Douglas Reeman

From the author of The First to Land, a novel set during World War II....

HMS Temeraire: latest and most advanced of Britain's nuclear submarines....

HMS Royston, Coastal Forces Depot Ship, is mother ship to a battered, war-worn bunch of MTBs and MGBs....

In November 1941, Lt Ralph Trewin, DSC arrives at Singapore as second-in-command of HMS Porcupine. To the shell-shocked Trewin, the gun boat and her five elderly consorts symbolise the ignorance and blind optimism he finds in Singapore.....

Malta 1941. To most people H.M.S. Saracen is just an ugly, obsolete ship with an equally ugly recent history: her last commander is due for court-martial after shelling the troops he was sent to protect....

When Captain Guy Sherbrooke joins HMS Reliant in 1943, he knows he may be her last Captain....

Western Ocean, 1942....

It was an age of empire, an age of contrast, and an age of dramatic change - and one which would determine the destinies of nations as well as of men....

The year: 1943. Now there was to be no more retreat for Britain and her Allies. At last the war was to be carried into enemy territory....

February 1943. As the balance of the war slowly shifts in Britain's favour, Lieutenant-Commander Steven Marshall brings his battle-scarred submarine into home port....

In 1941, when she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser, the SS Benbecula was already old....

The Mediterranean, 1943... The HMS Rob Roy. A tiny machine, just 230 feet from stem to stern....

January, 1944. When the British light cruiser Andromeda arrives at Williamstown naval dockyard to be handed over to the Royal Australian Navy, she is already a legend....

As the Second World War progresses, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Fighter pilot Tim Rowan is posted to an escort carrier to help guard the precious convoys....

They were the men and women of the Royal Navy's Special Operations units....

Commander Graham Martineau must once again call from the ordinary seamen the ultimate in courage, and prepare to defend to the death vital convoys to Russia....

Hong Kong, 1941... To the residents and defence forces of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the war in Europe remains remote....

The crack German cruiser Prinz Luitpold had always been lucky in battle....

HMS Wagtail is a river gunboat, a ship seemingly at the end of her unusual life, lying in a Hong Kong dockyard awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard....

They are called 'The Glory Boys', by those who regard their exploits with envy. Bob is one of them. Already a survivor of the close action in the English Channel & North Sea....