Royal Naval Officers from War to War, 1918-1939

by Farquharson-Roberts, Mike

• ISBN13: 9781137481955
• ISBN10: 1137481951
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-08-12
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

It is curious that the performance of the Royal Navy and specifically its officers in the First World War is often decried, and yet the navy and many of the selfsame officers in the Second World War are often instead praised. Royal Naval Officers from War to War, 1918-1939 shows that naval officers before and during the First War were actually multi-dimensional, well-educated, trained and extremely capable. Unfortunately in the decade after the war they were badly managed and led by Admiral Beatty, and by the time of the Invergordon mutiny in 1931 their morale was 'appalling'. Only with Beatty retired could the process of necessary reform begin, leading to the navy managing its vast expansion and crucial successes across many theatres in the Second World War.

Author Biography

Mike Farquharson-Roberts is a retired naval medical officer, who has since returned to his adolescent love of Maritime History at Exeter University, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Officers of the Royal Navy Before 1918
2. The Naval Officer and Interwar Society
3. Becoming a Naval Officer: Entry, Education and Training
4. Personnel Management
5. The Officers of the Royal Navy in the 1920s
6. Malign Neglect? The Collapse of Executive Officers Morale
7. The Officer's Nadir, and the Inflection
8. The Ascension: Improving Morale
9. The Ascension: Admiral Chatfield and the Coming War
10. The Naval Officer in World War Two: The Apogee
11. Conclusion