{"product_id":"2940013685819","title":"A North Sea Diary, 1914-1918 \/ Commander Stephen King-Hall","description":"IN placing on record some of my impressions of the Naval War, together with some accounts of such action as I happened to witness, I have been actuated by several desires and guided by one rule.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have desired that some small record should exist of the part played by H.M.S. Southampton in the great war. This little ship can claim an honour denied to nearly every other ship in the Grand Fleet. Namely, that on all the four principal occasions when considerable German forces were encountered in the North Sea, her guns were in action. Those days were the 28th August, 1914, the i6th December, 1914, the 24th January, 1915, and the i6th May, 1916. As far as I know, no other ship, with the exception of H.M.S. Birmingham, can claim a share in this record, as, though the same squadrons, e.g. the battle-cruiser squadrons, were present on all dates, yet ships that were in action on one day were away refitting on another day. So much for H.M.S. Southampton.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy second reason for writing this book was that it seemed to me that a personal record of the North Sea war as applied to the Grand Fleet was desirable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch of our knowledge of the details of the great naval wars of the Napoleonic days has come from letters, diaries, and personal accounts published at the time in the Naval Chronicles, and the historian of the future will seek for similar sources of information. An impersonal and invaluable account of our doings has been written by the highest possible authority, Lord Jellicoe himself. Of the doings of the company officer on the western front, innumerable books have been written, and I should estimate that the Army could muster a platoon of able writers who have written of its actions and life at the front. We in the sister service are astern of station in this matter, both in ability and in numbers, and no one realizes the shortcomings of this volume from a literary point of view better than its author ; but, and here I come to my guiding rule, this book is, to the best of my ability, a true account of the doings of one of His Majesty's two thousand naval lieutenants, and as such claims justification. It is from this point of view that I hope that it will interest all those who have had relatives and friends in the Fleet and particularly the light cruiser squadrons of the Grand Fleet. What we were doing in the Southampton, other naval officers were doing in the Nottingham, Birmingham, Lowestoft, Dublin, Liverpool, Falmouth, Chatham, Sydney, Melbourne, Galatea, Phaeton, etc., to mention a few of the cheery crowd of light cruisers with whom we flogged the North Sea from the South Dogger Light to the latitude of Iceland, and from the coast of Scotland to the coast of Norway.","brand":"tbooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152691675376,"sku":"2940013685819","price":4.97,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013685819_p0.jpg?v=1763584506","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013685819","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}