Details: By: Mike Farquharson-Roberts

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.