This highly illustrated and informative book is a collection of the most important surface and undersea vessels that served between 1939 and 1945 and each vessel is illustrated by a black and white photograph, accompanying text and specification tables. Surface ships and submarines played a key and vital part in World War II. In the Atlantic the German Navy used its major surface ships, such as the Bismarck, Tirpitz and Graf Spee, as raiders, while under the waves the U-boats sank a total of 222 British merchant ships between September 1939 and March 1940 alone. In the Pacific, combat between groups of American and Japanese carriers decided command of the ocean and the outcome of the naval war in this theatre whilst US submarines sank almost the entire Japanese merchant fleet. The aircraft carrier overtook the battleship as the capital ship and so this book includes the most significant carriers that saw service in the conflict, including the British Ark Royal, American Yorktown and Japanese Kaga. The main battleships of the war are also present: Yamato, Vittorio Veneto, Richelieu and King George V.
