Physical description

Index, ill, maps, p.654.

Publication type

non-fiction

Summary

This volume tells briefly the story of the Royal Australian Navy and of Australian naval policy between the wars, and then records the part played by the ships and men of that Navy on every ocean and particularly in the eastern Mediterranean and Indian and Pacific Oceans from 1939 until the end of the first quarter of 1942. When the volume ends most of the surviving ships are on the Australia Station again and the Japanese fleets dominate half the Pacific Ocean and the seas to the north of Australia. The author describes not only the actions of the Australian ships but the problems and policies of the British fleets of which they often formed a part, and discusses the strategical and administrative questions encountered by the senior leaders in Australia