Daniel Knowles

Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the US Navy had been in action, but only in the course of carrying out defensive duties such as escorting convoys across the Atlantic. Pearl Harbor changed that completely, launching the full might of the United States into the now global conflict.In the years that followed, the US Navy incurred significant losses in every theatre in which it participated. Some of the losses were the direct result of combat, others of accidents and incidents. Richly illustrated and carefully researched, this book provides a unique record charting every loss incurred by the US Navy during the course of the Second World War.

The Second World War saw the eclipse of the battleship as the capital vessel in any navy by a new feat of maritime engineering: the aircraft carrier. It was to change naval warfare forever. But when one thinks of the Kriegsmarine during this period, the German effort to construct an aircraft carrier is often overlooked. Designed in the late 1930s, Graf Zeppelin was the largest ship built by Nazi Germany. The lead ship of her class, she represented the Kriegsmarine’s efforts to create a balanced, ocean-going fleet capable of projecting German naval power across the oceans. Though 85 per cent complete by the outbreak of war in September 1939, Graf Zeppelin became a white elephant, a ship filled with promise but ultimately disappointing. Hitler’s war arrived too early for the Kriegsmarine and construction of Germany’s only aircraft carrier was never completed. Graf Zeppelin: The Story of Hitler’s Aircraft Carrier tells the full story of the monumental effort and ultimate failure by the Kriegsmarine to crown the German fleet with that most coveted of naval assets, an aircraft carrier.