The Washington Treaty of 1922 designed to head off a potentially dangerous arms race between the major naval powers agreed to legally binding limits on the numbers & sizes of the principal warship types. In doing so it introduced a new constraint into naval architecture & sponsored many ingenious attempts to maximise the power of ships built within those restrictions. It effectively banned the construction of new battleships for a decade but threw greater emphasis on large cruisers.rn This much is broadly understood by anyone with an interest in warships but both the wider context of the treaty & the detail ramifications of its provisions are little understood. The approach of this book is novel in combining coverage of the political & strategic background of the treaty
- & the subsequent London Treaty of 1930
- with analysis of exactly how the navies of Britain the USA Japan France & Italy responded in terms of the types of warships they built & the precise characteristics of those designs. This was not just a matter of capital ships & cruisers but also influenced the development of super-destroyers & large submarines.rn Now for the first time warship enthusiasts & historians can understand fully the rationale behind much of inter-war naval procurement. The Washington Treaty was a watershed & this book provides an important insight into its full significance.

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Covering a vast sweep this well-illustrated book provides a concise exploration of pre-Classical naval warfare in the Mediterranean. Adrian Wood examines the vessels naval techniques & strategy & prominent engagements fought by the Egyptians Minoans Hittites Phoenicians & Greeks. ...

No warship name in British naval history has more battle honours than Warspite. While this book looks at the lives of all eight vessels to bear the name (between 1596 & the 1990s) it concentrates on the truly epic story of the seventh vessel a super-dreadnought battleship conceived as the ultimate answer to German naval power during the arms race that helped cause WW1. Warspite fought off the entire German fleet at Jutland survived a mutiny between the wars & then covered herself in glory in action from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean during WW2. She was the flagship of Admiral Sir John Cunningham when he mastered the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean her guns inflicting devastating damage on the enemy at Calabria in 1940 & Matapan in 1941. She narrowly avoided destruction by the Japanese carrier force that devastated Pearl Harbor. She provided crucial fire support for Allied landings in Sicily Italy Normandy & Walcheren. A lucky ship in battle she survived dive-bombers off Crete & glider bomb hits off Salerno. The Spite had a reputation for being obtuse at unexpected moments running aground & losing her steering several times; she broke free from her towropes on the way to the breakers & ending up beached at St Michaels Mount where it took a decade to dismantle her. She had fought to the end. But this is not just the story of a warship. Wherever possible the voices of those men who fought aboard her speak directly to the reader about their experiences. The Warspite is also the story of a great naval nation which constructed her as the ultimate symbol of its imperial power & then scrapped her when the sun set on that empire. Iain Ballantyne is a much published naval author. His books for Pen & Sword include Warspite London & Victory in the Famous Ships of the British Navy series as well as Strike From the Sea. He is editor of Warships International. ...

The war is over... In Bristol three very different women wait for their loved ones to return home. But Edna's fiance returns badly crippled. & Charlotte's husband comes back a very different creature to the kind gentle man she remembers. & as for Polly her GI boyfriend doesn't come back at all leaving her with a bun in the oven & a scandal in the making... Note: originally published as THE REST OF OUR LIVES by Jeannie Johnson ...

World War II affected every aspect of life on the British home front. From food rationing to air-raid shelters to war work those left at home had to make huge changes in their day-to-day lives as Britain mobilised economised & saved in the name of Victory. Wartime Britain" takes a look at what these changes actually meant for families: how families coped when parents went to fight & children were evacuated; how pets were fed during rationing; the rise in road accidents during the blackout; & the infamous 'shelter cough'." ...

During World War Two Britain had to look to the land to provide the produce it had previously shipped in from abroad meaning huge changes on both the agricultural & domestic scenes. Accompanying an 8-part BBC series & written by the three presenters who spend a year living on a reconstructed farm from the era Wartime Farm sets these changes within a historical context & looks at the day-to-day life of that time. Exploring a fascinating chapter in Britains recent history we see how our predecessors lived & thrived in difficult conditions with extreme frugality & ingenuity. From growing your own vegetables & keeping chickens in the back yard to having to make do & mend many of the challenges faced by wartime Britons have resonance today. Fascinating historical detail & atmospheric story-telling make this a truly compelling read. ...

The demands of a nation at war had many far-reaching effects on the average home. How did women cope with bringing up a family single-handed after their husbands were conscripted for military service? How did they use the rations & keep up their familys spirits? What was it like to Make Do & Mend or Dig for Victory or to sleep in an Anderson shelter? By looking at the lives of ordinary people who inhabited the semi-detatched world of suburbia Mike & Carol Harris have painted a vivid picture of daily life on the Home Front in wartime Britain. Chapters include: The Suburban Dream House Beautiful Furniture & Furnishings Housework & DIY Rationing The Wartime Kitchen If the Invader Comes Fashion Entertainment & Reconstruction. With a wealth of illustrations & ephemera this book brings wartime experience to life. ...

This book covers Second World War versions of the legendary Jeep
- all the prototypes production models & special versions. There
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' Theda hadn't given much thought to what would happen after she became a nurse. But by the time she finished her first year & was studying for her exams she was coming up to twenty-one & there was a war on'. Against the odds miner's daughter Theda Wearmouth succeeds in gaining a nursing place at Newcastle Hospital. By the time war breaks out she is newly qualified & working in a children's ward a role she adores. She also finds herself being courted by a young soldier. Only Theda's dreams of becoming Mrs Alan Price are shattered when he is killed in action before he can make good on his promise to marry her. Broken-hearted Theda finds herself re-assigned to a special unit of the hospital dealing with German prisoners of war. Her duty is clear. But will she be able to cope with nursing the very men her fiance died fighting? ...

From the American Civil War onwards railways have been an important aspect of war. So important were the railways that in the First World War the state took control of the railways & then repeated this exercise in the Second World War. Wartime on the Railways describes the part played by Britain's railways during the Second World War dealing not simply with operational matters or the impact of enemy action on the railways but also looking at financial arrangements the part played by railway workshops in producing equipment for the military the wartime experience of the railways' ships with the narrative augmented by personal accounts from railwaymen & women as the war years saw much change. The book

Includes:: chapters on the railways during the final years of peace & on each of the ' Big Four' companies London Transport's underground system the impact of wartime restrictions on travel & scheduling the role of the railway workshops & ports & shipping as many railway ships were lost during the battle for France & at Dunkirk.

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