Geoffrey Bennett (1909–1983)
Author of Naval Battles of the First World War
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Also used the alias "Sea-Lion". Please don't separate that out.
Works by Geoffrey Bennett
The Pepper Trader: True Tales of the German East Asia Squadron and the Man who Cast them in Stone (2006) 5 copies, 1 review
The Falkland Islands mystery, etc. 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Bennett, Geoffrey Martin
- Other names
- Sea-Lion
- Birthdate
- 1909-06-07
- Date of death
- 1983-09-05
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (1923-26), (attended)
Royal Naval College, Greenwich (1929-30) - Organizations
- Royal Historical Society (fellow)
Royal United Services Institute
Institute for Defence Studies
Naval Records Society (fellow)
Royal Navy - Awards and honors
- Military: Distinguished Service Cross, 1943; . Civilian: Gold Medal and Trench-Gascoigne Prize of Royal United Service Institution, 1935, 1941, 1942 [1943, 1972, 1935, 1941, 1942]
Order of Orange Nassau (1972) - Short biography
- Associated with the Royal Navy from 1923 until 1958, author Geoffrey Bennett was a signal officer in the South Atlantic and Mediterranean stations from 1940 until 1945, when he was appointed to a post in the British Admiralty. Bennett also served as captain of the H.M.S. St. Brides' Bay in 1948 and as a naval attache in Moscow, Warsaw, and Helsinki from 1953, the year he attained the rank of captain, until 1955. Bennett wrote several books drawing on his military knowledge, including Nelson the Commander and Battle of Trafalgar. Under the pseudonym Sea-Lion, the captain published numerous novels, among them This Creeping Evil, Wrecked on the Goodwins, and Death in the Dog Watches. Bennett also wrote several radio plays for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC-Radio).
- Nationality
- England
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Ludlow, Shropshire, England
London, England, UK - Place of death
- Ludlow, Shropshire, England
- Disambiguation notice
- Also used the alias "Sea-Lion". Please don't separate that out.
- Associated Place (for map)
- Shropshire, England
Members
Reviews
While I've been interested in military history since I was a kid, I've never been too keen on naval history. Perhaps it say more about me than about naval history, but I've always found the movements of ships on the sea harder to follow than the movements of armies on land. That is compounded in the case of a battle like Jutland, that even its protagonists found hard to follow.
Yet I was able, more or less, to follow the course of these events in Geoffrey Bennett's book. I was also struck by show more the parallels between Jellicoe's situation in the North Sea and that of the commanders on the Western Front. Jellicoe's fleet covered many miles compared to the fleets of Nelson a century earlier, yet command and control techniques had changed little. As French and Haig had to command modern armies with the tools of Wellington, so Jellicoe had to command a modern fleet with the tools of Nelson - visual observation and flags to communicate the findings thereof. Not surprisingly, these tools were insufficient for him to spring his moderately complex trap and wipe out Scheer's fleet at Jutland. show less
Yet I was able, more or less, to follow the course of these events in Geoffrey Bennett's book. I was also struck by show more the parallels between Jellicoe's situation in the North Sea and that of the commanders on the Western Front. Jellicoe's fleet covered many miles compared to the fleets of Nelson a century earlier, yet command and control techniques had changed little. As French and Haig had to command modern armies with the tools of Wellington, so Jellicoe had to command a modern fleet with the tools of Nelson - visual observation and flags to communicate the findings thereof. Not surprisingly, these tools were insufficient for him to spring his moderately complex trap and wipe out Scheer's fleet at Jutland. show less
The Pepper Trader: True Tales of the German East Asia Squadron And the Man Who Cast Them in Stone by Geoffrey Bennett
A charming book. The structure is somewhat diffuse, and there is an extended reference ti a Serpent Eagle, a raptor of the east Indies, but the author does juggle reasonably well between his own Indonesian experience, the involvement of the Netherlands with the current Indonesia, and a biography of the Pepper trader Emil Helfferich, a man who became a Nazi in the WWII. Bennett, who is a canadian geophysicist, does not seem to ave gone on to what would be an interesting volume two. Pity.
This is a detailed analysis of the events that occurred during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval engagement of World War I. After two years of waiting, the British Grand Fleet finally succeeded in luring the German High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. The two most powerful navies in history to that time using the largest and most powerful ships ever built would finally meet. However, a combination of weather, darkness, and poor communication amongst the Grand Fleet allowed the High show more Seas Fleet to escape destruction. Geoffrey Bennett does a great job of exploring the deficiencies and strengths of the two navies. The British tactical shortcomings, in particular, are laid bare to the reader. Bennett's tense account of the engagements that did occur during the battle is very well done. He also strikes the appropriate tone when describing the destruction of the several ships sunk during the battle, mostly British, that went down with all hands. I believe that this work is very useful for the reader interested in the aspect of the Great War, the blockade, that ultimately brought Germany and its allies to the armistice. show less
Excellent synopses of the battles of the period. There is little original here, but Bennett is a good writer, and the bibliography is full of excellent places to start more detailed work on your own. A fun read.
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Statistics
- Works
- 20
- Members
- 614
- Popularity
- #40,945
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 10
- ISBNs
- 56
- Languages
- 2