Navy Records Society Publications – serie

This fascinating book by Marianne Czisnik aims at critically reviewing Nelson's letters to Lady Hamilton by bringing together important letters of theirs that have only been published in parts over the last 200 years. In doing so it is possible to assess their relationship and to obtain insights into Nelson's personality and his morality that are not revealed in his official correspondence. Lady Hamilton was so obviously lacking in the subservience and passivity expected from women in that era that authors started to exclude her public sphere of influence by reducing her to a private weakness of Nelson's, who could be successful at sea, where he was far away from the enthralling influence of a manipulating woman. The letters in this edition testify how Admiral Nelson's life at sea was not exclusively public nor was Lady Hamilton's life ashore solely private. It also shows how the two supposedly separate spheres of male and female lives were connected. This scholarly edition of the primary material consists of about 400 letters that Nelson wrote to Lady Hamilton during the last seven years of his life and about a dozen letters of her to him that have survived.

Overbearing, avaricious and difficult, yet talented and ambitious, George Brydges Rodney was an original thinker and one of the great admirals of the eighteenth century. The contents of this volume, the first of three, document his career from 1742 until 1763, touching on both his private and political life.

Readers of this book will gain a clear appreciation of the growing importance of the aircraft carrier during World War Two and proposals thereafter for the future composition of Royal Navy's surface fleet together with the nature of the Fleet Air Arm's expansion programmes. This second book of three focuses on the Fleet Air Arm during the middle years of the Second World War. It covers the transitional period moving from a small number of carriers to a naval air arm with modern aircraft types capable of operating a number of Fleet Carriers in the Pacific Ocean following Japan's entry into the War in December 1941. The struggle in the Mediterranean continued and reached its peak with the efforts to relieve the siege of Malta in the summer of 1942 and the subsequent landings in North Africa and Italy. The increasing role played by the Fleet Air Arm aircraft operating from Escort Carriers and Merchant Aircraft Carriers in the Battle of the Atlantic during 1943 is also apparent. The aim of these volumes is to present an insight into the major planning and policy issues of concern to the Admiralty and extensive coverage of naval air operations. Difficulties of operating aircraft at sea, the nature of air combat and the complexities involved in expanding an organisation such as the Fleet Air Arm under wartime conditions are discussed.

Volume 3 of the Papers of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milner 1806-1896.Milne remained notably shy of publicity. In the words of one biographer he was known as 'that able and hard-headed Scotchman'. However he was the pre-eminent naval administrator in the Victorian period, perhaps of the years 1815-1900. Not once during 60 years of naval service did Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne, Bt., K.C.B. hear British guns fired in anger, yet, on the basis of talents and abilities ideally suited to the century of the Pax Britannica, he numbers among the greatest officers of the post Napoleonic-era Royal Navy.He served as a Junior Lord for almost twelve straight years during the late 1840s and 1850s. His earlier years in the Navy were spent at sea but in 1846 he was appointed a Naval Lord of the Admiralty. There he was to remain for the next eleven and a half years, serving, successively, the Ministries of Lord John Russell, (Whig, 1846-52), Lord Derby (Conservative, 1852), Lord Aberdeen (Whig/Peelite coalition, 1852-55), Lord Palmerston (Whig, 1855-58), and Lord Derby again (1858-59).He was gazetted with the civil K.C.B. in recognition of his lengthy service at Whitehall, in particular his labours during the Russian (Crimean) War. He possessed in abundance both patience and discretion. He stated however that 'When I joined the Admiralty in December 1847, it was under the distinct understanding with Lord Russell, then Prime Minister, and Lord Auckland, the First Lord of the Admiralty, that I was to be entirely free from all political matters'.

This collection covers the period February 1862-March 1864, which constituted the final two years and one month that Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander Milne commanded the Royal Navy’s North America and West India Station. Its chief focus is upon Anglo-American relations in the midst of the American Civil War. Whilst the most high-profile cause of tension between the two countries — the Trent Affair — had been resolved in Britain’s favour by January 1862, numerous sources of discord remained. Most turned on American efforts to blockade the so-called Confederacy, efforts that often ran afoul of international law, not to mention British amour-propre. As commander of British naval forces in the theatre, Milne’s decisions and actions could and did have a major impact on the state of affairs between his government and that of the US.While noting in one private exchange with the British ambassador to Washington, Richard, Lord Lyons, that he had been "enjoined to abstain from any act likely to involve Great Britain in hostilities with the United States," Milne added ominously, "yet I am also instructed to guard our Commerce from all illegal interference" and it is plain from his correspondence that both he and the British government were prepared to use force in that undertaking. Thus, between apparently high-handed behaviour by the US Navy and Milne’s and the Palmerston government’s resolve not to be pushed beyond a certain point, the ingredients for a major confrontation between the two countries existed. Yet most of Milne’s efforts were directed toward preventing such a confrontation from occurring. In this endeavour he was joined by Lyons and by the British government. No vital British interest was at stake in the conflict raging between North and South, and thus the nation was unlikely to become directly involved in it unless provoked by rash US actions.Yet there was no shortage of such provocations: the seizure of British merchant vessels bound from one neutral port to another, detaining such ships without first conducting a search of their cargo for evidence of contraband of war, the de facto blockade of British colonial ports, apparent violations of British territorial waters, the seizure of British merchantmen off the neutral port of Matamoros, Mexico, and the use of neutral ports as bases of operations by US warships among them. In responding to these and other sources of dispute between the US and Britain, Milne proved adept at pouring oil on troubled waters, so much so that in a late 1863 letter to Foreign Secretary Lord Russell, Lyons lamented his impending departure from the station: "I am very much grieved at his leaving….No change of admirals could be for the better."This collection centres upon Milne’s private correspondence, especially that between him and Lyons, First Lord of the Admiralty the Duke of Somerset and First Naval Lord Vice Admiral Sir Frederick Grey. It also includes private letters to and from many of Milne’s other professional correspondents and important official correspondence with the Admiralty.

This volume will appeal to everyone interested in how the Royal Navy adapted to the use of air power in the Second World War and provides a new and vital perspective on how Britain fought the War. This is the first of three volumes detailing the history of the Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers and naval air squadrons, during the Second World War. It deals with the formative period between 1939 and 1941 when the Fleet Air Arm tried to recover from the impact of dual control and economic stringencies during the inter-war period while conducting a wide range of operations. There is in depth coverage of significant operations including the Norwegian campaign, Mediterrranean actions such as the attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto and the Battle of Cape Matapan, and the torpedo attacks on the German battleship Bismarck. Incidents involving the loss of and damage to aircraft carriers, including the sinking of Ark Royal, one of the most famous ships in the early years of World War Two, are also reported. Of major importance are key planning and policy issues. These include the requirements for aircraft carriers, the evolving debate regarding the necessary types of aircraft and attempts to provide sufficient facilities ashore for naval air squadrons.

This publication is an essential volume for any serious student of naval policy in the pre-First World War era. The intense rivalry in battleship building that took place between Britain and Germany in the run up to the First World War is seen by many as the most totemic of all armaments races. It has been blamed by numerous commentators during the inter-war years as a major cause of the Great War.'The Great Naval Race' has never been examined from the viewpoint of both of its participants simultaneously and equally. This volume will fill this gap. It draws on documents both English-language and German, and will therefore make the German role in this conflict accessible to an English speaking audience for the very first time. The book addresses the build up of the German Navy and it's threat to Britain. All in all, crucial documents leave no doubt that the Imperial German Navy deliberately challenged the Royal Navy. Tirpitz certainly did not want a war before the navy was ready, which he hoped it would be in the 1920s.

The book begins in January 1944, the point at which serious thought started to be given to the size and shape of the future Navy. Postwar retrenchment meant the Admiralty needed to reduce spending on the Fleet and release manpower for the civilian economy, but also to adjust to the appearance of nuclear weapons and the incipient Cold War with the Soviet Union. Repeated financial crises upset plans almost as soon as they were made. The volume concludes with the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, which upset many previous planning assumptions and initiated a short-lived rearmament programme.Subsequent volumes will continue the story through the 1950s and beyond.