Book Review: The U.S. Navy and the War in Europe

Archives

by Robert C. Stern

Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012. Pp. xiv, 306. Illus., maps, appends., notes, biblio., index. $55.95. ISBN: 1591148960

Naval historian Stern reminds us of the Navy’s role in the war with Germany. 

Although the U.S. Navy was heavily focused on the fight with Japan during the Second World War, it also had an major role in that against Germany.  Despite Samuel Eliot Morison’s four detailed volumes on the subject, the Navy’s war in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and adjacent waters has received much less coverage from historians, and is today hardly remembered.  Stern opens with a look at the fleet’s operations in two years of American neutrality (1939-1941), starting with “Neutrality Patrol” and on through increasingly active operations to virtual outright hostilities well before Pearl Harbor, a period to which he devotes nearly a quarter of his text.  Stern then follows the fleet, and several individual officers, as it took part in the war against Germany and Italy.  We get a good account of the great convoy battles, the importance of the U.S. Navy’s “presence” to the containment of the German fleet, the successive invasions of Northwest Africa (which featured a rare battleship engagement), Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.  He even discusses the Navy’s role in the crossing of the Rhine and the surrender of the German fleet. 

The U.S. Navy and the War in Europe is a valuable read for anyone interested in the U.S. Navy or the Second World War.

 ---///---
Reviewer: A. A. Nofi, Review Editor   


Buy it at Amazon.com

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close