HMS Ark Royal Zeal Does Not Rest 1981-2011

HMS Ark Royal Zeal Does Not Rest 1981-2011

Alastair Graham and Eric Grove

368 Pages illustrated 9781904459460 £29.99 hardback Maritime Books 2012

This is a superb looking book and is a history of this British aircraft carrier, which spent much of her life in refit or reserve. Her active duty periods were indeed very busy and included the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many anecdotes are included from former commanding officers and those with a role in the life of the ship. Luckily it appears this famous name will go in the future with a new HMS Ark Royal about 2020 or so.

This book is Maritime Books at their 
best, bringing Royal Navy history to life for future generations.

Occupied St John's A Social History of a City at War 1939-1945

Edited by Steven High

978-0-7735-3750-7 2010-10-12 8.5 x 10 336pp 152 b&w photos $49.95

This book, edited by Steven High, Research Chair in Public History at Concordia University, is a compendium of essays written on St. John’s, Newfoundland during the Second World War, which at the time was a British Crown Colony. The sparsely populated city soon had grow in a hurry early in the war with a massive influx of US and Canadian military personnel. Service in Newfoundland for Canadians constituted foreign service for veteran’s benefits purposes.

An excellent “social” history of St John’s but was disappointed by the little coverage of the Royal Canadian Navy facility HMCS Avalon, whose history sadly remains untold.

United States Naval Aviation 1919-1941

E.R. Johnson

Print 978-0-7864-4550-9 Ebook 978-0-7864-8585-7 605 photos (40 color illustrations), appendices, glossary, bibliography, index 352pp. softcover (8.5 x 11) 2011 $45

The period 1919-1941 witness revolutionary changes in aviation, probably none more so than in naval affairs.

Mr Johnson, a practicing attorney, has a wonderful hobby for naval aviation enthusiasts. His work on naval aviation history is akin to Canada’s P.D. Martin for depth and scope of coverage. This hobby is to really delve into aircraft history, not just the planes that went into production, but also the ones that never went past prototype stage.

Also examined are airships and blimps as well as ships that service/embarked aircraft. The ships involved included not just aircraft carriers, but seaplane tenders, cruisers, battleships and other vessels. A final section covers foreign aircraft and airships which were either used or tested by the US Navy.

This book is profusely illustrated with photos and drawings as well as eight pages of color artwork. We eagerly await the next work from Mr. Johnson.

Tirpitz The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship

Tirpitz The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship

Niklas Zetterling and Michael Tamelander

6 x 9, 256 pages, illustrated, 9781935149187, $32.95, hardback, Casemate December 19, 2009

When I first began reading this book, I was expecting another run of the mill ship history. However I was very pleasantly surprised when I quickly realized it was not. This book was superbly written in that you actually can feel and empathize with the characters regardless of which side of the battle they were on. Two things new that I learned were the fact that British First Sea Lord Dudley Pound was likely suffering from the brain tumor which eventually took his life in 1943 during the fiasco that was Convoy PQ17. In addition, the effects on German decisions due to oil shortages, was not fully appreciated before. The original text of this book is believed to have been in Swedish so a few clunky translations are noted such as the word “crafts” concerning vessels and the use of kilometers in ocean distances when nautical miles should have been used (the whole basis of our system of latitude.)  These should have been caught in editing. Apart from this, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Attack on Pearl Harbor Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

Attack on Pearl Harbor Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions

Alan D. Zimm

6 x 9, 480 pages, illustrations, 9781612000107, $32.95, hardback, Casemate May 6, 2011

Kudos to the author of this book; shows that historians are finally getting past politically correct "revisionist history." Good riddance! Instead this book is a highly analyzed treatise on the attack on Pearl Harbor of 1941 from the perspective of the US and Japanese. With the use modern spreadsheet technologies, results of various actions are examined as to their effectiveness. This serves to place many historical inaccuracies in a better light. Perhaps a little dry for the average reader, but a useful tool for future researchers.

Black Flag The Surrender of Germany's U-Boat Forces on Land and at Sea

Black Flag The Surrender of Germany's U-Boat Forces on Land and at Sea

Seaforth Publishing
By Lawrence Paterson
Hardback ISBN: 9781848320376 Published: 21 August 2009 £15.00

On the eve of Germany's surrender in May 1945, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz commanded thousands of loyal and active men of the U-boat service. Still fully armed and unbroken in morale, enclaves of these men occupied bases stretching from Norway to France, where cadres of U-boat men fought on in ports that defied besieging Allied troops to the last. At sea U-boats still operated on a war footing around Britain, the coasts of the United States and as far as Malaya.
Following the agreement to surrender, these large formations needed to be disarmed - often by markedly inferior forces - and the boats at sea located and escorted into the harbours of their erstwhile enemies. Neither side knew entirely what to expect, and many of the encounters were tense; in some cases there were unsavoury incidents, and stories of worse. For many Allied personnel it was their first glimpse of the dreaded U-boat menace and both sides were forced to exercise considerable restraint to avoid compromising the terms of Germany's surrender.
One of the last but most dramatic acts of the naval war, the story of how the surrender was handled has never been treated at length before. This book uncovers much new material about the process itself and the ruthless aftermath for both the crews and their boats.

British Warships and Auxiliaries 2012/13

British Warships & Auxiliaries 2012/13

Maritime Books

By Steve Bush

2012 £6.99 | $10.90

Published every year since 1979, first edited by Mike Critchley and latterly by Steve Bush, this book is indispensible for follower of the Royal Navy. Of particular interest are the supplementary craft operated by private contractors; many of which are of new construction or charter and some of the previous craft operated by the Royal Marine Auxiliary Service (RMAS) before  privatization.
This reasonably priced reference comes in full color format and is highly recommended (as usual!)