ELECTRONICS AND SEA POWER by Hezlet, Vice Admiral Sir Arthur, KBE,CB, DSO, DSC, RN

New York 1975, Stein & Day, US First edition, hardbound w/dj, 6x9, VG/VG condition, x, 318 pages, illus, maps, notes, bibliog, index. ---------------------------------------------- The author's distinguished books already published, The Submarine and Sea Power and Aircraft and Sea Power, have traced two most important influences in contemporary naval strategy, both of which have arisen from 19th and 20th century technical discoveries. To these is now added a highly significant third influence - the electron - to complete the picture of the fundamentals of modern sea power. In the course of the Second World War there was the extraordinary advance in equipment from the time of the Battle of Cape Matapan, which was fought almost entirely visually, to the sinking of the Scharnhorst and the Battle of Surigao in the Pacific when the antagonists scarcely saw each other and the engagements were fought electronically. Cables, controlled mine fields, searchlights and electric firing of guns were all 19th century manifestations of the influence of the electron in naval affairs; wireless, and in due course in the 20th century, radar and asdics followed as further proliferations of electronic discoveries. New communication systems made possible the control of huge fleets, while direction finding, interception of wireless signals and cryptography enabled Naval Intelligence to assess enemy intentions. The author's remarkable historical study is world-wide and exhaustive in its coverage of the innumerable forms of electronic innovation and its influences on sea power. Of special importance is his concluding chapter on the electronic revolution since the Second World War, which has brought into being the guided missile even at sea and all the further possibilities of push-button warfare.