Naval Books

These are a selection of books available from the Royal Naval Museum Shop,.
If a book you require is not on our website please contact us, lots of other titles are available.!!

Hardback
An amazing look at the life and times of the mighty ARK ROYAL. Now languishing in Portsmouth, a victim of Defence cuts, this well illustrated book by a former senior officer from the ship (Cdr Alastair Graham) and Eric Grove is a wonderful piece of history to record her life from cradle to grave. A massive 368 Pages.

Newly revised for 2011!
By Lieutenant-Commander Lawrence

Format: Hardback 864 pages

This book explores over 50 of our most celebrated and accessible historic ships (including replicas) to illustrate our rich maritime heritage. Divided into the chapters, The Sailing Navy, Merchant Sail, Coastal Sail, Transition from Sail to Steam, Early 20th-Century Navy, Passenger Ships and Coasters, Second World War Navy, Post-War Navy, and Harbour Craft, each section offers a comprehensive history of a vessel's design, construction, active service, restoration and preservation. In addition to the featured entries, an appendix presents all of the necessary contact details and opening times of the core and designated lists of the National Historic Ships Register as applicable.Principal vessels include: Mary Rose, HMS Victory, HMS Trincomalee, SS Great Britain, Cutty Sark, RRS Discovery, HMS Warrior, HMS Belfast, HMY Britannia, HMS Alliance, HMS Cavalier, HMS Plymouth, Oberon class submarines - Ocelot, Onyx and Otus, and Thames barges.This book presents a complete record of over 50 ships, including construction, service history and restoration. It is fully illustrated in colour; specially commissioned photos, plans, drawings. It is ideal for naval and merchant shipping enthusiasts and heritage tourists. The book also includes all vessels listed on the the National Historic Ships Register.

Paperback By Mike Critchley
Having published Naval books for over 30 years Mike Critchley here recounts the first five years of his own career as an officer in the Royal Navy serving in ships from tiny Minesweepers to the huge ARK ROYAL and recounts yarns from days at sea off Reykjavik to far off Singapore. If you were at sea in the Royal Navy in the sixties - or just like a good laugh - this is the book for you!

Hardback By Karl Heinz Marquardt

A full description of the ship, how she came to be purchased and the short history of her naval service. It also features a large scale plan of the ship.

Hardback By Jack Brower
160 Pages
The Bismarck is perhaps the most famous warship in the world. The German battleship, 45,000 tons, was completed in early 1941 and went on to sink the 'Mighty Hood', pride of the Royal Navy, in one of the most celebrated naval encounters ever. After a dramatic chase around the North Atlantic involving many units of the Royal Navy, Bismarck was finally brought to the big guns of the Home Fleet on 27 May, and dispatched with gunfire and torpedoes. Before this, however, she was the most fearsome battleship in any European navy. The 'Anatomy of the Ship' series aims to provide the finest documentation of individual ships and ship types ever published.

Hardback By John Roberts
128 Pages
Built during the First World War, the Hood was the largest, fastest and one of the most handsome capital ships in the world. This revised edition features a full and detailed description of every aspect of HMS Hood, analysing the genesis of the design and its contemporary significance.

Hardback By Ross Watton
120 Pages
HMS Belfast was the largest British cruiser of the Second World War and saw distinguished service throughout the conflict, including playing a major part in the destruction of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst. Today she is preserved as an historic monument on the River Thames in London. The 'Anatomy of the Ship' series aims to provide the finest documentation of individual ships and ship types ever published. What makes the series unique is a complete set of superbly executed line drawings, both the conventional type of plan as well as explanatory views, with fully descriptive keys. These are supported by technical details and a record of the ship's service history.

Paperback Book
This is an illustrated guide to all the individual features of the world's destroyers, frigates and corvettes.

Hardback Book By Kevin D McCranie
Focusing on the oceanic war rather than the war in the Great Lakes, this study charts the War of 1812 from the perspectives of the two opposing navies at sea one of the largest fleets in the world and a small, upstart navy just three decades old. While American naval leadership searched for a means of contesting Britain's naval dominance, the English sought to destroy the U.S. Navy and protect its oceanic highways. Instead of describing battles between opposing warships, McCranie evaluates entire cruises by American and British men-of-war, noting both successes and failures and how they translated into broader strategies. In the process, his study becomes a history of how the two navies fought the oceanic war, linking high-level governmental decisions about strategy to the operational use of fleets in the Atlantic and Caribbean and from the South Pacific to the Indian Ocean.

Paperback By Gordon Williamson
Winston Churchill claimed the 'U-boat peril' was the only thing that frightened him during World War II. The U-boat was developed from a small coastal vessel into a state-of-the-art killer, stalking the high seas picking off merchant convoys, until the introduction of the destroyer escort, and the development of dedicated anti-submarine tactics provided a means of defence and attack against the U-boats. Gordon Williamson describes the design and development of these two deadly opponents, their tactics, strengths and weaknesses, weaponry and training. He provides an insight into the lives of the Royal Navy and Wolf Pack crews as they played their deadly games of cat and mouse on the high seas, gambling with their lives and the fate of the nations.

Hardback By Steve Crawford
320 Pages
300 of the Worlds Greatest warships.

Hardback By David A Thomas
362 Pages
Lists every battle honour awarded to ships of the Royal Navy and gives a detailed account of the action concerned.

Hardback By Geoffrey Carter
Published to commemorate the Royal Navy's involvement at Suez in 1956. Were you there? Never really understood what was going on? This fine book with some fantastic photos is definitely one for your book shelf.

Hardback By Barry Gough
366 Pages
This is the story of the remarkable, intersecting careers of the two greatest writers on British naval history in the twentieth century the American professor Arthur Marder, son of immigrant Russian Jews, and Captain Stephen Roskill, who knew the Royal Navy from the inside. Between them, these contrasting characters were to peel back the lid of historical secrecy that surrounded the maritime aspects of the two world wars, based on the privileged access to official papers they both achieved through different channels. Initially their mutual interests led to a degree of friendly rivalry, but this was to deteriorate into a stormy academic feud fought out in newspaper columns and the footnotes of their books much to the bemusement (and sometimes amusement) of the naval history community. Out of it, surprisingly, emerged some of the best historical writing on naval themes, and a central contribution of this book is to reveal the process by which the two historians produced their literary masterpieces. Anyone who has read Marder s From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow or Roskill s The War at Sea and they were both bestsellers in their day will be entertained and enlightened by this story of the men A J P Taylor called our historical dreadnoughts .

A book covering The French Revolutionary War which describes the great maritime events of the pre-photographic era from contemporary paintingS, prints, drawings, charts and plans of that period

Hardback By John Roberts
320 Pages
The Story Of The Modern Royal Navy.
This new book gives a detailed history of the Royal Navy, published to coincide with the golden jubilee of the White Ensign Association. It is full of campaigns, operations and deployments conducted around the World, from the Gulf War, Falklands and the Cold War.

Paperback By Arthur Nicholson
Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. Arthur Nicholson painstakingly analyses the important decisions that led to the battle off Malaya and its outcome, particularly the ones involving Winston Churchill and the decision by Admiral Philips to maintain radio silence.

Hardback By Archie Munro
This book presents an account of special troopship convoys and passenger vessels used during the Second World War.

Paperback
An untold story of the Battle of the Atlantic, 1941-42.

WAS:£7.99
Paperback By David Phillipson
This book is the story of boy seamen in the Royal Navy.

Hardback By Roger Paine
150 Pages
During his twenty-nine years on the high seas former Royal Navy officer Roger Paine served all over the globe and in almost every kind of ship - from submarine to frigate, and from destroyers and aircraft carriers to ice patrol ship. In this delightful miscellany of light-hearted 'yarns' he charts the ups and downs of life both afloat and ashore. The hazards - including a seasick parrot, a gun-toting generalissimo, and the ever-present danger of diplomatic faux pas - and the pleasures - sun-drenched ports and glamorous cocktail parties aplenty. En route, we also get to know about the venerable history of rum, the sailor's favourite tipple; the importance of ships' pets in promoting the welfare of seafarers; and the traditional RN toasts for each and every day of the week! Charming, irreverent and occasionally indiscreet, here are 'salty' tales to be savoured and treasured.

Paperback By Michael Wilson
141 Pages
The Royal Navy In Russia 1918 - 1920
As the guns fell silent of the Western Front on 11 November 1918, and thousands of men were looking forward to their demobilisation, civil war still raged in Russia. For the Allied forces in Russia, the war was not over and they faced an implacable foe, as Leon Trotsky energetically reorganised the rabble of revolutionaries into an effective fighting force - the Red Army. The White Russian Army, in support of the Tsar, was still fighting the Bolsheviks, especially in the north of Russia, and the Royal Navy sent a squadron of ships in support with British troops fighting against the Bolsheviks on land. The Russian towns of Murmansk and Archangel became British enclaves as our soldiers and sailors fought a valiant but doomed war against the Bolsheviks for, despite the intervention of the many Allied forces in various parts of Russia and regardless of the efforts of the various White armies, the Bolsheviks were victorious on all fronts when the civil war was over in 1922.
In this captivating history, Michael Wilson tells the story of the Royal Navy's part in this little-known war.

Paperback By Richard Woodman
The period 1806-1814 witnessed continual naval warfare - against the Danes, the Russians, the Turks, and ultimately the Americans, as well as the French and their Dutch and Italian allies - and the ultimate defeat of Napoleon; this volume describes the naval aspect of that defeat in vivid detail, and as with the rest of the series, the visual emphasis is on the contemporary and original, with the inclusion of many previously unpublished images. The features include: a stunning collection of 300 or more contemporary images; many illustrations previously unpublished; chronologically structured by campaign and battle; introductory essays and thematic text boxes by well-known authorities; and an open-ended series designed to build into a visual library of naval history.

Paperback By David T Hughes
127 Pages
The history of Chatham Dockyard has been an eventful one. It owes its inception to King Henry VIII who, in 1547, selected the River Medway at Gillingham to be his main fleet anchorage. As more ships were added to the royal fleet the work of the dockyard was increased, until it was deemed necessary to build a small castle to protect the yard and anchorage from attack. In the wars and conflicts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Chatham Dockyard would be called upon again to play its part in maintaining an effective battle fleet. David T. Hughes has compiled a thoughtful and insightful volume of photographs and ephemera on the Chatham Naval Dockyard and Barracks, looking at it from its early days of existence until its role in more recent years, from the First and Second World Wars to the Falklands

Hardback By Sam Willis
320Pages
Admiral John Benbow was an English naval hero, a fighting sailor of ruthless methods but indomitable courage. Benbow was a man to be reckoned with.

In 1702, however, when Benbow engaged a French squadron off the Spanish main, other ships in his squadron failed to support him. His leg shattered by a cannon-ball, Benbow fought on - but to no avail: the French escaped and the stricken Benbow succumbed to his wounds. When the story of his 'Last Fight' reached England, there was an outcry. Two of the captains who had abandoned him were court-martialled and shot; 'Brave Benbow' was elevated from national hero to national legend, his valour immortalized in broadsheet and folksong: ships were named after him; Tennyson later fêted him in verse; in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, the tavern where Jim Hawkins and his mother live is called 'The Admiral Benbow'.

For the very first time, Sam Willis tells the extraordinary story of Admiral Benbow through an age of dramatic change, from his birth under Cromwell's Commonwealth; to service under the restored Stuart monarchy; to the Glorious Revolution of 1688; to the French wars of Louis XIV; and finally to the bitter betrayal of 1702.

The Admiral Benbow covers all aspects of seventeenth century naval life in richly vivid detail, from strategy and tactics to health and discipline. But Benbow also worked in the Royal Dockyards, lived in Samuel Evelyn's House, knew Peter the Great, helped to found the first naval hospital, and helped to build the first offshore lighthouse.

Paperback - A complete guide to the warships, tall ships and merchantmen of the 2005 Solent Fleet Review

Hardback By R. Gardner
192 Pages


Forms part of the Caxton Pictorial Histories range.

Paperback By Admiral W.H Smyth
744 Pages
Landlubbers may be surprised to learn that at sea, a sheet is made of rope, not cloth. But even experienced sailors will discover new meanings for everyday words in this unique nautical reference. First published in 1867, The Sailor’s Word-Book defines some 14,000 terms from A, “the highest class of merchant ships,” to zumbra, “a Spanish skiff or yawl.” Whether the reader is a naval history buff, a fan of nautical fiction, or a yachting enthusiast, this new edition of a classic will prove a seaworthy companion.

Paperback By Peter Ashley
Driven, ambitious, sometimes arrogant and occasionally reckless, few navigators had a greater share of misfortune than Captain Matthew Flinders yet achieved so much. This book is an examination of three periods in his short life, which serve to demonstrate his courtship with failure and his indomitable spirit in dealing with it. Firstly, there was his time in the Providence under Bligh in which he learnt the required skills of a navigator and astronomer, and was also where he contracted the venereal disease which would later prove to be the cause of his early and painful death due to kidney disease. Secondly, as commander of the sloop Investigator in which he circumnavigated Australia, but failed to complete the hydrographic mission ordered by the Admiralty due to the unseaworthiness of the ship. Finally his confrontation with his nemesis, General Decaen, on the Ile de France, brought about as much by his own arrogance and pride as by the hostile intransigence of the French anglophobe Governor which caused him to be detained on the island for six and a half years.
The book is a brief examination of a complex individual, who contrived to carve out his own unhappy destiny and eventual premature demise before achieving the recognition he undoubtedly deserved from the maritime scientific community.

Hardback
In this book the author tells the story of Captain John Leach MVO DSO who was captain of the PRINCE OF WALES when she was sunk by Japanese bombers in the South China Sea. He had fought against frightful odds and to the very end made the best of an impossible situation with courage and calmness - he truly was 'in the highest traditions of the Royal Navy'.

Paperback By Geoff Lunn
In 1843 Brunel's ironship Great Britain was launched, becoming the forerunner of the great steel-hulled ships of today. Yet she was tiny compared with the transatlantic liners of the early 1900s as ship-owners vied for the top spot in terms of speed, elegance and size. Liners such as Mauritania and Titanic were later followed by two giant Queens and France's liner Normandie. If the innovative engineers of the Victorian age guided the shipping industry from sail to steam, wood to iron and later to steel, then the twentieth-century invention of the computer took ship construction to entirely new concepts. Massive passenger vessels, equipped with remarkable facilities, efficient machinery and capable of meeting the highest standard of safety, can now be built from keel to funnel in no more than two years. Construction techniques have changed beyond recognition, as have methods of ship design and, indeed, the very roles that these floating resorts are asked to play. Today Royal Caribbean's sister ships Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas are the first passenger ships in history to exceed 200,000 gros tons and are promoted as offering a third more space than any other cruise vessel afloat and measuring seventy times the size of the first Victorian passenger-carrying ironship. For the foreseeable future, at least, these two giant floating cities will hold the accolade of being the biggest passenger ships of all time.

Hardback Book By John English
216 Pages
This book describes the origins, specifications and development of each design, contains the service histories of 113 destroyers and is illustrated with 170 black and white photos. The volume is completed by a ship index and 7 appendices detailing building dates and the various conversions undertaken or proposed post-war

Hardback By Captain Andrew Welch
336 Pages
All three Cod Wars are covered in this detailed and authoritative history. This book gives a detailed account looking mainly at operations at sea and events ashore. This massive book includes many unpublished photographs taken from British warships, aircraft and Icelandic Coastguard vessels.

Hardback Book By Martin Marix-Evans
256 Pages
The Somme is a name with particular resonance for the people of Britain, for here, in 1916, the flower of her youth was cut down. Terrible though that day was it takes its place in a wider story: the long, painful process of learning how to fight a new kind of war. From the war of movement of 1914, when the French fought there, the conflict evolved to massive frontal assaults by the British and Empire troops in 1916. On the Somme the tank was first used in September 1916. Increasing sophistication in the terrifying use of artillery by the Germans broke the Allied lines in March 1918. Allied use of this same technology was then combined with other arms to create the fighting complex that inflicted the 'Black Day' on the German army in August and smashed the Hindenburg Line in September. Thus the British, Australian, Canadian, American and French forces defeated the German Army in the field at last. For the first time this book reveals how the Somme was the bloody classroom in which this new art of war was studied and it tells the story of the men who paid the price for this knowledge with their own blood.

Hardback by Malcolm Maclean
450 Pages
Peacetime accidents over the past sixty years have resulted in hundreds of naval vessels being lost or stricken from active service. This book aims to explain why and how these accidents have occurred, being categorised by their primary cause, and covers some of the lessons that have been learnt.

Paperback By John Wellham
288 Pages
An autobiography of a fleet air arm pilot in World War II

Was £19.99
Hardback By Chris Howard Bailey and Lesley Thomas
192 Pages
The Wrns In Camera: The Work Of The Womans Royal Naval Service In The Second World War

This fully illustrated book contains an historical review of this organisation from its formation to the present day.

Hardback
A comprehensive summary of all names shore establishments and static ships since the beginning of the 19th century. Over 2700 entries including location and dates when they operated. Updated and revised edition.

Hardback Book
A very humorous collection of anecdotes and stories from the Royal Marines.

Hardback Book
This is the story of the 39 Castle Class corvettes which played such a vital role in countering the U-Boat threat during the latter stages of the Battle of the Atlantic, as told by those involved. A massive 530 pages, very well illustrated

Hardback Book
A detailed history of Royal Navy Maintenance Carriers and the Mobile Air Bases planned and constructed during the Second World War and since. Accompanied by many previously unpublished black and white photographs.

Hardback By Gerald Toghill
227 Pages
A comprehensive and well researched work - the ultimate research tool for anyone interested in knowing anything about the many trawlers that served under the White Ensign.

Hardback By Gerald Toghill
584 Pages
A comprehensive reference book of all trawlers requisitioned by the Royal Navy.

Hardback By Neil McCart
During the 1950s and 1960s the handsome Daring-Class destroyers served both the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy in every theatre of operations. This book charts the story of each of these ships from their beginnings in the late 1940s to their demise. Today there remains only the museum ship HMAS Vampire in Sydney Harbour.

Hardback By Neil McCart
This book covers the service history of one of the most active Royal Navy aircraft carriers of the immediate post war period, from build through operations off Korea, to eventual scrapping. The comprehensive text is accompanied by over 120 photographs from the Fleet Air Arm Museum Archive.

Hardback By John Parker
384 pages
Untold stories of the heroes of the Royal Navy.

Hardback By John Winton
224 Pages
A popular series of humourous naval books.

Hardback By John Winton
208 Pages


From a series of popular humourous naval books

Hardback
This is part of the highly acclaimed and popular series of humorous books of naval life, Follow the adventures of the Artful Bodger.

Paperback -168 Pages
A comprehensive guide to the ships, submarines and aircraft of the US Navy, Military Sealift Command and Ready Reserve Fleet. In full colour with over 100 photos.

Hardback By Chris Frame
120 Pages
By the 1970s it looked as if QE2 would be the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners. However, more than three decades later the world watched in awe as Queen Mary 2, the largest, longest, grandest, and most expensive ocean liner ever to be constructed, set sail on her maiden voyage in 2004. With 14 decks and beautiful lounges, dining rooms, and ballrooms, QM2 evokes the glamour of the golden age of ocean travel. QM2: A Photographic Journey allows the reader to experience this unique vessel from the comfort of their own home. With numerous never-before-published photographs of each of QM2’s public rooms as well as stunning exterior shots, this book is delightfully complemented by little-known facts and interesting information from Commodore R. W. Warwick, QM2’s first captain.

A colour portfolio
Hardback By David Williams & Richard De Kerbreech
80 pages
A nostalgic album of colour photographs looking back at a lost world where small coasters and freighters plied their trade between both major ports and the smaller harbours around of the British Isles.

Paperback By Mike Critchley and Steve Bush
96 Pages
This collection of stunning photographs portrays warships battling with rough weather. From the battleships of WWII to modern day frigates.

Paperback By Ben Warlow
96 Pages
The author of this book has researched 94 photographs - from a wide range of sources - to illustrate the RN's frigate force from the mid 20th century.

Paperback
This book features 90 years of Royal Navy Aircraft Carrier operations. From the early hybrid cruiser conversions through to the recently ordered HMS?QUEEN ELIZABETH, this volume is filled with nostalgia. Over 140 full page black and white photographs with extended captions.

Paperback
A second volume of over 110 full page photographs, together with extended captions, portraying many classes of Royal Navy warships which saw service in the Second World War.

Paperback
This book is full of photogrpahs of ships from 1960-69, it has a good cross section of ship types from the large to the not so large and each photograph is accompanied by an extended caption giving a description of each ship's career.

Paperback
This book is full of photographs os ships from 1970-79 it has a good cross section of ship types from the large to the not so large and each photograph is accompanied by an extended caption giving a description of each ship's career. This book includes a colour section.

Paperback
This book is full of photographs of RN destroyers since 1945, each photograph has a brief history of the ship and its career.

Paperback
A collection of photographs, with extended captions, showing the Royal Navy's Reserve Fleets at home and abroad, mainly in the post WW2 period.

Paperback
A collection of photographs of Royal Navy ships awaiting disposal, being broken-up or even blown-up. 100 photos each accompanied by an extended captions.

Paperback
This book has the same format as part 1 (Part 5 is of ships transferred to the Royal Australian Navy before their demise in Australia)

Paperback
An amazing photo record of warships at the end of their days. Laid up, then broken or even blown up. This part covers ex ships of the US Navy.

Paperback
The latest part of this series of photo records of warships at the end of their days.

Paperback By Terry C Treadwell
191 Pages
An illusrated history of Aircraft carrying Submarines,from the early days of World War One to the present day.

Hardback By Lawrence Paterson
192 Pages
On the eve of Germany's surrender in May 1945, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz commanded thousands of loyal and active men of the U-boat service. Still fully armed and unbroken in morale, enclaves of these men occupied bases stretching from Norway to France, where cadres of U-boat men fought on in ports that defied besieging Allied troops to the last. At sea U-boats still operated on a war footing around Britain, the coasts of the United States and as far as Malaya.
Following the agreement to surrender, these large formations needed to be disarmed - often by markedly inferior forces - and the boats at sea located and escorted into the harbours of their erstwhile enemies. Neither side knew entirely what to expect, and many of the encounters were tense; in some cases there were unsavoury incidents, and stories of worse. For many Allied personnel it was their first glimpse of the dreaded U-boat menace and both sides were forced to exercise considerable restraint to avoid compromising the terms of Germany's surrender.
One of the last but most dramatic acts of the naval war, the story of how the surrender was handled has never been treated at length before. This book uncovers much new material about the process itself and the ruthless aftermath for both the crews and their boats.

Hardback By Fred L Borch and Charles P McDowell
288 Pages
As the first and only complete history of all personal awards and decorations of the United States' three sea services, this book serves as a valuable resource of Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard awards. It also provides little-known historical information on the background and development of each award and decoration, along with details of its design and award criteria. Some never-before-photographs of rare Navy Medals of Honor are featured.

The old visual telegraphs, which used giant semaphore indicators on a series of highly conspicuous sites, were developed in France during the French Revolution. For the first time news of victories was sent by an army in the field back to the capital in minutes, compared to hours or days by horse.

Hardback
This photographic book features the activities of some of the most famous UK warship builders. This book contains over 160 full page photographs with extended captions from the earliest ships right up to the launch of HMS CLYDE in 2006.

Hardback
This photographic books features the activities of some of the most famous UK warship builders. Contains over 120 full page photographs with extended captions from the earliest ships through to the roll-out of the latest generation of nuclear-powered submarine, Astute.

This book reveals the crucial role of the 50-gun ship in the development of both the battleship and the frigate, and explains the enduring role which ensured the survival of the type into the nineteenth century. Now in paperback.