World War II at Sea: A Global History

World 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 show more 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. show less

This 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 show more 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. show less

I try to keep looking for ways to interact with my kids in new ways. My son loves reading about military history, so I though I would add a book on that topic to my reading list. Reading it together would give us more things to talk about.

Oxford University Press was kind enough to send me a review copy of its upcoming release: World War II at Sea: A Global History by Craig L. Symonds. My son and I jumped in and enjoyed this narrative of the naval war and all of its belligerents, on all of the world’s oceans and seas, between 1939 and 1945.

If that sounds like a lot. It is. At almost 800 pages, it’s a tremendous collection of the events of World War II through the lens of big steel ships.

I have to admit, I knew bits and pieces of show more World War II history, but I never put it all together to figure out the chronology of events and how they related to each other.

The book opens with 1930 London Conference, an early attempt at an arms treaty. The goal was to limit the tonnage of naval ships to prevent a build up in naval power among Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States and Japan. The arguments over the numbers of battleships at the beginning of the war become out of touch. Mr. Symonds shows how these limitations on naval warfare become misplaced as the strategies and purpose of the navies changed rapidly during the war. WWII brought major technological advances in warfare that radically changed naval strategy. That conference failed to address aircraft carriers. By the end of the war, aircraft carriers were the key naval strength.

World War II at Sea covers all of these major engagements and their interconnection with other aspects of the conflicts:

the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow
the Battle of the Atlantic
the “miracle” evacuation from Dunkirk
the battles for control of Norway fjords
Mussolini’s Regia Marina, the fourth-largest navy in the world, but ineffective for a lack a fuel
Japanese naval power of the Kidö Butai
Pearl Harbor
Midway
the forced neutrality of the French navy and eventual scuttling
the landings in North Africa and into Italy
the Normandy invasion
I found the story-telling to be top notch. It’s not easy to keep no many battles, ship and personalities in context. I found Mr. Symonds to have done a masterful job of illuminating the mechanics of large-scale warfare in water and the key role it played.

As for my son, he knew most of this information separately. He appreciated so much being put together in place to add more context to the underlying events. He felt it was too brief at times for the areas he wanted to dive more deeply into.

Originally appeared: https://www.compliancebuilding.com/2018/04/14/weekend-reading-world-war-ii-at-se... show less