The Royal Navy's Home Fleet in World War II (review)

The Home Fleet of the Royal Navy saw action in some of the most noted naval encounters of World War II. From the forlorn campaign in Norway and the Bismarck chase in the conflict's early period to the sinking of Scharnhorst and the screening of the Arctic convoys to Russia, the Home Fleet's grueling period of active service in some of the most inhospitable of waters is a testament to the powers of human endurance and the ethos of the Royal Navy. To this subject, James Levy has provided a sympathetic survey focusing on the operational record and tactical performance of that fleet and its overall place in Allied strategy.

Using a combination of private and public primary records and consulting the standard published works at hand, the author traces the severe constraints in resources successive Commanders-in-Chief faced due to the competing demands of other theaters and the tensions existing with higher authorities regarding not only strategic direction but the operational control of assigned forces. To wit, the proclivity of Winston Churchill, whether acting as First Lord or Minister of Defence, to interject himself into operational matters and of a similar tendency for the Admiralty to issue orders to subordinate fleet elements bypassing the established chain of command. Levy sides, in the main, with the views of Admirals Sir Charles Forbes and Sir John Tovey, the respective Home Fleet Commanders-in-Chief, in these matters, and is at his best in tracing the vital importance of intelligence in the success or failure of Home Fleet operations and the limitations that logistics imposed on fleet evolutions.

Though Levy's work is underscored by solid research, telling gaps remain which if filled may have tempered some of the author's conclusions. Chief among the sources neglected are the Naval Staff Histories covering Home Waters and the Atlantic (B.R. 1736[48]) which provide much insight into issues such as the sinking of HMS Glorious. Likewise, The Memoirs of Lord Ismay and Chief of Staff: The Diaries of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall would have assisted the author in appreciating the evolving structure of British defence control and the relative merits of Churchill and Neville Chamberlain as war leaders. Levy's failure to discuss the relationship of the Home Fleet to the several Home commands is a vital omission, as is his failure to discuss the integration of French and Polish forces into the Home Fleet and American naval cooperation prior to Pearl Harbor.

The real weakness of the work, though, is that it is too narrowly focused and that sufficient analysis at the strategic and political levels is lacking. Thus, critical context is absent when the author argues that alternative courses of action should have been pursued, forces retained with the Home Fleet rather than transferred elsewhere, or when discussing the relative merits of Churchill, Chamberlain, or David Lloyd George as premiers. Thus, the conclusions reached stand as but assertions and not measured analysis.

Levy's work, breaking little new ground, will be of interest more to the general reader than to the specialist in naval history and it is to that audience that this work is commended.