So the age of sail has C. S. Forester's Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey, and the modern period has Tom Clancy and John Birmingham . What are the worthwhile books/authors for our period? C. S. Forester's excellent "The Ship" is a fictionalised account of the battle of Sirte from the point of view of the crew of a light cruiser, and is one of my favourites. What else is out there?
Hmm. I know such fiction was quite popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but I can not think of who the Tom Clancy of the era was.
Well, I can't think of any prolific fiction or series of books, but I would suggest Hoyt's 'The Last Cruise of the Emden' and Hornfischer's 'The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors' in the realm of nonfiction.
And of course, Nicholas Monserrat's "The Cruel Sea", D.A.Rayner's "The Enemy Below", to go with Edward Beach's "Run Silent, Run Deep".
I can't think of any specific recommendations but I remember a similar thread on another forum: http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?82382-Naval-book-recommendations this list is more specific to the RJW and Great War, but IIRC there was lots of good stuff in general.
Alexander Fullerton has a series of books starting in WWI about several British Navy men. I read the first one, it was pretty good, unless you know nothing about Navy history. I looked around the local libraries for the others in the series and didn't find many of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fullerton
Well Herman Wouk wrote some pretty good World War II novels: The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War and War and Remberance. Newt Gingrich wrote a couple of pretty good novels also: Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th and Days of Infamy.
Of you like alternate history Harry Turtledove. Also a series call the Destroyermen. It is a series based on a couple of US destroyers during the Java sea campaign getting transported into an alternate world with a Jap battlecruiser. Kim
I finished The Caine Mutiny just a couple weeks ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It centers on the experiences of a young officer stationed on a Destroyer Minesweeper under the command of Lieutenant Commander Queeg. I have also read the Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and found both to be good reads as well.
I have not read any "Naval" books lately, But not too long ago I did read "God is my Co-Pilot" by Robert Lee Scott, Jr. and "Of war and weddings" by Jerry Yellin. In the book, "God in my Co-Pilot" It tells of his life and experiences. It also brings out a lot of extreme hated for the Japanese. (I found that very understandable after my trip to Manila and Corregidor last year, and hearing the stories of what they did to American and Pinoy prisoners.) In the book "Of war and weddings", Jerry tells his own story as well. During the war he also developed a great hatred of the Japanese. But then in Jerry’s book, there is a transformation. His youngest son goes to Japan and marries a Japanese girl. His book tells of the changes both families went through. From hate and distrust to loving each other. True these books are Non-Fiction. But they are interesting reading. After my return from the Philippines, I had to tell Jerry about the effect the trip had on me. We conversed for some time about it. He helped me work that anger out. Yes, Jerry is a personal friend and a P-51 fighter pilot who flew in the Pacific during WW2.
I've read quite a few Harry Turtledove alternate history books. The best with naval subject matter are: The 11 books of the "Southern Victory" series. This collection starts in the 1880s and runs through the 1940s on the premise that the Confederacy had won on the Civil War. Both World Wars are fought between the USA (and its allies) and CSA (and its allies). The books focus more on land battles but include some naval characters as well. Here are the titles: How Few Remain (1997) The Great War Trilogy American Front (1998) Walk in Hell (1999) Breakthroughs (2000) The American Empire Trilogy Blood and Iron (2001) The Center Cannot Hold (2002) The Victorious Opposition (2003) The Settling Accounts Tetralogy Return Engagement (2004) Drive to the East (2005) The Grapple (2006) In at the Death (2007) Turtledove also wrote a really good pair of books on Japan not only attacking Pearl Harbor but invading the Hawaiian islands: Days of Infamy (2004) End of the Beginning (2005) Another series he's currently working on covers World War II beginning early when Europe goes to war over Czechoslovakia rather than Poland. Like the Southern Victory series, the focus is primarily on land battles but includes some submarine combat. Hitler's War (2009) West and East (2010) The Big Switch (2011) Coup d'Etat (2012) Two Fronts
Some other authors you might want to check out are... William Le Queux - he was sort of the Tom Clancy of the 1890s and wrote several books about potential wars Britain might face. His two most famous books are both available online. - The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) - Discusses an alliance between Russia and France to invade England, and includes several naval battles. I've been reading this one off and on. It's OK but is written primarily from the perspective of an all-knowing narrator rather than first person characters. - The Invasion of 1910 (1906) - I believe this one predicts war between Britain and Germany. HG Wells, The War in the Air (1908) - Interesting book predicting naval battleships had become obsolete and would be replaced by air power. This particular book describes a war between America using warships and Germany using airships. Robert Conroy - another alternate history author similar to Harry Turtledove. I've only read one of his books so far, and it was decent. He's written several more. Most focus on land warfare but some have a naval theme - 1901 (1995) his first novel, deals with a German invasion of Long Island. - 1862 (2006) is based on what might have happened had the United Kingdom entered into the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. - 1945 (2007) deals with what might have occurred if the Japanese had not surrendered at the end of World War II and a land invasion of the Japanese home islands was required. - 1942 (2009) tells of the Japanese conquest of Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor is far more successful than actually happened. - Red Inferno: 1945, (2010)deals with a war between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union following the controversial move by the Allies towards Berlin. The move is tragically misunderstood by Stalin. - Castro's Bomb (2011) - Himmler's War (2011) deals with what might have happened if Hitler had been killed a year earlier than in real life and leadership of Nazi Germany passed to Himmler. - Rising Sun (2012) Douglas Nile & Michael Dobson - More alternate history. I haven't read any of these yet. - Fox on the Rhine (2002) - details a course of events over late 1944 that resulted from Adolf Hitler's death in the July 20 plot and Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel's survival of the crackdown. - Fox at the Front (2004) - sequel to Fox on the Rhine. - MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan (2007) Peter Tsouras - Another alternate history author I haven't read yet. Some of his books sound interesting. - Disaster at D-Day : the Germans defeat the Allies, June 1944 (1994) - Rising sun victorious: the alternate history of how the Japanese won the Pacific War (2001) - Third Reich victorious : the alternate history of how the Germans won the war (2002) - Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War (2006) - Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History (2008) - A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril An Alternate History (2010) - Hitler Triumphant (2011)
Douglas Reeman - British author. Under his own name he wrote dozens of WW1 and WW2 naval ficiton books. He's probably even better known under his psuedoname Alexander Kent - he wrote the Richard Bolitho Napoleonic naval books under that name. Alistair MacLean - wrote mainly ww2 / spy novels (Fear is the Key, Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare), but also wrote some phenominal naval stories - HMS Ulysses, South by Java Head, and San Andreas. Incidentally, here's a list of his books that became movies: Guns of Navarone, Force Ten from Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Breakhart Pass (Charles Bronson), When Eight Bells Toll, Ice Station Zebra, Puppet on a Chain. Several others.... James Bassett - wrote In Harms Way, which became a B/W movie starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglass. All the above are great books. I've read every one of them at least 5 times over the past 40 years. I'd start with HMS Ulysses and the Reeman books. All of them are probably available thru Amazon, since they're most likely out of print.
This one is going to sound out there, but so am I so here goes. 'Wolf's Hour' by Robert R. Mc Cammon. It is the story of a Russian born werewolf, working as a spy for the British, in Nazi Germany during WW2. Really it is a good story. J P.S. Just in case anyone is wondering, the author has embellished just a little bit.
Tom (and any others interested in WW2 naval fiction)... looking over my post from last night, I realized I didn't emphasize or highlight properly: HMS Ulysses (Alistair MacLean) is probably the best depiction of what the Murmansk convoy battles were like that was ever written. Granted, it's fiction. The Ulysses is a modified Dido, the "bad guy" is a fictional Hipper-class. But the mental imagery you get when reading this book will stay with you. READ IT!!!!!