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....

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

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....

The Mediterranean, 1943... The HMS Rob Roy. A tiny machine, just 230 feet from stem to stern....

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

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....

Commander Graham Martineau must once again call from the ordinary seamen the ultimate in courage, and prepare to defend to the death vital convoys to Russia....

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

February 1943. As the balance of the war slowly shifts in Britain's favour, Lieutenant-Commander Steven Marshall brings his battle-scarred submarine into home port....

Western Ocean, 1942....

There will be days when you wonder at and question some of the risks you had to take, the sacrifices you were forced to offer in the face of death....

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.....

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....

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

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

The year: 1943. Now there was to be no more retreat for Britain and her Allies. At last the war was to be carried into enemy territory....

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....

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

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