Sam Willis, Naval and Maritime History

France, early summer 1794. The French Revolution has been hijacked by the extreme Jacobins and is in the grip of The Terror. While the guillotine relentlessly takes the heads of innocents, two vast French and British fleets meet in mid-Atlantic [...] Read more...

By 1702 Admiral John Benbow was a English naval hero. He had chased pirates from Tunis to Tobago and pickled the heads of those he captured; he had kept his cool in the noise and smoke of England's humiliation at the Battle of Beachy Head [...] Read more...

Beginning with Ramses III's dramatic defeat of the 'sea people' in 1176 BC – the world's earliest visual record of a naval battle – Fighting Ships tells the story of 3000 years of maritime history through 150 glorious images [...] Read more...

The latest book to be published by the naval and maritime historian Sam Willis. For the first time it tells the fascinating story of the vessel in J.M.W. Turner's iconic painting as well as the making of the painting itself [...] Read more...

Sails blaze and shred, ranks of cannon trade volleys and, glimpsed through palls of smoke, desperate figures fall to the waves or cling for dear life. Through the eyes of the most famous maritime painters of their time [...] Read more...

As bombs rain down, smoke engulfs sinking ships, and the stench of burning oil rises, men struggle to turn the course of history. In a single shot, a photographer captures the blazing Mikuma and Mogome at the Battle of Midway [...] Read more...

Shipwrecks are treasure troves of the past, revealing remarkable stories of heroism and tragedy. They have intrigued us for centuries, capturing the imagination of artists and writers, and illuminating the past for historians and archaeologists [...] Read more...

Until now the history of warfare between sailing warships has long been divorced from the practicalities of seamanship and the harsh reality of battle. The skills required to fight have, for generations, been poorly understood [...] Read more...