This, the second of three volumes of the correspondence of George Brydges Rodney, covers the admiral's life from the end of the Seven Years War in 1763 until August 1780. This was perhaps his most eventful, extraordinary and controversial period; from being a successful admiral, a member of Parliament and the Governor of Greenwich Hospital, Rodney plunges into debt and a debtor's exile in France, only to rise again as a victorious admiral and as a national hero. At the end of the Seven Years War Rodney was disappointed and bitter at the failure of the British government to reward him for his prominent part in the capture of Martinique and other French islands in the West Indies. He was made baronet in 1764 and governor of Greenwich Hospital in 1765. He had already been a member of Parliament for Saltash in 1751-4, and sat for Okehampton, Penryn and Northampton consecutively between 1759 and 1774. In 1768 he was involved in one of the most costly elections in eighteenth century parliamentary history. He secured election at Northampton, but his finances were broken. Furthermore, he had begun to gamble heavily and, with a limited income, fell into the hands of moneylenders. In 1770 he attempted to recoup his finances by becoming Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica. Nevertheless in the West Indies until 1774 Rodney managed a successful period of diplomacy with Spain, of intelligence gathering, and of navigational surveying especially off the coast of Florida. Even so, he returned to England deeply in debt and was forced to flee to France to escape his creditors. The war with the American colonies proved to be Rodney's salvation. After war with France had broken out, in 1779 the British government was desperate for an admiral who could fight and win battles. Rodney was appointed Commander-in-Chief in the Leeward Islands. His success in battle and skillful conduct of the naval war in the West Indies in 1780 restored Rodney's public standing. The stage was set for his most famous victory, the Battle of the Saintes in 1782, and the restoration of his private finances. George Brydges Rodney had gone through a dramatic change of fortunes. The character of that man is revealed here. This volume will permit re-assessment of this outstanding British admiral of the American War of Independence for a new generation of historians.

This book contains the U-boats situations and trends written by the staff of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre during the Second World War. Based largely on communications intelligence, the U-boat situations and trends were designed to inform a small number of senior officers and high officials of the latest events and developments in the Allied war against the U-boats. The Battle of the Atlantic and the war against the U-boats was the longest and the most complex naval battle in history. In this huge conflict which sprawled across the oceans of the world the U-boats sank 2,828 Allied merchant ships while the Allies destroyed more than 780 German U-boats. These documents relate on a weekly, and in some cases a daily, basis exactly what the Allies knew concerning the activities of the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

This book contains the U-boats situations and trends written by the staff of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre during the Second World War. Based largely on communications intelligence, the U-boat situations and trends were designed to inform a small number of senior officers and high officials of the latest events and developments in the Allied war against the U-boats. The Battle of the Atlantic and the war against the U-boats was the longest and the most complex naval battle in history. In this huge conflict which sprawled across the oceans of the world the U-boats sank 2,828 Allied merchant ships while the Allies destroyed more than 780 German U-boats. These documents relate on a weekly, and in some cases a daily, basis exactly what the Allies knew concerning the activities of the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

This book contains the U-boats situations and trends written by the staff of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre during the Second World War. Based largely on communications intelligence, the U-boat situations and trends were designed to inform a small number of senior officers and high officials of the latest events and developments in the Allied war against the U-boats. The Battle of the Atlantic and the war against the U-boats was the longest and the most complex naval battle in history. In this huge conflict which sprawled across the oceans of the world the U-boats sank 2,828 Allied merchant ships while the Allies destroyed more than 780 German U-boats. These documents relate on a weekly, and in some cases a daily, basis exactly what the Allies knew concerning the activities of the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

This book contains the U-boats situations and trends written by the staff of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre during the Second World War. Based largely on communications intelligence, the U-boat situations and trends were designed to inform a small number of senior officers and high officials of the latest events and developments in the Allied war against the U-boats. The Battle of the Atlantic and the war against the U-boats was the longest and the most complex naval battle in history. In this huge conflict which sprawled across the oceans of the world the U-boats sank 2,828 Allied merchant ships while the Allies destroyed more than 780 German U-boats. These documents relate on a weekly, and in some cases a daily, basis exactly what the Allies knew concerning the activities of the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Signals intelligence played a vital role in the Allied defeat of the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic. This book presents documents which show the role of signals intelligence during the Battle of the Atlantic. Focusing on the collection, analysis, and employment of signals intelligence materials by the Royal and United States navies during the Second World War, this volume throws new light on how the Allies obtained victory over the U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Overbearing, avaricious and difficult, yet talented and ambitious, George Brydges Rodney has never attracted much sympathy or understanding. He was nevertheless an original thinker and one of the great admirals of the eighteenth century. The contents of this volume, the first of three, document his career from 1742 until 1763 - his private and political life. His early years as a captain were spent in the severe conditions of the North Sea and in taking privateers in the western approaches. During the peace after 1748 he was Governor of Newfoundland and in the Seven Years' War blockaded Le Havre before going, as a flag officer, to command in the Leeward Islands where he participated in the capture of Martinique. This volume also contains letters to his wife which indicate, against past opinion, that Rodney had a heart.

Made up of members of the Coldstream and Scots Guards, British yeomanry cavalry regiments, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indian Army men, the Long Range Desert Group was perhaps the most effective of all the "special forces" established by the Allies during World War II. It was able to go thousands of miles into enemy territory, well-armed and carrying its own supplies of petrol, food and even water to last for weeks at a time, something previously unheard of. Using experience acquired in World War I and inter-war exploration travels, the LRDG thus developed the ability to appear almost anywhere in the desert to carry out almost every type of ground reconnaissance mission possible in desert warfare, exploring and mapping the terrain, transporting agents behind enemy lines or determining the strength and location of enemy forces with an extraordinary degree of accuracy and detail. Equally important were their skills in the art of desert navigation, demonstrated in the outflanking of the enemy during the Allied advance from El Alamein westward to Tunisia, as led by the LRDG. Through meticulous research in original archival material, this book tells the extraordinary story of how a relatively small number of dedicated men developed the methods and techniques for crossing by motor vehicle the depths of the then unmapped and seemingly impassable great Western Desert, during the British Army's North African Campaign of 1940-43. Their tactics, techniques and remarkable success in desert warfare continue to make them of great interest to the student of military affairs. Likewise, as it seeks to answer how the deep desert can best be used for military purposes, this study is pertinent to today's military operations, perhaps more so than at any time since World War II.

Showing the complex interaction of strategy, logistics, administration, and economics, Syrett's pioneering text brings to light some basic causes for the ultimate failure of the British war effort during the American War of Independence. This war effort was fatally compromised by the British need to support a great army and a large naval force in the western hemisphere while at the same time facing a coalition of maritime powers on the European continent.

During the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain's Royal Navy faced foes that included, in addition to American forces, the navies of France, Spain and the Netherlands. In this operational history of a period that proved to be a turning point for one of the world's great naval powers, David Syrett presents a saga of battles, blockades, great fleet cruises and, above all, failures and lost opportunities. He explains that the British government severely underestimated the Americans' maritime strength and how that error led to devastating consequences. The seemingly invincible navy failed to muster even one decisive victory during the extensive naval conflict. Noting the complex reasons for British failure in European waters, Syrett lays primary blame at the feet of Britain's political leadership. He describes how Lord North, the first lord of the Treasury and head of government, abdicated control of Britain's military to individual members of the cabinet. Syrett suggests that constant vacillations in policy and strategy, which resulted from power shifts among the cabinet ministers, prevented North's government from formulating a comprehensive wartime strategy or providing the Royal navy with the strategic guidance to launch a successful campaign. Syrett concludes that Britain's inability to gain naval superiority in European waters had a profound effect on the outcome of the American Revolutionary War. He demonstrates how the Royal Navy's failure to hunt down and destroy American blockade runners allowed Yankee rebels easy access to European arms and munitions. He also shows that the inability of the British to defeat French and Spanish naval power off the Continent gave Bourbon monarchies the means to aid American naval forces and to conduct naval operations against the British in such areas as the West Indies and the Indian Ocean.

The Defeat of the German U-Boats explains the significance and the outcome of World War II's most important naval campaign in the European theater-the air and sea battle that ended Germany's bid to sever Allied supply lines in the Atlantic. David Syrett's comprehensive account offers a detailed analysis of the effort to stop German U-boat attacks on Allied merchant vessels, which by 1943 ranked as the Allies' top priority in their strategy to defeat Hitler's forces. Syrett argues that the Germans were unable to match Allied communication, technological, and tactical advances and that the Allies prevailed largely because of their skill in utilizing the material and intelligence resources at their disposal. Beginning with a detailed description of the U-boat, Syrett discusses the weaponry developed by the Allies to stop this destructive craft. He uses intelligence information-released decades after the war-to plot the progression of each Allied convoy, German U-boat assault, and Allied response. Crediting the Allied victory with keeping Britain in the war and making possible the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe, Syrett emphasizes the Battle of the Atlantic's pivotal role in determining the war's outcome.