Naval History Books

Can anyone recommend some great Naval History books (of any nation)? I’m looking for something interesting that reads like Stephen Ambrose and less like Encyclopedia Britannica…

If you’re at all interested in Historical Fiction, you should check out the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. They take place during the Napoleonic wars and are amazing books about life aboard a British ship.

In the Heart of the Sea the true story of the Essex, on which Moby Dick was based.

Admiral Cochrane the gentleman who inspired most of the naval heroes written about. A very interesting character in his own right, and proof that truth can be stranger than fiction.

Command of the Ocean covers the history of the Royal Navy 1649-1815, and isn’t a bad read.

Edward Beach has written several very good books on the US navy, and in particular on submarine warfare.

If you can find a copy (it’s out of print now), Japanese Destroyer Captain, a war memoir by Tameichi Hara. I gave my copy to a friend who is a US WWII destroyer vet, and it turned out that he and the author had actually exchanged shots during the war off Guadalcanal. Anyway, he thought this book was the best he had ever read on small unit naval warfare from a Japanese POV. And he is going to Japan next month and while there will be having dinner with two of Captain Hara’s children (Hara died in the 70s). I’m really very happy to have made this connection for my friend.

Iron Coffins – an account of WWII Uboat warfare by a surving German captain, Herbert Werner.

Samuel Elliot Morison wrote a many-volume official history of the US Navy in WWII; I haven’t read them all, but I’ve read several and I think they are quite readable.

More WWII/USN-PTO recommendations:

“The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway”, & “First Team And the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942”, by John Lundstrom.

“Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway” by Parshall & Tully.

“Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan” by Clay Blair Jr.

“The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance” by Thomas B. Buell.

David Cordingly’s “The Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon” (Bloomsbury USA, 2003) ISBN 1-58234-468-X, is a very interesting history of one of the principal Royal Navy ships to take part in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Roy Adkins’ “Nelson’s Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World” (Viking 2005) gives a minute by minute account of the great battle. Rousing stuff!

I recommend *Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the US Navy *by Ian W.Toll 2006

A great book describing just how revolutionary the first official ships of the USN were.

I second this. If you are at all interested in either Age of Sail Navies or the History of the US Navy, definitely check this one out.

“Dreadnought”, by Robert Massie was, for me, an interesting look at the evolution of the UK’s naval/National defence policy prior to WW1.

“The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command” by Andrew Gordon discusses how policy decisions and the assumptions (some right, some not) of how naval combat will be fought in wartime shaped the actions of the men in command in the Grand Fleet when the day of reckoning came. Possibly a bit dry, I dunno what your tolerance level is. :slight_smile:

The followup by Massie, “Castles of Steel” (which covers the naval history of WWI) is also very good.

“In Harm’s Way” is a good if disturbing look at the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis (the ship that delivered the first atomic bomb to its Pacific launch area, and whose saga inspired the fictional character Quint in the movie Jaws).

Walter Lord (an OSS officer in WWII) is better known for writing “Day of Infamy” about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but another good WWII book of his is “Lonely Vigil - The Coastwatchers of the Solomons”. It’s about the small British and native groups that operated behind Japanese lines in the Pacific, gathering crucial intelligence, rescuing downed pilots and sailors (including men from J.F.K.'s PT 109) and engaging in their own bizarre little pitched battles against the Japanese.

As is the followup Castles of Steel.

Shattered Sword is a very interesting alternate take on the Battle of Midway. He dispels many of the myths surrounding the battle, while confirming that the Japanese nonetheless screwed up in several crucial ways.

Well, probably more Britannica than Ambrose, but…

One I’ve recently read and can recommend is Warfare At Sea, 1500-1650:* Maritime Conflicts and the Transformation of Europe* by Jan Glete ( 2000, Routledge ). Short, but really well done analysis of a crucial transformative period in naval history that really hasn’t been treated in a systematic way before.

Life in Nelson’s Navy by Dudley Pope. A good overview of the ships, tactics, construction and life aboard a Man of war in the late 18th century. Very readable.

A bit unspecific request, maybe, but there’s a few good things. Aside from the already-mentioned Six Frigates by Ian Toll, which is astoundingly brillant, I would recommend, Napoleonic-era wise, Storm and Conquest by Stephen Taylor, a history of the British campaign to take the Ile de France during 1809-10. Also very good is Noel Mostert’s A Line Upon a Wind.

As for World War II, the possibilities are virtually endless, but most things there that will read like Stephen Ambrose will also lack a certain historical accuracy. This is also true for the Massie books mentioned. If you can give an idea of what you’ve read and liked, that might help with the recommendations!

I enjoyed The Price of Admiralty by John Keegan, whom I find very readable.

This is perhaps the very best example of the kind of book that Ambrosifies history to such an extent that it becomes almost worthless history. I will not take any issue with Trafalgar and the Atlantic battles in World War II, two of Keegan’s four topics, but his description of Midway was worthless even when the book first came out (worthless as a retelling of the facts, which were wrong, and as analysis, which was flawed). That chapter has been long superseded by the above-mentioned Shattered Sword (which, however, is a bit on the technical side). The same thing goes for Keegan’s thoughts on Jutland, which are also superficial. It’s well-written, I give it that, but Keegan should stay on land with his histories.

Any of Peter Padfield’snaval books. I would particularly recommend War Under the Sea, his history of submarine warfare in WW2. Fascinating comparisons between the way Britain, Japan, Germany, and the USA thought about and used submarines.

Spiny Norman introduced me to To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World. A very interesting read.

That would be “War Beneath the Sea <yada yada>” :wink:

I forgot about that one. I agree it’s worth reading. Both this one, and the “Rules of the Game” I mentioned above deal with how a countries perception of what combat would be like (and with who, and where) shapes the tactics and the design of the warships they build.

Edit: Sorry. Your link was sufficient to find the book.

Johnny beat me to To Rule The Waves. It’s very good, and worth reading just before Six Frigates.