Background
Hedley Paul Willmott was born on December 26, 1945 in Bristol, City of Bristol, United Kingdom. He is the son of Donald Arthur Frederick and Olive Edna (Reed) Willmott.
(The respected British military historian H. P. Willmott p...)
The respected British military historian H. P. Willmott presents the first of a three-volume appraisal of the strategic policies of the countries involved in the Pacific War. Remarkable in its scope and depth of research, his thoughtful analysis covers the whole range of political, economic, military, and naval activity in the Pacific. This first volume comprehensively covers events between December 1941 and April 1942, concluding with the Doolittle Raid on April 18. When published in hardcover in 1982, the book was hailed as an eloquent portrayal of great empires on trial that no one should miss. Willmott's stimulating and original approach to the subject remains unmatched even today.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591149487/?tag=2022091-20
(From the animosity-filled years prior to 1914 through the...)
From the animosity-filled years prior to 1914 through the Treaty of Versailles and from the European campaigns to naval battles, this book explains the causes of the war, the course the war followed, and what made it the most costly and destructive war in the world's history. Enhanced edition, with 16 additional pages of a gazetteer including WWI memorials, battlefields, and museums.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756650151/?tag=2022091-20
(Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the b...)
Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the beginning of the United States' battle with Japan during World War II. In the months following the attack, Japan was successful in a series of victories throughout Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Then, from May 1942 to October 1943, the Japanese and the United States engaged in a series of fierce clashes in the Southwest Pacific. Both the U.S. and Japanese forces were evenly matched, and their troops fought one another to exhaustion. This engrossing book looks at the war with Japan, focusing on this "period of balance" between American and Japanese forces. The War with Japan explains how the battles fought in the Coral Sea in May and off Midway Islands in June 1942 represented the first engagements that were not the result of decisions made by the Japanese before the outbreak of war. Both the U.S. and Japanese had to consider their next moves in a strategic situation that was much like a gun lying in the street: it was there for either side to pick up and use. H. P. Willmott examines the conflict in this context. The campaigns that raged in the lower Solomons and along the Kakoda Trail for control of eastern New Guinea, along with the ferocious battles in the Coral Sea and off Midway Islands, were the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The fight for control of Guadalcanal saw the Imperial Navy and U.S. Navy fight one another, and themselves, until they were completely spent. But between February and October 1943, the Americans gained a critical edge when the U.S. Navy took delivery of the first of the massive warships that were to carry the fighting to the Japanese home islands. After November 1943, this strong U.S. fleet-built during the period of hostilities-outfought the Japanese navy. The War with Japan explores all these aspects of Japanese defeat. This fascinating probe into the war with Japan is ideal for all readers who are interested in military history and World War II.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0842050337/?tag=2022091-20
(Enhanced by forty detailed maps and more than five hundre...)
Enhanced by forty detailed maps and more than five hundred photographs and illustrations, this comprehensive overview of the Second World War offers a study of the war's causes and consequences, the objectives and concerns of all combatants, and the events, campaigns, and personalities involved in all theaters of the war.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756605210/?tag=2022091-20
(In this second volume of his history of naval power in th...)
In this second volume of his history of naval power in the 20th century, H. P. Willmott follows the fortunes of the established seafaring nations of Europe along with two upstarts—the United States and Japan. Emerging from World War I in command of the seas, Great Britain saw its supremacy weakened through neglect and in the face of more committed rivals. Britain’s grand Coronation Review of 1937 marked the apotheosis of a sea power slipping into decline. Meanwhile, Britain’s rivals and soon-to-be enemies were embarking on significant naval building programs that would soon change the nature of war at sea in ways that neither they nor their rivals anticipated. By the end of a new world war, the United States had taken command of two oceans, having placed its industrial might behind technologies that further defined the arena of naval power above and below the waves, where stealth and the ability to strike at great distance would soon rewrite the rules of war and of peace. This splendid volume further enhances Willmott’s stature as the dean of naval historians.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007BQ1QBI/?tag=2022091-20
(Until its loss in World War II, Japan had not known failu...)
Until its loss in World War II, Japan had not known failure in centuries of warfare. This record of the conflict goes beyond mere description to illuminate why Japan instigated a conflict with the only nation--the United States--capable of defeating her, as well as the crucial shifts in the nature of naval power and strategy that occurred during the fighting. Set off on the road to war, analyzing the effects of the first world conflict; Japan's policies in China; the first victories, as Japan surges through Asia; the great battles of Midway and Guadacanal; and the final defeat, with the devastating launch of the first nuclear weapons. 224 pages, 70 color illus., 80 b/w illus., 7 3/4 x 10 3/8. Until its loss in World War II, Japan had not known failure in centuries of warfare. This record of the conflict goes beyond mere description to illuminate why Japan instigated a conflict with the only nation--the United States--capable of defeating her, as well as the crucial shifts in the nature of naval power and strategy that occurred during the fighting. Set off on the road to war, analyzing the effects of the first world conflict; Japan's policies in China; the first victories, as Japan surges through Asia; the great battles of Midway and Guadacanal; and the final defeat, with the devastating launch of the first nuclear weapons.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0304352470/?tag=2022091-20
(The author studies sea power and its strengths and associ...)
The author studies sea power and its strengths and associated problems since 1860. Chapters on the development of Battleships since the Iron-clads; Capital Ships, Carriers, Submarines. Profusely illustrated with both black-and-white and color plates..
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0706403568/?tag=2022091-20
historian military lecturer writer
Hedley Paul Willmott was born on December 26, 1945 in Bristol, City of Bristol, United Kingdom. He is the son of Donald Arthur Frederick and Olive Edna (Reed) Willmott.
Willmott graduated from University of Liverpool as Bachelor in History and Politics with honors in 1967. He became Master of Arts in History at the same university in 1971. Twenty years later he received Doctor of Philosophy degree in War Studies from University of London.
Willmott began his career in 1969, where he was appointed to the post of a lecturer and a military writer to the Royal Military Academy.
In 1989 he became a visiting lecturer at the Temple University. From that same year, he started to serve as a visiting lecturer, Memphis State University, holding that post just for a year. In 1992 he was a visiting lecturer at National War College, Department of Defense.
H. P. Willmott has authored several works on World War II military operations, from popular studies of a single Allied bomber (B-17 Flying Fortress, 1980) and a specific Japanese fighter plane (Zero A6M, 1983), to a comprehensive history of the war, The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War, published in 1989.
Following Willmott’s debut work Warships, which was published in 1975, his 1981 study Sea Warfare: Weapons, Tactics, and Strategy offered a survey of naval warfare. Far more distinguished was the reception for Willmott’s major book of 1982, Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942. This, the first volume in a series on the subject of the Pacific naval war, deals with the period of initial, whirlwind victories by the Japanese fleet over the Americans, British, and Dutch during late 1941 and early 1942—a period when Japan captured the sphere of influence that had been its intended object since before the war began. Willmott describes the economic and historical background of Japanese expansionism, and in addition, speculates on what might have happened had Japan tried to invade as far westward as India. (He hypothesizes a possibly improved outcome for Japan.)
Empires in the Balance was followed in 1983 by a second volume, The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942, which received the Leman Award. This volume covers a mere five months of battle, but they were months that culminated in a major turning point of the Pacific war, for in early June 1942, the Allied victory at the Battle of Midway stopped the Japanese advance toward Hawaii and devastated the Japanese fleet.
In a later book, Willmott jumped ahead a couple of years and treated the subject of June 1944, one of the truly momentous months in the history of the world. The popular imagination associates that month with D-Day, but Willmott, while giving full justice to the Normandy invasion, also discusses other aspects of the war that helped turn the tide during that month: Rome was captured, the Russian Army won a victory in Belorussia, the Japanese were defeated in Burma, the Americans landed on Saipan and were victorious in the Philippine Sea, and the first B-29 raids against the Japanese mainland took place.
Five years were to pass between that study and Willmott’s massive work The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War, five hundred pages long, with twenty-nine maps and thirty-five illustrations.
In 1996, Willmott published another detailed study of a specific period of time during the Pacific war, Grave of a Dozen Schemes: British Naval Planning and the War against Japan, 1943-1945.
(Enhanced by forty detailed maps and more than five hundre...)
(From the animosity-filled years prior to 1914 through the...)
(After 50 years, World War II still looms large in contemp...)
(Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the b...)
(Until its loss in World War II, Japan had not known failu...)
(The author studies sea power and its strengths and associ...)
(In this second volume of his history of naval power in th...)
(The respected British military historian H. P. Willmott p...)
(The second part of H. P. Willmott's three-volume history ...)
Willmott married Pauline Anne Burton on December 9, 1978. The couple has 2 children - Gaynor Marie and Stephen James Tuite.