Undersea Warriors: The Untold History of the Royal Navy’s Secret Service

Ballantyne (The Deadly Deep), a naval historian and the editor of Warships magazine, draws on his numerous contacts in the Royal Navy and his deep technical and historical knowledge of the service and its equipment to construct this extremely detailed history of the submarine. Ballantyne begins by laying out a general history of the development of attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines and their use in the Royal Navy leading up to WWII. Ballantyne is particularly illuminating on the development of the capability of submarines to operate under the polar ice cap and the psychological and physical challenges of long underwater deployments. But the heart of the book is submarine missions during the Cold War; the general goal during the period was to stalk Soviet submarines, observe surface vessels, and gather general intelligence on the Soviet Navy. This could be extremely dangerous work that, on several occasions, resulted in underwater collisions. Submarine training and tactics are also covered in great detail, including the grueling command qualification course for future submarine commanders known as the Perisher. This book is heavy on historical and technical detail, without much character development of the submarine commanders whose careers structure the Cold War section. Lay readers might lose interest, but Cold War and naval history aficionados will find this a treasure trove. (Sept.)