Despite its recent decline in size and influence, for much of the twentieth century the Royal Navy was a major player in world history. Its senior officers carried out – and sometimes made – British policy in peace and war, but with the exception of a few star figures, the details of their careers have never been published. This book is the first volume of a major study intended to provide a resume of the service lives of every flag officer, in the style of the great nineteenth century biographical dictionaries of Marshall and O’Byrne. Every entry is based on primary sources, including the Navy’s confidential personnel files, cross-referenced with general historical data and, in the case of living officers, correspondence with the subjects themselves.
