From the late 19th century until midway through World War II, the massively armoured, big-gun battleship was the ultimate weapon of the world's navies and the classic symbol of naval power. Admiral Beatty, the commander of the British Grand Fleet, was described as the only man who could lose World War I in an afternoon, and just four German battleships were to pre-occupy much of the Royal Navy's attention for most of World War II. In this book Philip Kaplan describes, often in their own words, the lives of the men who crewed these giant vessels in war and peace. We share the experiences of a young officer aboard a British battleship at Jutland, hear at first-hand how it felt to witness the fiery death of the Gneissenau in the arctic seas off Northern Cape and go inside one of the turrets of an Iowa-class battleship as her 16-inch guns bombard Iraqi positions during the Gulf War. The text is complemented by a collection of images which show these magnificent ships and their crews in war and peace.