Audiobook25 hours
World War II at Sea: A Global History
Written by Craig L. Symonds
Narrated by Eric Jason Martin
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
More audiobooks from Craig L. Symonds
Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lincoln and His Admirals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to World War II at Sea
Related audiobooks
The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pacific Thunder: The US Navy's Central Pacific Campaign, August 1943–October 1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Morning Star, Midnight Sun: The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War II August–October 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Deadly Deep: The Definitive History of Submarine Warfare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jutland: The Unfinished Battle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunt the Bismarck: The Pursuit of Germany's Most Famous Battleship Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Chastise: The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We March Against England: Operation Sea Lion, 1940–41 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silver State Dreadnought: The Remarkable Story of Battleship Nevada Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dawn's Early Light Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Carriers Fought: Carrier Operations in WWII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tidal Wave: From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War • July 1937–May 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War of Attrition: Fighting the First World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for World War II at Sea
Rating: 4.534090977272727 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
44 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very approachable, yet filled with fascinating details that even history buffs are probably unaware about. Also, the orator was fantastic.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is a long listen, but I would consider it one of, if not the, best comprehensive yet approachable WWII naval history books written. The narration can be a bit dry at times, bordering on monotone, but I still highly recommend this book based on content.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a book about events that took place between August 1939, and September 1945. Given a copyright of 2018, that means it's about events between 73 and 79 years ago. That is history. The author is quite meticulous in reporting facts without editorializing. The author quotes Samuel Elliott Morrison's 15 volume work about the same period written about 50 years ago. What we have is a fuller reporting of what actually happened without attempts to enhance or diminish the activities of the actors involved. And that's what history does. Wanting to know right away is a mark of our human impatience but in attempts to satisfy that impatience some facts are omitted altogether, others are distorted, and others are really not facts at all.Symonds has done an excellent service and is to be commended for his work.The Battle of Midway has frequently been cited as the turning point in the naval war in the Pacific. What Symonds reveals is just how incredibly lucky the US forces were to catch the Japanese forces in the few minutes when they were most defenseless. One must not diminish the role of the naval aviators, for it was great and decisive.Midway was spectacular but the grinding battle of the North Atlantic, though less glamorous, was spectacular in another way with men fighting the elements as they fought above and below the waves. One of my cousins married a man who had three ships sunk under him and yet he kept going out.It is sad that so much of naval strategy was based on how the previous war was fought. That was probably inevitable. Still, it was costly.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5World War II at Sea from Craig Symonds is a comprehensive (not exhaustive) history of the naval war in its entirety told chronologically. In other words, a section about the North Atlantic will be followed by a section on the Pacific if there were events that occurred simultaneously or one right after the other. So told as the war unfolded, which means taking into account what is happening in other parts of the world.The purpose of this book is to tell the story in a more realistic manner than the books that have focused on specific battles or theaters, not to break new ground with a new piece of information. Having one comprehensive narrative is breaking new ground and the failure to realize that is not the fault of either Symonds or the book. Those volumes are tremendously important because they are so focused but they also often lose sight of the big picture: the war as a whole. This volume places the war as a whole at the center and shows how the war at sea unfolded in all waters and for all navies. To criticize this book for not getting every bit of minutiae right is petty at best and empty chest-pounding at worst (and most likely). There are thousands of books with the minutiae, enjoy them, they are wonderful books. But this wasn't trying to be like them.I would recommend this to anyone interested in World War II, from introductory to historian. As an introduction it allows a person to have a perspective on the battles and events they have or will learn more about. For a historian, professional or amateur, this serves as a reminder that the war was not a collection of separate battles in isolation but very much a series of events that were influenced by previous and concurrent events and thus affected future events. We often, when looking at specific moments, lose track of the whole. This book puts the whole back in focus. In doing so, it will allow the more focused books to be better understood beyond the simple-minded regurgitation of numbers and gun size.Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.