Standard Of Power - Softcover

"On 24th May 1943, admiral Donitz ordered his U-boats to withdraw from the north Atlantic. The Royal Navy had won the most important victory in all the centuries of its existence...It was overwhelmingly a British, and specifically a Royal navy, triumph. The war for Europe still had two hard years to run before the final and total victory; but by May 1943 the Navy had already made the most important strategic contribution to the defeat of an expansionist Germany - for the second time in twenty-five years. It was the finest hour of British seapower in a uniquely turbulent century" (from Standard of Power)

Dan van der Vat, author of authoritative bestselling books on the Titanic and the history of the submarine, has now produced an enthralling and thoroughly researched history of the Royal Navy in the twentieth century. Beginning with the great 'Dreadnought race' before the First World War, which set the theme for the great conflict with Germany which dominated most of the twentieth century, it follows through the sea conflicts of the Great War which so uncannily prefigured the ruthless battles of the Second, and takes the story through our 'Finest Hour' in the Battle of the Atlantic (the winning of which, even more than the Battle of Britain, secured our future) to the cuts of the post-war era, the final heroic but anachronistic flourish of the Falklands, and the present day, where the Royal Navy is once again entrusted with the major platform of our defence. Standard of Power is full of dramatic events, brilliantly recreated in narrative, and is also a serious study of technological and social change through which the Royal Navy, like Britain itself, has transformed itself almost beyond recognition.