The Postwar Fleet Volume 1, 1944-1950

620 pages

 

Dr James WE Smith, King’s College London

 

A mysterious veil has divided pre and post-1945 history, particularly military history and even more so the record of navies. On the one hand, there is the issue that for much of the latter half of the 20th century records and experiences were shrouded in classification and secrecy. On the other hand, there have never been better mediums and tools for recording that experience, yet the divide still stands in quality and quantity. The concept of ‘history had ended’ grew in the mindset of Western civilisation, which resulted in one of the great historical tragedies where the proper recording and analysis of post-1945 military history was devalued compared to pre-1945. The best studies are often few and far between, hidden in academic or professional studies. At the same time, public history of the Royal Navy has often been foolishly divided into a mantra of ‘rise and fall’, often by those who should know better. Therefore, it is encouraging that the Navy Record Society (NRS) has had the wisdom to address this by increasing outputs on the Royal Navy after 1945.

The Navy Records Society was established in 1893 to publish historical documents relating to the history of the Royal Navy. This latest contribution continues that tradition by collecting critical documents on the Royal Navy in the latter half of the 20th century and making them accessible. This volume, no. 171 in the arsenal of wisdom that NRS has published, focuses specifically on British naval procurement between 1944 and 1950. To that end, it focuses on technical and procurement policy matters. It achieves that objective much to the editors’ credit, considering gathering records from ‘before the veil’ is often easier than after.

Context is vital to understanding this publication. Any enemy on the seas had been vanquished by 1945. Allied navies had entirely defeated any competitor. Rarely in the history of the seas had such a commanding position been secured. The rise of the Soviet Navy was not inevitable, and the idea that with the destruction of the Kriegsmarine and Imperial Japanese Navy that the day after the Soviet Navy was a power is something that has been imported from American narratives. These narratives were more about securing American sea power in their domestic politics than a reflection of reality, but one that seemingly took hold as American navalists started to dominate the telling of the history of sea power over those with British perspectives in the post-war decades. That sea power had been victorious from 1939 to 1945, enabling the remarkable campaigns of the Second World War, was in stark contrast to the narrative that emerged post-1945: one of land-based air power, misguided continental commitments and atomic bombs. Navies were made to look tired, technologically outdated and vulnerable to new forms of weapons. Although there was some truth in this, their record was often expunged from political and cultural memory and replaced by more glamorous popular narratives like the so-called ‘Battle of Britain’ over that of the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’. The latter was where the fate of Britain lay during wartime. These political battles in austerity Britain would define the policy debate, one that provided the framework of the grey period that is 1945-1950 for British defence. This period set up the turmoil of 1950 and 1960s defence and foreign policy debates, many of which still haunt Britain today. 1945-1950 was a period where uncertainty competed with status quo, something the editor reflects on in his excellent and careful commentary on the decisions for naval procurement and the difficult choices that the best authority on maritime matters faced: The Admiralty.

There is a lingering feeling in the publication of ‘where is this going?’ that NRS and the editor will presumably address in subsequent volumes that move into the 1950s and beyond. This publication is more technically focused and sets out with that aim, and it does it well. Budgets, warship types, equipment, quandaries and dilemmas are all faithfully replicated from the official records that matter. However, we cannot ignore the tendency of many scholars, particularly naval officers as sea professionals, to resort to technocratic views to avoid the challenging and complex questions about the relationship between seapower and state. One that requires vaster studies, which is beyond the scope of an NRS volume. You can track this trend in publications in the same vein, such as Grove’s Vanguard to Trident (1987) and potentially how Hampshire’s forthcoming The Royal Navy in the Cold War Years, 1966-1990: Retreat and Revival (2024) addresses this problem and Grove’s seminal work. Although Grove’s hand was probably more tied by access to records, which gaps or inaccuracies are now addressed in this book, there is a bombastic tendency to side positively rather than negatively about the Royal Navy. Still, we must be mindful that there is more to naval history than technical arguments and naval procurement. Active efforts to make naval discussions purely technical reflect the continually changing pace of weaponry, but this approach can backfire as it often obscures devious efforts to push the debate on seapower away from its strategic and cultural connections. Investment in navies being argued purely on technical grounds and through jargon usually loses the decision maker and reader but also makes it far easier for those arguments to be defeated by those who need to be educated or who are less friendly to it. Something that needs to be learnt from the post-war decades.

This book will be one of the foundational texts to consult for debate and analysis of the Royal Navy after 1945, a debate in desperate need of a reboot. This text is arguably decades late from when it was needed most. There is undoubtedly a need to see critical records of the 1950s and 1960s promptly bought together into subsequent NRS volumes and made as accessible as this one, with the editor being a prime candidate, amongst others, to execute that task. But technical debates are only half the picture. Often, history students have been bludgeoned by technocratically orientated publications on the Royal Navy to shape their thoughts on seapower and naval warfare. At the same time, the higher aspects, like culture and strategy, have played second fiddle, which we also need more scholarship on. This book is indispensable, but it cannot stand alone and must be married with other scholarship to better understand post-1945 British seapower. Congratulations to the editor and NRS. More post-1945 please.