News, Articles and Comment

BRE. The latest book review is now available. It looks at the use of Japanese long-range flying boats and US land-based long-range maritime patrol aircraft, in particular the rare direct encounters those aircraft had, over the Pacific in the Second World War.

BRE. The latest book review is now available. It looks at the new edition of Warship published by Osprey, covering a diverse range of naval topics.

BRE. The latest book review is now available. It looks at the history of British aircraft carriers from 1945 to 2010, covering the evolution of the ships and aircraft, and the carriers in action, including in the Falklands.

BRE. The latest book review is now available. It looks at the US Navy’s Essex-class aircraft carriers, which in addition to providing sterling service in the Second World War, continued to serve through the Cold War.

BRE. The latest book review is now available. It covers a book looking at the career of the Vought F4U Corsair, in particular from the perspective of the men who flew the aircraft in action in the Second World War and Korean War.

Ed. David Waters concluded his 1995-1996 series of reflections on the Battle of the Atlantic [84/2 & 84/3] by returning to the question of convoy ‘laws’ and his concern that ideological assumptions and abstract thought concerning future operations would once again take precedence over the scientific conclusions he had reached forty years before. A 25 minute read.

Ed. In this second instalment of his reflections on the Battle of the Atlantic [84/1, p. 68], former Naval Staff historian David Waters, wary of the pernicious abuses of language so frequent in military affairs, asked the difficult question of why the convoy lessons of the First World War were not learnt before the Second. Republished here as part of the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. A 20 minute read.

Ed. The author surveys the Delivering Combined Seapower (DCS) concept, with the goal of moving from interoperable USN-RN operations to a more thoroughly integrated interchangeable dynamic. Credit to the United States Center for Maritime Strategy, originally published on the Maritime Ops Center website (https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/strengthening-the-special-relationship-delivering-combined-sea-power/). A 5 minute read.

Ed. In 1995 staff historian David Waters began publishing in the NR [83/4, p. 349] a series of commentaries on the Battle of the Atlantic, a subject he had mastered while working on The Defeat of the Enemy Attack upon Shipping (1957). He was inspired in this case by the renewed naval history discourse, evident in a review of S. Howarth and D. Law, eds., The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1945 (1994), the International Naval Conference on the battle held in Liverpool in 1993, and related writings in the NR [83/1, p. 84 & 83/2, p. 159]. Republished here as part of the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. A 15 minute read.