British Royal Navy

Jacobite Victory at Prestonpans

By David A. Norris

Before dawn on September 21, 1745, the dragoons and infantry of King George II stood in line of battle in a freshly harvested wheat field. Read more

Captain James Lawrence was mortally wounded in the clash between frigates USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon off Boston in June 1813. The American defeat left New Englanders, many of whom opposed the war, shocked and stunned.

British Royal Navy

Deadly Frigate Victory

By William E. Welsh

The late summer day began like many others on the Maine coast. Seagulls wheeled overhead, seals sunned on seaweed-covered ledges, and the ocean pounded rocky headlands. Read more

British Royal Navy

The USS England and the Invasion of the South Pacific

By William Lunderberg

From his naval base at Tawi Tawi in the southern Philippines, Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda anxiously perused intelligence reports that might provide a clue to the objective of the next seaborne South Pacific invasion by American military in the spring of 1944. Read more

British Royal Navy

The Forgotten Fleet

By Arnold Blumberg

British naval operations in the Far East in World War II started badly and went downhill from there. Read more

Horatio Nelson's decision to abandon his wife for Lady Hamilton has always tarnished his glory, but few others have ever sparked such admiration from the British people.

British Royal Navy

Horatio Nelson: Bravery in Battle

by Brooke C. Stoddard

Days before the impending Battle of Trafalgar, a sailor on Horatio Nelson’s flagship Victory was so busy ensuring that each man’s letters home were secured for dispatch on a vessel bound for England that he forgot until after the ship had sailed that he hadn’t included his own. Read more

British Royal Navy

Sinking the USS Reuben James

By Joseph Connor, Jr.

When the destroyer USS Reuben James (DD-245) was assigned to convoy duty in the North Atlantic in the autumn of 1941, its crew had a sense of foreboding and feared the worst. Read more

British Royal Navy

Naval Carnage at Navarino

By Victor Kamenir

At 2 PM on October 20, 1827, Allied squadrons sailed into the Bay of Navarino on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. Read more

British Royal Navy

Sinking the Bismarck Myth

By Mark Carlson

In 1960 Twentieth Century Fox released the film Sink the Bismarck! Based on C.S. Forrester’s bestselling book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck, the documentary-style film tells a gripping and reasonably factual account of the most famous sea chase in history. Read more

Britain appeared doomed until the German naval codes were cracked.

British Royal Navy

The Codebreakers’ War in the Atlantic

By Gene J. Pfeffer

The Battle of the Atlantic was a life-and-death struggle between the German Kriegsmarine and the Allied navies that was fought for control of Britain’s lifeline to its empire and to the United States. Read more

British Royal Navy

Japan’s Road to War

By Eric Hammel

Japan’s road to World War II was a long one. Throughout the late 19th century, the island nation broke out of its feudal past on a path to modernity with a ruthlessness and singlemindedness that would have scared Western nations had they been paying attention. Read more

British Royal Navy

Sailing Ships and Artillery

By Eric Niderost

The Battle of the Nile, August 1-3, 1798, represents the apogee of the Age of Fighting Sail, a peak that was confirmed at Trafalgar seven years later. Read more

Crewmen aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer watch the waters of the Atlantic Ocean brew up with the detonation of a depth charge. This photograph was taken while the Spencer was defending a trans-Atlantic convoy, visible in the background, against a German U-boat attack.

British Royal Navy

Max Horton: Leading the Charge Against the U-Boats

By Michael D. Hull

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who rode in a cavalry charge in the Sudan in 1898, escaped from the Boers in 1899 and served for six months as a troop leader in the Western Front trenches in 1915-1916, remarked during World War II, “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.” Read more

British Royal Navy

Nicholas Horthy: Hitler’s Vassal?

By Blaine Taylor

The career of Admiral Nicholas Horthy spanned not only two world wars, but also stretched across the decades from the age of sail to atomic-powered submarines. Read more

British Royal Navy

Sir John Dill and Winston Churchill: A Clash in Strategy

By Jon Diamond

In describing the relationship between British General Sir John Dill and his political superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Dill’s biographer, Alex Danchev, noted, “It was … an association strikingly lacking in empathy or understanding, etched in fundamental disagreement, and scarred by a mutual disaffection welling up at times into personal distaste.” Read more

British Royal Navy

Piper Bill on the D-Day Beach

By Michael E. Haskew

The image of the Scottish piper standing erect under fire was commemorated in the film The Longest Day nearly two decades after the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. Read more

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