Legg Stuart Compiler and Editor (1 results)
Published by The John Day Company, New York, NY, 1967
- Hardcover
- First Edition
Seller: Ground Zero Books, Ltd., Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.Ground Zero Books, Ltd.
Contact seller5-star sellerHardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 152 pages. Some discoloration inside front and rear boards. DJ is price clipped. Includes Foreword, Details of Ships, Squadrons and Flotillas, and Sources. Topics covered include the fleets at Jutland, Background to the Battle, The Battle (from the evening of 30 May to the… night of 31 May), and The Reckoning. Also includes details of ships, squadrons, and flotillas, and Sources. Stuart Legg, a professional film editor, has applied his experience with visual materials to produce a vivid and authentic literary narrative. The book is embellished with a large number of schematic maps showing the strategy an action of the British and German Fleets as they developed step by step. The battle of Jutland served Germany well by showing her that the surface "dreadnought" was soon to give way to the submarine; for the British, the battle was the first disturbing hint of the loss of vitality, the beginning of the national self-questioning that is even more pronounced today. Stuart Legg (31 August 1910 in London, England - 23 July 1988 in Wiltshire, England) was a documentary filmmaker who was a leading figure in both the United Kingdom and Canada as a pioneering director, writer and producer. During his long filmmaking career, Legg's work was largely unknown, although he had won an Academy Award during the Second World War. Legg replaced Paul Rotha as head of Strand Films in 1937, where he moved from director to producer. Legg's films include Churchill's Island (1941), which won the first Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, during the First World War. The battle unfolded in extensive maneuvering and three main engagements (the battlecruiser action, the fleet action and the night action), from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. Jutland was the third fleet action between steel battleships, following the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904 and the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War. Jutland was the last major battle in world history fought primarily by battleships. Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more ships and twice as many sailors but succeeded in containing the German fleet. The British press criticized the Grand Fleet's failure to force a decisive outcome, while Scheer's plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet also failed. The British strategy of denying Germany access to both the United Kingdom and the Atlantic did succeed, which was the British long-term goal. At the end of 1916, after further unsuccessful attempts to reduce the Royal Navy's numerical advantage, the German Navy accepted that its surface ships had been successfully contained, subsequently turning its efforts and resources to unrestricted submarine warfare and the destruction of Allied and neutral shipping, which-along with the Zimmermann Telegram-by April 1917 triggered the United States of America's declaration of war on Germany. Legg's work has been described as "A wonderful book not for analysis of the battle, but for rich perspectives on what it was like to be there. Highly recommended as a companion to meatier histories, as it concentrates on the aspects that many historians find too human-interesty. Features generous content from Georg von Hase, Derfflinger's gunnery officer." Stephen Baldwin posted the following observation on line: Jutland was a unique and titanic event, tantalizing in its conclusion and implications, awful in the vast array naval hardware deployed on both sides and the destruction and death that resulted; the heroism, and the "what ifs". The Battle of Jutland was an event unique in military history: there is nothing like it before or since. A modern naval battle fought almost entirely on the surface of the sea with minimal roles played by submarines and aeroplanes. The stage was owned for these brief hours on a late afternoon in May 1916 by the great battleships, the "castles of steel" and the sailors that manned them. The book is, as it says in the title, a compendium of eye-witness accounts arranged chronologically as the battle developed, and connected by narrative. It is primarily Anglo-centric but not exclusively so. The view from the German side is also given. The narrative and eye-witness testimony is supplemented by simple but helpful maps. Naval warfare is confusing at the best of times but Legg provides timely maps that are easy to read. In this book, he lets the participants of Jutland speak. The reader is given a basic overview of the movement of the fleets and invited in to the electric tension on-board, sighting the enemy - neither side knows that the other is there, action stations, the roar of the guns, the smoke and deafening noise, huge shells arcing overhead, straddling, and the carnage and death of the hit. First American Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing.