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The 1940s and early 1950s were a stormy period for the Royal Navy's capital ships. They were the target of a great deal of criticism from sources at a high level in government, both political and military. These attacks were far more than the usual scrutiny of service programmes and amounted to fundamental questioning of whether the capital ship still had a role in naval strategy or in national strategy more broadly. Its role was debated during the war but was fought over even more intensely afterwards, when the evidence of the wartime years was deployed on both sides of a bitter and high-stakes debate over current and future policy.
This chapter explores the controversy over the role of the capital ship – defined simply as the most important unit of the fleet and specifically in this period meaning battleships, battlecruisers and, increasingly, aircraft carriers. It looks briefly at how the experience of the First World War foreshadowed the challenges that were to come, before examining the role of the capital ship during the Second World War, when the challenge truly manifested. Finally, it surveys the debate through the first post-war decade when the dispute not only intensified but also broadened to call into question the very need for naval power.
The battleship retained a central albeit evolving place in naval strategy during the war and afterwards until (as the Admiralty foresaw on the horizon) its role could be better performed by other means. As the battleship declined – a process far slower than its critics suggested – its role as capital ship was taken on by the carrier. The latter could perform the classic role of neutralising enemy capital ships but also offered other capabilities, countering new threats and adding a whole new dimension to power projection. However, the ambitions of the air enthusiasts, both uniformed and civilian, complicated this transition and ensured that for long after the period covered in this chapter, the place in British strategy of the new capital ship, and of the navy in general, would be anything but plain sailing.
This book presents a wide range of new research on many aspects of naval strategy in the early modern and modern periods. Among the themes covered are the problems of naval manpower, the nature of naval leadership and naval officers, intelligence, naval training and education, and strategic thinking and planning. The book is notable for giving extensive consideration to navies other than those ofBritain, its empire and the United States. It explores a number of fascinating subjects including how financial difficulties frustrated the attempts by Louis XIV's ministers to build a strong navy; how the absence of centralised power in the Dutch Republic had important consequences for Dutch naval power; how Hitler's relationship with his admirals severely affected German naval strategy during the Second World War; and many more besides. The book is a Festschrift in honour of John B. Hattendorf, for more than thirty years Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the US Naval War College and an influential figure in naval affairs worldwide.
N.A.M. Rodger is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
J. Ross Dancy is Assistant Professor of Military History at Sam Houston State University.
Benjamin Darnell is a D.Phil. candidate at New College, Oxford.
Evan Wilson is Caird Senior Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
Contributors: Tim Benbow, Peter John Brobst, Jaap R. Bruijn, Olivier Chaline, J. Ross Dancy, Benjamin Darnell, James Goldrick, Agustín Guimerá, Paul Kennedy, Keizo Kitagawa, Roger Knight, Andrew D. Lambert, George C. Peden, Carla Rahn Phillips, Werner Rahn, Paul M. Ramsey, Duncan Redford, N.A.M. Rodger, Jakob Seerup, Matthew S. Seligmann, Geoffrey Till, Evan Wilson
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