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, recording this decisive moment of the Pacific War. The Battle of Jutland, 1916: two huge fleets face each other across the North Sea in the largest naval engagement of the First World War. In one photograph, the Queen Mary is recorded blowing up in action; in another, the heavily damaged Seydlitz lies ruined in a dry dock.

Together these images capture the triumph and tragedy of this momentous battle that was to turn the course of the Great War. Fighting Ships 1850–1950 presents a stunning collection of 150 large-scale paintings, drawings, photographs and ship plans that tell the story of naval warfare from the first iron and steam warships to the deadly U-boats and aircraft carriers of the Second World War. Over these 100 years, the most significant naval engagements are dramatically depicted in striking detail – the bombardment of Sveaborg during the Crimean war, the fierce battles on the Mississippi during the American Civil War, the Battles of Tsushima and Jutland, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the D-Day landings, as well as the Japanese surrender – revealing the glory and exhilaration of the last great age of sea warfare. Arranged chronologically, the ships illustrated include HMS Warrior, the first iron-hulled, heavily armoured warship; the USS Monitor, the first ironclad commissioned by the US Navy; Aurora, the ship that ignited the Russian revolution; the Graf Spee, under attack on the River Plate; HMS Hood and the formidable German battle cruiser Bismarck; as well as the British aircraft carriers HMS Argus and Furious, and the Japanese Akagi, amongst many others. This remarkable collection showcases some of the greatest naval artists of the period, including John Wilson Carmichael, Gustave Bourgain, Kobayashi Kiyochika, William Lionel Wyllie, and the official British war artist, Richard Eurich, while powerful photographs, often taken by the sailors themselves, capture what it was to be a seaman at that time.

Each of the superb illustrations is accompanied by Sam Willis’s expert commentary, shedding unique light on the key naval conflicts of the era, the breathtaking complexity of the modern warship – as well as life and death on board ship for the ordinary sailor.

‘A black vicious ugly customer as ever I saw, whale-like in size, and with as terrible a row of incisor teeth as ever closed on a French frigate’ Charles Dickens on HMS Warrior

 In Virginia, of Virginia iron and wood, and by Virginians was she built, and in Virginia’s waters, now made classic by her exploits, she made a record which shall live forever. Col. William Norris on the Virginia

A magnificent record of the last great age of sea warfare in 150 striking images.

Book Sample

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