The Royal Navy is associated as an organisation with a code of honour, a high moral standard and a rule based conduct. Yet in four key episodes; the Tsingtao Incident, the Battle of the River Plate, the boarding of the Asama Maru and the Altmark Incident the RN either ignored, flouted or used force majeure to disregard International Law, Maritime Convention or pre-existing standard… most of which had either been written or heavily influenced by Britain and the RN in the first place.
Alexander Clarke’s background includes a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, where he studied as part of the Laughton Naval History Unit, under the supervision of Prof Andrew Lambert, as well as a family history of service in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II and a father who was a noted Naval Architect in his time. When not teaching at Kingston University and other universities he splits his time between writing a book on Tribal, Battle & Daring class destroyers, continuing his cruiser series & editing duties for Global Maritime History and running twitter events through his @AC_NavalHistory account.
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