Modern naval warfare began in the misty waters of the Korean Strait in May 1905 in an apocalyptic battle between the Russian and Japanese fleets. To universal astonishment the Russian fleet was annihilated. Of the 38 russian ships engaged, 33 were either sunk or captured. Ronald Spector's At War At Sea traces, from 1905 to the present, the story of the world's great navies and the crews who manned them. In a series of brilliant re-creations, Spector brings to life the battles that have defined the modern age: from such giant set-pieces as Jutland and Midway to the routine terrors of the U-Boat wars. He is equally strong on such harrowing naval encounters as the British evacuation of Crete or the American river war in Vietnam. What sets this book apart from others in the field is Spector's fascination both with the changing hardware of naval war and with the pressures put on the sailors who had to cope with this new technology. At War At Sea illuminates the huge changes that a century has made in ship and weapon design, but above all it shows that it is the quality of the men perched inside these armoured giants that has created victory or defeat.