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US Naval Institute Top publisher of naval related titles, Naval History Magazine,
Proceedings and outstanding photographic collection all available
here |
Naval history sites .
Useful repositories of primary source material.
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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