Originally published: Peppard Common, Oxfordshire: Cressrelles Pub., 1980.

Day-to-Day Naval Actions April 1940 through September 1940

The Bull and the Barriers

Volume 8 documents the swing of battle from the Axis to the Allies from December 1942 thru February 1943 as naval actions forced the Japanese to begin their retreat and their efforts to forestall the inevitable. Meanwhile, naval actions slowly strangled the Axis nations in Europe and led them to the road of defeat. Specific events include: * The last naval battles for Guadalcanal. * The IJN's secret evacuation of the Japanese Army from Guadalcanal. * The Russian encirclement and destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. * The German counterattacks against the much larger Russian Army in the Ukraine. * The Battle of the North Atlantic between Allied convoy escorts and German U-boats. * The Allies' advance to trap German and Italian troops in Tunisia. * Intense actions in the Arctic Ocean as the German surface fleet tried to destroy the Arctic Convoys. * Increased attacks by USN submarines on Japanese shipping.

At Scapa Flow, Orkney, on 21 June 1919, the world's second most powerful navy deliberately sank itself. Four hundred thousand tons of shipping went to the bottom of Scapa Flow on that fateful day in the greatest act of self-immolation ever committed. However, few people are aware that rear-Admiral Ludwig von reuter was the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper, that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it, and that the sinking caused the last casualties and last prisoners of the First World War. Fewer still know that the fragments of the Kaiser's great fleet are now on the moon. This is the story of the Grand Scuttle. Dan van der Vat has made use of previously unused German archive material, eye-witness accounts and the recollections of survivors as well as many contemporary photographs that capture the spectacle of the finest ships of the time being deliberately sunk by their own crews.

Comprehensive list of day-to-day naval actions from July 1943 through September 1943. Major events include Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, plus continued action in the Solomon and New Guinea Islands, and the US liberation of Kiska Island.

Volume 12 covers all naval engagements during the first three months of 1944. In the Pacific, US Operation Cartwheel successfully isolates the strong Japanese force at Rabaul. US and Australian forces advance along the New Guinea coast toward the Philippines. The US Navy wages the air attack on Truk, then captures the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Meanwhile in Europe, the Allies invade Italy at Anzio and prepare for their landing at Normandy, France.