The Royal Navy, Defender of Freedom 1922–2020
After protecting and sustaining the British Empire for more than 300 years and playing a major role in the defeat of Germany during World War I, the Royal Navy entered a period of retrenchment. In this course we trace the changing role of the Royal Navy from World War II and the Korean War to the arm’s race, the Cold War era, and the current campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. We examine the impact of new technologies, including nuclear-powered submarines and ballistic missiles, all of which deeply affected the composition and strategic application of Britain’s navy.
In the early 1980s an unprovoked armed attack on Britain’s dependency in the South Atlantic, of great strategic consequence, led to the Falklands War, one of the greatest amphibious campaigns in history and a model for the defense and support of expeditionary forces at long distance which would be invaluable in later campaigns.
In this new course in the Oxford-Berkeley cycle of the history of the Royal Navy, we study the Royal Navy at the end of the empire which it had created and sustained over a period of 300 years, discovering new purposes: defending Britain’s global trade and fighting global terrorism. We consider the campaigns of World War II, including the strategic withdrawals at Dunkirk and Norway, the North Atlantic submarine war, Arctic convoys, actions against Germany’s dangerous commerce raiders, Britain’s fleet in the Pacific, and the D-Day landings; the growth of naval aviation and the submarine fleet; structural changes in response to political pressures and the rise of the two superpowers; the Falklands Campaign; naval-based operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the response to future strategic needs in the design of highly effective surface and submarine vessels, including studies of Britain’s newest warships, the Daring class air defense destroyers, the Astute class attack submarines and the two new Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, the largest vessels ever commissioned by the Royal Navy and due to come into service by 2016.
Course requirements
Students are required to write one paper of 1,500 to 2,000 words and deliver one oral presentation.
Tutor Biography
Justin Reay is an art historian who attended officer training in the Royal Navy. He is a tutor in the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford and a senior manager at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, where he is editing Samuel Pepys’ naval papers. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Justin is frequently published in history journals and his book on the history of the Admiralty is forthcoming. He holds a Research Ph.D. post in maritime studies at the University of Exeter.
Tutor Contact Details: justin.reay@which.net
Field Trips
Chatham Historic Dockyard: Lecture by Museum Historian on Chatham in the Second World War, and guided tour. Tours of preserved WWII destroyer and submarine, HMS Cavalier and HMS Ocelot.
Bletchley Park: A guided tour of Britain’s Second World War leading intelligence and decryption centre, with lecture on the role of intelligence in the naval war and the capture by British naval forces of the German Enigma codes, with a visit to Colossus, the world’s first electronic computing machine.
Royal Marines Museum, Portsmouth: Naval Historical Branch Lecture: amphibious assault and the Falklands Campaign, and a tour of the RM Museum galleries. A visit to a current Royal Navy warship on the same day is under discussion.
Reading List
Reading list to come.
Credit and Enrollment Information
X416 History
(EDP 284224)