War at Sea

By Edward Smithies

Published Jan 2010

Written with Colin John Bruce.

The war at sea touched people’s lives in countless ways, whether they built the ships, served aboard them, laboured to refit and repair them in the naval dockyards or simply consumed the foods and materials that they brought to a blockaded Britain. Its battles did not have a neat beginning and end but lasted the whole war – a relentless, wearing campaign whose loss would have meant certain defeat.

In this sequel to the acclaimed War in the Air, the men and women who fought the naval war tell the story in their own words. From the grim killing grounds of the North Atlantic to the mangrove swamps of Burma, from giant liners ferrying 15,000 troops at one time to the tiny, wave-lashed trawlers of the Royal Navy Patrol Service, the sailors, naval airmen and ‘back room’ staff who kept them at sea reveal at a personal level what it was like to be part of this vast and complex struggle of the Second World War – its effects on them, their families and their lives.