World War II at Sea

A Global History

By: Craig L. Symonds

Narrated by: Eric Martin

Opening with the 1930 London Conference, Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up, as Europe erupted into conflict once more and its navies were brought to bear against each other. World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina - at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world - and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; the struggles of the Russian Navy and the scuttling of the French Fleet in Toulon in 1942; the landings in North Africa and then Normandy. Here as well are the notable naval leaders - FDR and Churchill, both self-proclaimed "Navy men," Karl Dönitz, François Darlan, Ernest King, Isoroku Yamamoto, Erich Raeder, Inigo Campioni, Louis Mountbatten, William Halsey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of seamen and officers of all nationalities whose live were imperiled and lost during the greatest naval conflicts in history.

©2018 Craig L. Symonds (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Outstanding.

Hits the sweet spot between overview and comprehensive detail. Must read for students of WWII and Naval history.

Great general history

Overall a great general history of WW2 naval warfare. Narrator was excellent and I was generally pleased with the whole thing

Great listen

I learned so much aboutWWII in general, but the unique naval perspective made it all the more interconnected and interesting.

Fascinating

I particularly liked the end of book, when it talked about happened to many prominent individuals of the book. I also like the fact that it pointed out allied success depended on US production, Russian manpower sacrifice, and Churchill stubbornness. I liked completeness of the work. My father was a naval officer during the war and would have agreed with the assumptions about the war in Pacific. Especially about Nimitz, Halsey, King, and MacArthur. Dad always claimed there was more trash in the message to Halsey about Leyte Gulf - he was at Naval HQ during that period and to end of the war.

dope

great overview, details, of ww2 in the pacific and atlantic would reread if necessary for reference