italy. The year ended positively for the Allies, with the sinking of the Scharnhorst at the end of December.

In this book, Phil Carradice uses many rare images to tell the story of the Second World War at sea in 1943.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:136 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 in, paperback
Illustrations:200 b&w photographs
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2015)
EAN:9781445622521
Book: 1943 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1943 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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1944 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

The sixth year of the Second World War began positively for the Allies, with the successful landings at Anzio, codenamed Operation Shingle. The landings eventually led to the liberation of Rome, an important milestone in the war.

The year 1944 was, however, dominated at sea by Operation Neptune, better known as the D-Day landings, on 6 June. From this point, the Allies continued to expand their foothold in Normandy, and throughout France. As the largest seaborne invasion in history, the Normandy landings were a turning point of the war.

Later in the war, on the other side of the world, the Americans were launching the successful amphibious attacks on the Mariana Islands. Having captured Saipan, the American forces were in a much better strategic position in the war against Japan.

Operation Dragoon was launched in the south of France in the middle of August, and continued for a month. While the troops in northern France were making steady progress, the soldiers in the south were advancing quickly, taking Toulon and Marseille within two weeks.

In this book, Phil Carradice uses a variety of rarely seen photographs to continue the story of the Second World War at sea into 1944.

Author:Phil Carradice
Specs:136 pages, 23.5 x 16.5 cm / 9.25 x 6.5 in, paperback
Illustrations:200 b&w photographs
Publisher:Amberley Publishing (GB, 2016)
EAN:9781445622538
Book: 1944 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

1944 - The Second World War at Sea in Photographs

Language: English

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Militär- und Seeoperationen im Mittelmeer - 1939-1945

Das Mittelmeer war Schauplatz zahlreicher Kampfhandlungen. So kam es von beiden Kriegsparteien zu Schutzmassnahmen rund um Versorgungslinien für die eigenen Nachschubkonvois und zu Angriffen auf die gegnerischen.

Das neue Buch von Gabriele Faggioni behandelt diesen Seekrieg im Mittelmeer in den Jahren 1940 und 1945. Es beschreibt in chronologischer Reihenfolge die wichtigsten Kampfhandlungen, die in jedem Einzeljahr dieses Zeitraums stattgefunden haben.
Neben den rund 200 Abbildungen ? die zumeist noch nie veröffentlicht wurden ? werden die Abläufe anhand von Karten thematisiert und verdeutlicht.

Author:Gabriele Faggioni
Specs:192 pages, 26.5 x 23 cm / 10.4 x 9.1 in, hardback
Illustrations:200 b&w and colour photographs
Publisher:Motorbuch Verlag (D, 2019)
EAN:9783613041837
Book: Militär- und Seeoperationen im Mittelmeer - 1939-1945

Militär- und Seeoperationen im Mittelmeer - 1939-1945

Language: German

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Last update:27-03-2024