Citizen Sailors

"She's hit! My God, we've got her." All over the ship a cheer went up, audible above the gunfire. I had risen half standing in my seat as the wild thrill took hold of me.'Royal Marine Lieutenant Bryce Ramsden, HMS Jamaica, 1943 on the sinking of the Scharnhorst

From the Battle of Dunkirk to the sinking of the Bismark and Scharnhorst, Citizen Sailors is the first definitive history of the Royal Navy in WWII. Drawing on hundreds of contemporary diaries and letters, along with memoirs, oral history and official documents, Glyn Prysor paints a vivid human panorama of the war at sea: nerve-wracking convoys, epic gun battles, devastating aerial bombardment and swashbuckling amphibious landings. Seen through the eyes of sailors themselves, it is a compelling account of daily humanity, horror, triumph and tragedy, and shows how the Royal Navy fought in every conceivable vessel from vast aircraft carriers and cramped corvettes, to fast motor boats, rickety minesweepers, Swordfish biplanes and aging submarines.