Following the sinking of hms Hood in May 1941, the Royal Navy launched one of the largest naval hunts in history. The German ...

In March 1943, Allied air forces meticulously planned and coordinated a strategic assault in the South West Pacific. Their target: Japanese shipping in the Bismarck Sea. The build-up was intense, and ...

On the night of May 18, 1941, the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen steamed out of its base at Gotenhafen (now Gdynia, Poland), followed five hours later by the Kriegsmarine's crown jewel, the ...

Key point: The larger context of the battle—the U.S. Navy being forced to take on the German Navy—would have had serious repercussions for the Pacific theater. Despite the vast scope of the Second ...

U.S. Navy planners in the Pacific, still overestimating the value of battleships, could have been less daring in their absence and fought a holding action until late 1942 or 1943. Had things been ...

The Battleships by Rob McCauley and Ian Johnston (Channel 4 Books, 2000) £20.00. Relates the story of the battleships from the Battle of Trafalgar to the Gulf war, and their role in global history.