In the final part of his history of the Royal Navy in the twentieth century, Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy since the end of the Cold War. The period since the end of the Cold War has seen major changes in Britain and the Royal Navy: in military, technological and social terms. In this final programme in the series, Lord West examines how those changes have affected the Navy. Visiting HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's future aircraft carrier, Lord West shows how far the...

Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy in the Falklands War. Lord West travels to the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, home of the Fleet Air Arm, to explain the vital importance of air power in winning the Falklands War. He visits the memorial to friends of his who died in the conflict, including when his own ship, HMS Ardent, was sunk. And for a different perspective, above the waves, he speaks to the Duke of York, who flew Sea King helicopters during the conflict. Lord West also...

Lord West tells the story of how Britain and the Royal Navy came to focus heavily on the North Atlantic in the late Cold War. During his time in the Royal Navy, the focus was very largely on the North Atlantic. And Lord West returns to North Norway to see the Royal Marines training and explain how that region came to be a central focus during the late Cold War. He hears about the secret world of submarines. And he joins a patrol onboard a Fisheries Protection Vessel to tell the story of a...

Lord West tells the story of how the Royal Navy lost its aircraft carriers but gained the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent. The 1960s were a time of intense inter-service rivalry. The RAF and the Royal Navy exchanged blows in the corridors of Whitehall - and by the end of the decade the Royal Navy had lost its replacement aircraft carriers but been given responsibility for the future of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent. Onboard one of the Navy's Trident submarines, Lord West hears...

Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy's role in Britain's withdrawal from empire. Travelling to Malta, he explains the Navy's central role in Maltese independence. Strolling through Valletta he describes life in the Royal Navy in the 1950s and 1960s, an era when hundreds of Royal Navy ships travelled the globe, journeying between dozens of overseas bases and acting very much like the world's policemen. He also recalls visiting the Gulf in the 1960s, and seeing creeks and towns barely...

Lord West describes how the Royal Navy fought a series of conflicts in East Asia during the early Cold War. From the Amethyst Incident in China in 1949 to the confrontation with Indonesia in the mid-1960s, East Asia was a key focus during the early Cold War. And the Royal Navy was at the heart of the action. In this episode Lord West speaks to veterans of the Amethyst Incident and the Korean War, and hears how in this period the Royal Marines embraced their commando role and fought...

Lord West explains how Britain, and the Royal Navy, adjusted to dramatically straitened circumstances after the Second World War. He describes the dramatic social changes that began after 1945, including big pay rises, improved food and conditions of service - and even the beginning of the end for hammocks. He explores the Royal Navy's crucial role in the development of nuclear weapons, and the impact they had on defence thinking and the future of conventional forces. And he speaks to Laura...

Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy in the Pacific during the Second World War. Initially beaten, the Royal Navy fought back, and by the end of the war had deployed the most powerful battlefleet in its history. But by then the tide had turned in military power and international politics, and this was the theatre in which it became clear that the United States would soon replace the United Kingdom as global naval superpower. The lessons learned in the Pacific ensured the bonds between...

Lord West travels to Malta to tell the story of the Royal Navy's incredibly difficult war in the Mediterranean between 1940 and 1945. The Mediterranean war was the last time an Admiral commanded an entire theatre of war from the bridge of a ship. It produced some dramatic fleet successes and saw an assault on German supply convoys which helped win the war in North Africa against Rommel. In the end, the Royal Navy prevailed, but with some of the most desperate fighting of the war, the victory...

Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy during the Second World War, from early fights in Norway to the Battle of the Atlantic. And he shows how the Royal Navy saved Britain from invasion during the Second World War. In a chilly fjord in northern Norway he explains how a battle in April 1940 helped saved Britain from invasion later that summer, while in northern France he looks out from the top of a Nazi-era submarine pen and imagines how the prospects envisaged by the German U-boat aces...

Lord West explores the Royal Navy's three battles between the wars: with a new department in Whitehall, with communists in Russia, and with the Navy's oldest foe - the Treasury. The First World War left Britain reeling, economically devastated and with massive social dislocation and a generation scarred, both physically and psychologically, by the conflict. The country was on the back foot, and the Royal Navy was, too. The Navy's formidable new capability - its air arm - was taken away and...

Lord West looks at how the Royal Navy won the First World War. The Royal Navy's role in winning the conflict has often been overlooked - drowned out by the new and savage reality of industrial warfare on the western front, and the tragic romance of the imagery and war poetry which surrounded it. Yet the Navy's role should not be underestimated, and in this programme Lord West looks at the greatest naval battle of the war - Jutland - and its dramatic impact on the war. Jutland was a great...

Lord West looks at the Royal Navy's strategy for winning the First World War, and how in the early years of the war it failed to bring its might to bear. The First World War represented a major change in British strategy towards wars on the European continent. Historically Britain had stood off from continental conflicts, funding armies there but otherwise letting the Royal Navy exert its power at sea. But now with British and imperial armies fighting across Europe, the Royal Navy was...

Lord West looks at how a revolution in naval technology transformed ideas of warfare, contributed to the arms race and laid the foundations for victory in the First World War. During the early years of the twentieth century, one man dominated the Royal Navy. Admiral Sir 'Jacky' Fisher revitalised the Mediterranean fleet, pressed for social reform and promoted the introduction of torpedoes and submarines. And in 1904 Fisher finally achieved a lifelong ambition, becoming First Sea Lord and...

Admiral Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy during the twentieth century, when through political, social, technological and economic turmoil, the Navy's fortunes mirrored those of Britain. Lord West begins this first episode of this 15-part series on the beaches of northern France, introducing the series through the greatest amphibious assault in history - D-Day, a turning point in naval warfare. From there, he goes back in history to discuss 'navalism' at the start of the twentieth...