Douglas Reeman

From the author of The First to Land, a novel set during World War II....

It was an age of empire, an age of contrast, and an age of dramatic change - and one which would determine the destinies of nations as well as of men....

The crack German cruiser Prinz Luitpold had always been lucky in battle....

They were the men and women of the Royal Navy's Special Operations units....

The dramatic sequel to Badge of Glory, China 1900. When the Boxer Rebellion erupts into bloody war. The Royal Marines, true to their motto, are the first to land - and the last to leave....

When Captain Guy Sherbrooke joins HMS Reliant in 1943, he knows he may be her last Captain....

Malta 1941. To most people H.M.S. Saracen is just an ugly, obsolete ship with an equally ugly recent history: her last commander is due for court-martial after shelling the troops he was sent to protect....

HMS Temeraire: latest and most advanced of Britain's nuclear submarines....

As the Second World War progresses, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Fighter pilot Tim Rowan is posted to an escort carrier to help guard the precious convoys....

Twenty-five years ago HMS Terrapin was part of a crack hunter/killer group in the Battle of the Atlantic. Now she is working out her last commission in the Gulf of Thailand....

January, 1944. When the British light cruiser Andromeda arrives at Williamstown naval dockyard to be handed over to the Royal Australian Navy, she is already a legend....

It was in 1943. On the Black Sea, the Russians were fighting a desperate battle to regain control....

In 1941, when she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser, the SS Benbecula was already old....

Western Ocean, 1942....

HMS Royston, Coastal Forces Depot Ship, is mother ship to a battered, war-worn bunch of MTBs and MGBs....

They are called 'The Glory Boys', by those who regard their exploits with envy. Bob is one of them. Already a survivor of the close action in the English Channel & North Sea....

In November 1941, Lt Ralph Trewin, DSC arrives at Singapore as second-in-command of HMS Porcupine. To the shell-shocked Trewin, the gun boat and her five elderly consorts symbolise the ignorance and blind optimism he finds in Singapore.....

Hong Kong, 1941... To the residents and defence forces of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the war in Europe remains remote....

It takes a special sort of courage to serve in midget submarines, and Lieutenant David Seaton needs no reminding of the perils involved....

HMS Wagtail is a river gunboat, a ship seemingly at the end of her unusual life, lying in a Hong Kong dockyard awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard....