2019

The Mountbatten Award for Best Book

The Award is made to the author of the work of literature published in English during the qualifying period that, in the opinion of the Awards Committee, has contributed most significantly to public awareness of maritime issues.

WINNER

Rachel Slade – Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro (Harper Collins)

NOMINEES

David Abrutat – Vanguard: The True Stories of the Reconnaissance and Intelligence Missions behind D-Day (Unicorn Publishing Group)
Roy and Lesley Adkins – Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History (Little Brown)
Maggie Ballinger – Britannia’s Glory - A Maritime Story: Great Britain’s Seafaring History Told in Verse (Unicorn Publishing Group)
Quintin Barry – From Solebay to the Texel: The Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672–1674 (Casemate Publishers)
Peter Baxter – After the Lost Franklin Expedition: Lady Franklin and John Rae (Pen & Sword Maritime)
Julia Blackburn – Time Song: Searching for Doggerland (Jonathan Cape/Penguin)
John Blake – HMS Belfast Pocket Manual (Osprey Publishing)
R A Burt – The Last British Battleship: HMS Vanguard, 1946–1960 (Seaforth Publishing)
Lars Celander – How Carriers Fought: Carrier Operations in WWII (Casemate Publishers)
Jeremy Dixon – The U-Boat Commanders: Knight’s Cross Holders 1939–1945 (Pen & Sword Maritime)
Aidan Dodson – Before the Battlecruiser: The Big Cruiser in the World’s Navies 1865–1910 (Pen & Sword Books)
Steve Dunn – Southern Thunder: The Royal Navy and the Scandinavian Trade in World War One (Pen & Sword Books)
Elanor Dymott – Slack-Tide (Jonathan Cape/Penguin)
Quentin Falk – Mr Midshipman VC: The Short Accident-Prone Life of George Drewry, Gallipoli Hero (Pen & Sword Books)
Peter Fey – Bloody Sixteen: The USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War (Casemate Publishers)
Russell Fielding – The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic (Harvard University Press)
David Gange – The Frayed Atlantic Edge (Harper Collins)
William H Garzke Jr, Robert O Dulin Jr, William J Jurens – Battleship Bismarck: A Design and Operational History (Seaforth Publishing)
Marco Ghiglino – Italian Naval Camouflage of World War II (Pen & Sword Books)
James Goldrick – After Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, June 1916–November 1918 (Pen & Sword Books)
Peter Goodwin – Nelson’s Arctic Voyage: The Royal Navy’s first polar expedition 1773 (Bloomsbury)
Nicholas Grey – Astronauts of Cape Horn (Conrad Press)
Dr Chris Heal – The Sound of Hunger: One German family’s chronicle of the chivalry, politics, lies, murder and aftermath of war (Unicorn Publishing Group)
John Henshaw – Liberty’s Provenance (Seaforth Publishing)
Tim Hillier-Graves – Heaven High, Ocean Deep: Naval Fighter Wing at War (Casemate Publishers)
David Hobbs – Aircraft Carrier Victorious: Detailed in the Original Builders’ Plans (Seaforth Publishing)
David Hobbs – The Dawn of Carrier Strike: The World of Lieutenant W P Lucy DSO RN (Seaforth Publishing)
Peter Hore – Henry Harwood: Hero of the River Plate (Pen & Sword Books)
Captain Jack Isbester – HARD DOWN! HARD DOWN!: The Life and Times of Captain John Isbester from Shetland (Whittles Publishing)
Kerry Jang – Large Scale Warship Models: From Kits to Scratch Building (Pen & Sword Books)
Larry Jeram-Croft, Terry Martin – The Royal Navy Wasp (Pen & Sword Books)
Nicholas Jellicoe – The Last Days of the High Seas Fleet: From Mutiny to Scapa Flow (Pen & Sword Books)
Mark Jessop – The Royal Navy 1793–1800: Birth of a Superpower (Pen & Sword Books)
Angus Konstam – The Pirate World: A History of the Most Notorious Sea Robbers (Osprey Publishing)
John Kretschmer – Sailing to the Edge of Time: The Promise, the Challenges, and the Freedom of Ocean Voyaging (Bloomsbury)
John Lambert, Al Ross – Allied Coastal Forces of World War II (Pen & Sword Books)
Tony Lewery – Off the Mainline: Reflections on a Life with Canals (Canal Book Shop)
Dr Innes McCartney – Scapa 1919: The Archaeology of a Scuttled Fleet (Osprey Publishing)
Chris McNab – The Merchant Navy Seaman Pocket Manual 1939–1945 (Casemate Publishers)
Chris McNab – The Submarine Commander Pocket Manual 1939–1945 (Casemate Publishers)
David Meara – The Great Scuttle: The End of the German High Seas Fleet (Amberley Books)
Simon Mills – Exploring the Britannic: The life, last voyage and wreck of Titanic’s tragic twin (Bloomsbury)
Peter Moore – Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World (Vintage/Penguin)
Edmund Newell – The Sacramental Sea: A Spiritual Voyage through Christian History (Darton Longman Todd)
Wes Olson – The Last Cruise of a German Raider: The Destruction of SMS Emden (Pen & Sword Books)
Dr Rodney Pell – Little Ship, Big Story (Conrad Press)
Richard Perkins – British Warship Recognition: The Perkins Identification Albums (Pen & Sword Books)
Oliver Perkins – Reading the Clouds: How You Can Forecast the Weather (Bloomsbury)
Charles Rangeley-Wilson – Silver Shoals: Five Fish That Made Britain (Vintage/Penguin)
Alan Raven – British Cruiser Warfare: The Lessons of the Early War, 1939–1941 (Pen & Sword Books)
Anthony Richards – The Lusitania Sinking: Eyewitness Accounts from Survivors (Pen & Sword Books)
Jim Ring – How the Navy Won the War: The Real Instrument of Victory 1914–1918 (Pen & Sword Books)
Gwilym Roberts – Engineering Hitler’s Downfall: the Brains that Enabled Victory (Whittles Publishing)
Charlotte Runcie – Salt On Your Tongue: Women and the Sea (Canongate)
Gareth Russell – The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World (Harper Collins)
Victoria Schofield (Editor) – With The Royal Navy in War and Peace: O’er The Deep Blue Sea (Pen & Sword Books)
Leonard Skinner and Mary Cooney – Escape Under Sail: Pursue Your Liveaboard Dream (Bloomsbury)
Craig L Symonds – World War II at Sea: A Global History (Oxford University Press)
Clive and Sue Taylor – Cold War Fleet: Ships of the Royal Navy 1966–91, A Photographic Album (Osprey Publishing)
James Taylor – Picturing the Pacific: Joseph Banks and the shipboard artists of Cook and Flinders (Bloomsbury)
Ian Tew – Memoirs of a Seafarer (Author)
Christina Thompson – Sea People: In Search of the Ancient Navigators of the Pacific (Harper Collins)
Ian Urbina – The Outlaw Ocean (Penguin Random House)
Edmund S Wong – The Sea Takes No Prisoners: Stories from the Men & Ships of the Royal Navy in the Second World War (Unicorn Publishing Group)