Coronel and the Falklands

by Capt. Geoffrey Bennett

Overview

On 1 November 1914, off the coast of Chile near Coronel, ships of the German and British navies exchanged fire, resulting in the sinking of two British ships HMS Monmouth and HMS Good Hope with the loss of nearly 1,600 sailors. To counter the German squadron, the Royal Navy sent two battle-cruisers—Inflexible and Invincible—to the South Atlantic. In December 1914, the British battle-cruisers, accompanied by smaller ships, engaged the German squadron during the Battle of the Falkland Islands and sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau near the Falkland Islands.

First published in 1962, this is a gripping account of the World War I British-German naval battles off the coast of South America, and an examination of the issue of Britain’s preparation for naval warfare in 1914.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787207011
Publisher:	Arcole Publishing
Publication date:	07/11/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
Sales rank:	832,610
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Captain Geoffrey Martin Bennett DSC FRHS (7 June 1909 - 5 September 1983) was a British Royal Navy officer and author.

Born into a naval family, he attended the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and entered the service. After his promotion to Lieutenant he qualified as a signals specialist. He became Flag Lieutenant to a number of Admirals. In WWII he was first in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then served as signals officer Force H in the Mediterranean, where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross. He was promoted to Commander at war end and published his first novel Phantom Fleet, a naval yarn, under the pseudonym “Sea Lion”.

He went on to captain the HMS St Brides Bay in the Mediterranean and served in the Admiralty at Bath. He was promoted to Captain in 1953 and spent two years as naval attaché in Moscow, also covering Warsaw and Helsinki, where he alerted the Admiralty to the potential growth of the Soviet Navy.

Retiring soon after his return to Britain, he joined the household of the Lord Mayor of London. In 1960 he became Secretary to the Lord Mayor of Westminster, where he became an authority on civic protocol.

Over the next two decades he produced about twenty novels for both adults and children and wrote a number of radio plays for the BBC, including several serials for Children’s Hour which featured the adventures of two midshipmen, “Tiger” Ransome and “Snort” Kenton.

After retiring he took to naval history, including publishing studies of the main battles of both world wars and Nelson and a biography of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, Charlie B. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Following his retirement, Bennett lived in Ludlow, Shropshire. He died in 1983 aged 74.