Naval History Forums

http://www.mlrsbooks.co.uk/news/index.php/Item27.html

We have been awarded a new MoD contract.

We are very pleased to announce that we have been awarded a reprinting contract by the MoD on behalf of the Naval Historical Branch of the Royal Navy. This means we now reprint for all three services in the United Kingdom, and we are extremely proud of this.

Our first reprints in the naval field will be of the six volumes of Hurford's The War at Sea written during the war and used by NHB as their first reference source for operations of the RN during the Second World War. The series should not be confused with Roskill's history which is less detailed. Hurford compiled his history on an almost day-to-day basis and used the RN War Diary and signals logs as the basis for this extremely important and never before published account.

Following this we have started a rather large project: a reprint of the monthly anti-submarine warfare 'journal' produced throughout the war and issued to all ships. It contains detailed statistics on losses of merchant vessels (and RN and other fleet vessels) together with much detail on a/s warfare methods, German countermeasures and a wealth of detail on tactics on both sides. This will be prepared and published as is the original in approximately six monthly volumes. Volume I nears completion and will be announced in April, followed monthly by subsequent volumes.

I have just ordered the first volume of Roskill´s...It is interesting to note that many battle charts of the European naval war found in the wiki are from his, that made me decide the bought.

Kind regards

Since we are on the topic of Stephen Roskill, I just started reading 'Churchill and the Admirals'. So far, so good.

USS ALASKA

Interesting Marcelo, Roskill's books have been out of print in the UK for years.....

RF wrote:Interesting Marcelo, Roskill's books have been out of print in the UK for years.....

You can get the most recent edition at Amazon.co.uk right from the following page:

http://www.kbismarck.org/wwii.html

That´s the edition I bought. I started it a few days ago. Very good so far. I am thru the organization of the RN, very detailed.

Quite a few of Stephen Roskill's books are on US Amazon both new and used. Some within my budget, some not so much.

USS ALASKA

Yes, the four volumes have been reprinted. In soft cover they are around 40 bucks, 80 hard bound. I think that no serious naval enthusiast of the European theatre can do without them. One thing I like is that they were written ten years after the war end, with access to German records, even to then classified British records. That compares favourably with Morrison´s work, that was done DURiNG the war without any access to Japanese records, this make his quiet one-sided, if not unaccurate, all this based in common sense, I haven´t read Morrison´s. Roskill's does contain too info about the early stages of the Pacific war, that is something I have been trying to find for a while.

Regards

One comment I would make about Roskill's books is that while they were written with access to German records available at the time, the detail certainly from the German aspect isn't completely accurate and assumptions were built in, which in the light of more recent (accurate) details suggests that a re-writing rather than straight copy is needed.

NAVAL & MILITARY BOOKS have currently on sale all four volumes of Roskill's WAR AT SEA in softback for £16 each +p & p -same for one or all four.

aurora