By Thomas W. Schaaf Sr. -
- Monday, June 12, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
A TALE OF
TWO NAVIES:
GEOPOLITICS,
TECHNOLOGY,
AND STRATEGY
IN THE
UNITED
STATES NAVY
AND THE ROYAL
NAVY,
1960-2015
By Anthony
R. Wells
Naval
Institute
Press, $35,
250 pages
In “A Tale
of Two
Navies,” we
have a
refreshing
new look at
the special
relationship
of Britain
and America
written by
an
Englishman.
Anthony
Wells, born
in Coventry,
a graduate
of the Royal
Naval
College who
served in
the Royal
Navy and
then
emigrated to
America,
became a
citizen and
worked for
U.S.
intelligence
and the U.S.
Navy.
In a brief
introduction
Mr. Wells
writes that
the U.S.
Navy and
the Royal
Navyhave
a unique
relationship
within a
“special
relationship”
forged
during World
War II by
President
Franklin
Roosevelt
and Prime
Minister
Winston
Churchill.
On Page 2
there is a
photograph
taken on
board HMS
Prince of
Wales in
Placentia
Bay,
Newfoundland,
during a
church
service with
Roosevelt
and
Churchill
and hundreds
of sailors
on the main
deck in the
shadow of
three of her
huge guns on
Aug. 10,
1941. It is
a fateful
moment of
the Atlantic
Charter
Conference.
Five months
later the
battleship
Prince of
Wales and
battle
cruiser
Repulse
would be
lost in the
Far East
after a
lengthy high
speed run
from the
Atlantic —
both sunk on
Dec. 10,
1941 by
land-based
Japanese
bombers
staged out
of
Indochina.
In the words
of Mr. Wells
regarding
this special
relationship,
“At its
heart lay
special
intelligence
sharing at
the most
sensitive
levels, much
of it
focused on
naval
matters.
Parallel to
and coupled
with
intelligence
activities
ran a
continuous
thread of
maritime
strategic
planning
that bonded
the two
navies
throughout
World War
II. This
golden
thread that
contributed
so
significantly
to ultimate
victory in
1945
continued in
the postwar
period. By
1960, when
this story
of ‘the two
Navies’
begins, the
special
relationship
of the U.S.
and Royal
Navies had
become
entwined.”