Cernuschi, Enrico The Italian Navy of World War II

The definitive history of its rise and fall

Drawing on a lifetime of research and hundreds of rare photographs, this book offers a revealing history of the Italian Navy in the Second World War - the least known of the great navies of the war. By 1940, the Italian Navy had risen to become the fourth largest navy in the world. Despite financial, strategic and political challenges in the 1920s and 30s, and despite defeat in the battle for air supremacy, it had a powerful fleet, one of the largest submarine fleets in the world and pursued an ambitious strategic role. To date, however, few books have attempted to comprehensively examine the Italian Navy in World War II, and many of these works have relied on limited or biased sources. In this book, Dr Enrico Cernuschi, one of Italy's foremost naval historians, presents a comprehensive, richly illustrated and myth-busting history of Italian naval power from Mussolini's rise to power until 1945. Drawing on Italian, British, German, French and American primary sources as well as high-calibre documents from his collection, including the recently rediscovered 1947 Technical History of the War of the Italian Naval Staff, the book covers a broad spectrum, from strategic planning to steel production, and is full of historical revelations, new insights and little-known episodes in naval history. With hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs, it is the essential guide to the Italian fleet in the Second World War and its operations in the Mediterranean and the Pacific.