Between Sand and Sea: Royal Navy Operations 1990–2011 Volume 1

For four days in early 1991, Royal Navy Lynx helicopters buzzed low around the Shatt-al-Arab marshlands of southern Iraq. They were searching for the Iraqi fleet, and whenever discovered their hulls became targets for cutting edge smart munitions. This British-led operation, termed the Battle of Bubiyan, sank the majority of the Iraqi fleet.

When Commodore Paul Haddacks led his task force into the Persian Gulf, such successes were far from certain. The sailors of the Royal Navy had been made by the Falklands Conflict and unique among the coalition fleet, they alone had experienced large scale modern naval warfare. The narrow stretch of water the Pentagon tasked Commodore Haddacks with securing bristled with coastal anti-ship batteries, labyrinthine floating minefields and Iraqi fast attack craft, evoked harsh memories of San Carlos Bay. Whilst other fleet commanders were confident, those of the British fleet were concerned. Volume 1 of Between Sand and Sea: Royal Navy Operations from the Gulf War to Qaddafi 1990 – 2011 examines how the Royal Navy exceeded these challenges and came out of them with a new confidence in a remade world.

The First Gulf War is the first of three conflicts that will be covered by this series that will also examine 2003’s Second Gulf War and 2011’s Libyan War. Across three volumes the story of a navy in transition is told. A fleet that in 1991 was neglected, repeatedly downsized and filled with mid-century vessels, became a modern and dynamic force by 2011: a reborn Royal Navy redesigned for expeditionary warfare in the American Age. Each volume is extensively illustrated with contemporary photographs, and specially commissioned maps and colour artworks.