"Mr. President, these are the exploits of a battleship--that much maligned weapon which our armchair strategists have loudly proclaimed to be an obsolete and utterly useless weapon untenable in the face of combined sea and air attack."

Senator James J. Davis of Pennsylvania, January 11, 1943.

06/06/09

This web site describes my work and my interests.  I began seriously researching the subject of naval surface combat twenty-five years ago. This began a quest to identify and describe every naval surface action fought during the Second World War. (What do I consider a surface engagement? See the commentary section.)  My quest led, like most quests do, to unexpected discoveries and the growing conviction that much history written after the war inaccurately discounted the contributions of the surface fleets of all nations, dismissing gun and torpedo armed warships as relics of a superseded technology and a bygone era.

The Naval Institute Press published my first book, German Fleet at War in October 2004 and The U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat 1941-1945  in March 2007. Struggle for the Middle Sea: The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940-1945 appeared inJune 2009. See Books. In the same period my work has also appeared in a various periodicals and annuals. See Articles. I am a member of the Naval Institute, the International Naval Research Organization, the San Diego Maritime Museum, and World War II Quarterly's Editorial Review Board. I hold a history degree from the University of California, Berkeley.