ENGAGE THE ENEMY MORE CLOSELY: The Royal Navy in the Second World War.

UK,thick 8vo HB+dw/dj,reprint with corrections,1st edn thus.[Originally and first published in UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,the preceding year,1991.This edition reprinted but with corrections,so 1st edn thus.] FINE+/FINE.No owner inscrptn,AND no price-clip to dw/dj - absence of publisher's price - usually indicates an export edition,and generally believed to precede UK trade issue/distribution.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,colour pictorial illustrated front panel of dw/dj with red+white and silver gilt colour lettering and similar lettering to spine/backstrip; with negligible shelf-wear,bumping or creasing to edges or corners - no nicks or tears present.Tiniest of indent to front panel of dw/dj and miniscule scoring to rear panel of dw/dj.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,unblemished and clean,sharp-cornered, publisher's original plain navy blue cloth boards with bright,crisp, blocked gilt letters to spine/backstrip,a red+white striped headband, and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,reprinted with corrections,1st edn thus,vii-xviiipp+2-1052pp [paginated] includes contents list/table,separate list/tables of b/w photographs and maps, author's acknowledgements,author's preface,a prologue 1918,Pts I-IV comprising 6,7,10 and 5 chapters respectively,32pp contemporary b/w photographs in 4 blocks of 4pp apiece and a further 2 blocks of 8pp apiece along with 21 area/regional,tactical b/w maps all interspersed throughout the text and the book,appendices(4) - abbreviations,notes to the text,a bibliography and an index.Plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a dedication,and an epigraph separator page (Nelson's last signal at the Battle of trafalgar,flying in HMS Victory until shot away - the title of the book.) 'Engage the Enemy More Closely' presents a challengingly novel interpretation of Britain's wartime role as an island seapower and the mother country of a worldwide Empire.Corelli Barnett demonstrates that the British Empire,with its oceanic communications,was less a source of strength to Britain than of weakness.He shows that Britain's dependence on seaborne imports of food,raw materials and American technology was also a liability and how the brunt of this and of Britain's global predicament fell upon the Royal Navy - but a Navy far too small for its tasks owing to the disarmament of the 1920s and the belated rearmament of the 1930s.
'Engage the Enemy More Closely.' ranges from high level debates in London and Washington over grand strategy to gripping descriptions of the Royal Navy in action: its remorseless struggle against the U-boat in the Atlantic; its hunt for the battleship Bismarck; the 'death-ride' of the Mediterranean Fleet off Greece and Crete in 1941; the desperate convoy battles in the Mediterranean and Arctic; the tragic fate of the ships HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse off Malaya at the hands of Japanese aircraft.Into this story the author weaves the rivalry between Allied and German technology in weapons and radar; and the all important secret war of the cryptographers.He shows too how the Royal Navy's strategic overstretch was compounded by Britain's industrial shortcomings,especially in the limited output of her obsolete shipyards,but increasingly assisted by cooperation with the US Navy. Corelli Barnett devastatingly indicts the British Air Staff for its doctrinaire reluctance to divert long-range aircraft tot he vital Battle of the Atlantic from the indecisive bomber offensive against German cities.Another major and controversial theme of the book lies in the author's criticism of Winston Churchill's direct interventions in naval operations and his pursuit of strategic fantasies - such as the Norwegian campaign in 1940 - in defiance of military reality. Corelli Barnett also contends that the 'blue water' strategy pursued by Britain (later by America too) in the Mediterranean demanded resources of shipping,warships and military personnel out of all proportion to the small German armies actually engaged in North Africa and Italy.
This is also a book of tremendous scope and insight,compellingly readable and massively researched,placing the course of the Second World War in fresh perspective.But above all it is the story of the British sailor's endurance in the face of all hardships and his courage in the face of all dangers and of any odds.It is the story of a Navy that began the war with expectations of another Battle of Jutland between massed battlefleets,but which went on to launch the first carrier strike in history, and ended by master-minding the greatest and most complex combined operation ever,the landing of the Allied Expeditionary force on the Normandy beaches on 6 June,1944.It is the story of a Navy that remained throughout steadfastly true to the spirit of Nelson's last signal at the Battle of Trafalgar: 'Engage the enemy more closely'.
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