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In late 1943 as the prospect of victory over Germany became discernible, the British high command's attention turned toward the Pacific. At issue was Great Britain's role in what would be the final stage of the Japanese war. Given conflicting strategic considerations, the lack of facilities, supplies, and men, and a navy unfamiliar with large-scale carrier operations, the search for a national strategy against the Japanese was to take a full year. Within the British high command, a bitter debate raged between a prime minister intent upon an Indian Ocean-based amphibious strategy and the service chiefs who recognized that an Upper Burma commitment was unavoidable and saw that the employment of a carrier force in the central Pacific was highly desirable. With this book a noted British naval and military historian follows the debate, tracing the way that policy was shaped as much by the unfolding of events as by deliberate calculations. Drawing on British Cabinet, service, and planning papers, H. P. Willmott examines a process and issues that remain relevant today - the formulation of national policy, its joint-service application and reconstitution, and the confusion of political and military arguments at the highest levels of policy-making. In addition, he examines the decisions that were made against the record of achievement in 1944-1945.
In the annals of World War II, the role of America's British allies in the Pacific Theater has been largely ignored. Nicholas Sarantakes now revisits this seldom-studied chapter to depict the delicate dance among uneasy partners in their fight against Japan, offering the most detailed assessment ever published of the U.S. alliance with Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Sarantakes examines Britain's motivations for participating in the invasion of Japan, the roles envisioned by its Commonwealth nations, and the United States' decision to accept their participation. He shows how the interests of all allies were served by maintaining the coalition, even in the face of disputes between nations, between civilian and military leaders, and between individual services-and that allied participation, despite its diplomatic importance, limited the efficiency of final operations against Japan. Sarantakes describes how Churchill favored British-led operations to revive the colonial empire, while his generals argued that Britain would be further marginalized if it didn't fight alongside the United States in the assault on Japan's home islands. Meanwhile, Commonwealth partners, preoccupied with their own security concerns, saw an opportunity to support the mother country in service of their own separatist ambitions. And even though the United States called the shots, it welcomed allies to share the predicted casualties of an invasion. Sarantakes takes readers into the halls of both civil and military power in all five nations to show how policies and actions were debated, contested, and resolved. He not only describes the participation of major heads of state but also brings in lesser-known Commonwealth figures, plus a cast of military leaders including General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz on the American side and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke on the British. He also paints vivid scenes of battle, including the attack of the British Pacific Fleet on Japan and ground fighting on Okinawa. Deftly blending diplomatic, political, and military history encompassing naval, air, and land forces, Sarantakes's work reveals behind-the-scenes political factors in warfare alliances and explains why the Anglo-America coalition survived World War II when it had collapsed after World War I.
“An important contribution . . . a thoughtful account of the years preceding the Second World War and, at much greater length, of the war itself.” —History In this second volume of his history of naval power in the 20th century, H. P. Willmott follows the fortunes of the established seafaring nations of Europe along with two upstarts—the United States and Japan. Emerging from World War I in command of the seas, Great Britain saw its supremacy weakened through neglect and in the face of more committed rivals. Britain’s grand Coronation Review of 1937 marked the apotheosis of a sea power slipping into decline. Meanwhile, Britain’s rivals and soon-to-be enemies were embarking on significant naval building programs that would soon change the nature of war at sea in ways that neither they nor their rivals anticipated. By the end of a new world war, the United States had taken command of two oceans, having placed its industrial might behind technologies that further defined the arena of naval power above and below the waves, where stealth and the ability to strike at great distance would soon rewrite the rules of war and of peace. This splendid volume further enhances Willmott’s stature as the dean of naval historians. Praise for The Last Century of Sea Power series “The author, dean of naval historians, provides a sweeping look at, and analysis of, the transformation of naval power . . . Wilmott is fearless in his judgments.” —Seapower “H. P. Willmott is the finest naval historian and among the finest historians of any discipline writing today.” —Bernard D. Cole, author of The Great Wall at Sea
British imperialism helped shaped the modern world order. This same imperialism created modern Singapore, controlling its colonial development and influencing its post-colonial orientation. Winston Churchill was British imperialism's most significant twentieth century statesman. He never visited Singapore, but his story and that of the city-state are deeply intertwined. Singapore became a symbol of British imperial power in Asia to Churchill, while Singaporeans came to see him as symbolizing that power. The fall of Singapore to Japanese conquest in 1942 was a low point in Churchill's war leadership, one he forever labeled by calling it 'the worst disaster in British military history.' It was also a tragedy for Singapore, ushering in three years of harsh military occupation. But the interplay between these three historical forces, Churchill, Empire, and Singapore, extended well beyond this dramatic conjuncture. The Last Lion and the Lion City provides a critical examination of that longer interplay through an analysis of Churchill's understanding of empire, his perceptions of Singapore and its imperial role, his direction of affairs regarding Singapore and the Empire, his influence on the subsequent relationship between Britain and Singapore.
This new collection of essays by a panel of established international scholars sheds new light on what some of those influences were and what actions were taken as a result of Britain's Far Eastern commitments. Not only are new evidence and approaches to those issues addressed presented, but new avenues for further research are clearly outlined.
The British Pacific Fleet was formed in October 1944 and dispatched to fight alongside the USN in the Central Pacific under Admiral Nimitz. Deploying previously unpublished documents, this book reveals how relations between the UK and US forces developed from a starting point of barely repressed suspicion, to one where both navies came to understand each other and eventually find a remarkable bond. Born out of a shared experience of Kamikaze attacks, extended operations against bitterly hostile shores, the pooling of knowledge and experience, the two navies underpinned the diplomatic moves in both Washington and London. The book carries the legacy of this experience through to the next Anglo-American participation in war, Korea. It illustrates and explains how and why certain lessons were incorporated into the composition, behaviour and structure of the post-war Navy. It demonstrates the significance of what was learned from the USN by the RN and by USN from the RN. As well as examining the background to the largest fleet the Royal Navy ever put to sea, the book also charts its effects on Anglo-American relations, multinational operations, alliance building, and the ways naval forces are shaped by and in turn shape politics. It addresses a period of rapid technological development that witnessed profound changes in the international system, and which raised fundamental questions of what navies were for and how should they operate and organize themselves. In so doing the study illustrates how the experience of a few long months at the end of the war in the Pacific would cast a long shadow over these issues in the very different circumstances of the post-war world.
In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the US Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy and dogged persistence all played a part. As much a political as a technical triumph, the BPF was uniquely complex in its make-up: its C-in-C was responsible to the Admiralty for the general direction of his Fleet; took operational orders from the American Admiral Nimitz; answered to the Government of Australia for the construction and maintenance of a vast base infrastructure, and to other Commonwealth Governments for the ships and men that formed his fully-integrated multi-national fleet. This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background, creation and expansion of the BPF from its first tentative strikes, through operations off the coast of Japan to its impact on the immediate post-war period, including the opinions of USN liaison officers attached to the British flagships. The book is the first to demonstrate the real scope and scale of the BPF’s impressive achievement.