![]() Thus the post-war global balance of power shifted decisively from Old World to New. As aircraft carriers, destroyers, Liberty ships, planes, landing craft, and other matériel poured from America’s shipyards and factories, the end result could not be in doubt for long. Kennedy identifies 1943 as the year in which US industrial and financial muscle tipped the balance. Image: Ian Marshall/Yale University Press. These sister ships with 14-inch guns had a very different war experience: Oklahoma was irretrievably damaged at Pearl Harbor, whereas Nevada survived and was active during the war (including the D-Day and Okinawa operations). In particular, the United States’ unrivalled productive capacity, combined with the ingenuity of its logistical planners, made it the powerhouse of the anti-Axis alliance.īattleships USS Oklahoma and USS Nevada at Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, 1935. The fact is that Germany had made a huge effort to get control of the Atlantic world after France’s fall in 1940, had been held in check by the British gatekeepers during the next year, and then had its naval, air and land forces steadily crushed by the technologically and numerically superior Western states.īut he leaves us in no doubt that the growing material strength of the Allies was critical to the course of the war, both in Europe and Asia. There is no need at this point to seek to join the debate over whether the Red Army or Anglo-American air-sea power was more responsible than the other for defeating the Nazi foe. ![]() Kennedy declines to be drawn into this argument, writing: The controversy over which made the greater contribution to the outcome of the war, the Soviet effort on the Eastern Front or the role of the Western allies, is well known. ![]() Kennedy reminds us, too, of the punishing demands imposed by distance, especially across the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, where even the United States’ ability to project its power was tested to the extreme. Tasked primarily with defending the home islands and the Atlantic trade routes, the Royal Navy would also be required to supply an unexpected Soviet ally, to combat the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean, and uphold far-flung Asian interests against the Japanese assault. ![]() He explains, for example, how Britain’s position at the centre of a worldwide web of sea communications was a source of both strength and weakness. Kennedy also shows us how geography, economics and strategic thinking came together to dictate the course of events. As the possibility of battle approached, therefore, commanders were usually wise to proceed cautiously until it was clear what lay ahead. The Hood was blown up by a single plunging salvo… The ocean in wartime and the skies above it were dangerous places wherein an enemy might lurk. A single torpedo was enough to blow a 130-foot hole in the side of the Ark Royal and sink it. One shell knocked out the Graf Spee’s range finder. The 20th-century armour-plated naval vessel, curiously, could be knocked out more swiftly… One torpedo hit to the Bismarck’s rudder crippled that giant. Here he is, for example, on the vulnerability of steel ships compared to their wooden Nelson-era predecessors: ![]() Kennedy compares the navies of the Great Powers, and the technological challenges that warship designers confronted as they strove to reconcile the competing demands of firepower, armoured protection, range, and manoeuvrability. Readers will be familiar with many of the key episodes, from the Battle of the River Plate to the invasion of Normandy and Japan’s desperate kamikaze missions, all described by Kennedy with admirable precision and economy.īut it is his ability to pinpoint the key factors shaping the naval war that, above all, makes Victory at Sea such a compelling read. They range from the gruelling battle to preserve Britain’s Atlantic lifeline, through the struggle for mastery of the Mediterranean, to the island-hopping war in the Pacific. The major naval campaigns of the war are covered in a series of narrative chapters. It is no small task to chart the fortunes of the principal maritime powers of the 1930s – Britain, the USA, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan – and how they emerged from six years of unremitting conflict. He is exceptionally well-qualified to undertake the wide-ranging survey that is Victory at Sea. Kennedy’s aptitude for writing history on the grand scale has been demonstrated on numerous occasions, most notably in his best-known work The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987). So, do we need another survey of the maritime conflict of 1939-1945? When the author is Paul Kennedy, Professor of History at Yale for almost 40 years, the answer is most definitely yes. ![]()
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