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 “Aircraft are fine as long as they are airborne, but they can not stay there indefinitely. They must come to earth sometime.”

  —Admiral Ernest J. King, fall, 1942.

 

02/12/09

 

 

 

Useful Internet sites and books.

The Web

 
bullet US Naval Institute Top publisher of naval related titles, Naval History Magazine, Proceedings and outstanding photographic collection all available here

Naval history sites .

bullet Destroyer History Foundation
bulletNaval Historical Center 
bulletNihon Kaigun 
bulletRegia Marina 
bulletThe Pacific War: The U.S. Navy 
bulletThe Dutch East Indies Campaign 
bullet Chronik des Seekrieges 
bullet Convoy Web 
bulletNaval Weapons 
bulletRoyal Netherlands Navy 

Useful repositories of primary source material.

bullet Technical Mission to Japan Technical reports complied post war.  
bulletFDR Library. Daily war situation reports from Great Britain to FDR 
bulletThe Bates Papers  Correspondence and material from a Naval War College principal 
bulletHyperwar Transcrips of official histories and some primary documentation 
bullet WWII WAR DAMAGE REPORTS U.S. Navy posted by NAVSEA 

Magazines

Warship has published hundreds of great articles since 1977. An index of the quarterly published up through 1988 is here. An index of the annuals 1989-2006 is here. Thank you to The Dreadnought Project  for this information.

Naval History magazine is published by the Naval Institute. Check out their home page  here

The Weider History Group publishes World War II magazine and MHQ. Their website is here.

The International Naval Research Organization publishes Warship International. Their web site is here.

The Pacific War Study Group publishes World War II Quarterly. They may be reached at WorldWarIIQuarterly@gmail.com

WWII History Magazine is here

STORIA Militare is the premier Italian language military history publication. Its web site is here.

Books

Personal favorites:

Brown, David. Warship Loses of WWII. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995. (Some errors, but a handy reference.)

Buell, Thomas B. Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1980. 

Crenshaw, Russell Sydnor, Jr. South Pacific Destroyer: The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998. (The style is good, the perspective is authoritative and the information reliable.)

Cutler, Thomas J. The Battle of Leyte Gulf. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. (The best overview of history's most complicated series of naval battles.)

Darlington, Robert and Fraser McKee. The Canadian Naval Chronicle 1939-1945. St. Catharines ON: Vanwell, 1998. (This is an unusual book; a collection of short articles about episodes in Canada's naval war against Germany. I liked the content, the format and its a good place to start to learn about Canada's contributions to the struggle on the sea.)

de Belot, Raymond. The Struggle for the Mediterranean. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1951. (This is written by a French Admiral who offers a different and refreshing perspective on the Mediterranean War.)

Evans, David C. ed. The Japanese Navy in World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986. (Mostly articles written by Japanese naval officers in the 1950s reprinted from Proceedings.)

Evans, David C. and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. (The most complete reference about the Japanese navy heading into the war. Unfortunately, it ends too soon.)

Frank, Richard B. Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle. New York: Penguin, 1990. (Fifteen years after it was written, Frank’s work remains the standard and the best example of how good a narrative campaign history can be.)

Greene, Jack and Alessandro Massignani. The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943. London: Chatham, 1998. (Good and detail and largely impartial coverage.)

Hoyt, Edwin P. How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz and his Admirals. New York, Lyons Press, 2000. (The cover lists thirty-seven other titles Mr. Hoyt has written.  People dismiss him because he is so prolific. However, I found this book useful. It's almost like a digest of the Grey Book and CINCPAC War Diary.)

Langtree, Christopher. The Kellys: British J, K & N Class Destroyers of World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002. (Langtree covers his subject matter in depth and detail.)

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-1942. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984. (I pick this volume because it is the most battered. It has become fashionable to discount Morison's contributions and in his fifteen volumes there is much that is outdated, wrong, or biased, but he is the author who inspired my love for the subject. His work will never be duplicated.)

Prados, John. Combined Fleet Decoded. New York: Random House, 1995. 

Rohwer J. and G. Hummelchen. Chronology of the War at Sea 1939-1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1992. (The most comprehensive single reference on the war at sea. USNIP recently published a new edition.

Ruge, Friedrich. The Soviets as Naval Opponents 1941-1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1979. (All of Ruge's works and article are worth reading. I mention this book in particular because it presents an overview of a subject that has received so little attention.)

Simpson, Michael, ed. The Cunningham Papers. Aldershot, England: The Navy Records Society, 1999. Two volumes. (This is filled with worthwhile extracts from the papers and reports of Britain's favorite admiral  and a worthwhile commentary from the editor. Also, The Somerville Papers. Great references.)

Smith, Peter C. Action Imminent. London: William Kimber, 1980. (Mr. Smith, unfortunately only seems to write about airplanes these days. While I think his point of view overly partisan, this book and some of his others, Hold the Narrow Sea, Battle of the Malta Convoys, provide excellent detail.)

Stephen, Martin. The Fighting Admirals: British Admirals of the Second World War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991. (Stephen serves up some surprises.)

Wilmott H. P. Empires in the Balance. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1982. (Also his 2005 book on Leyte) 

Worth, Richard. Fleets of World War II. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2001. (A useful one volume reference laced with opinion and good detail.)

Fiction

I like the Judge Dee novels by Robert Van Gulik, the novels of Robertson Davies, particularly the Deptfort Trilogy, and the works of Patrick O'Brian

 

 

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This site was last updated 07/12/09