Sea Battles in Close-Up. [The complete series]. 'SEA BATTLES IN CLOSE-UP': THE SERIES COMPLETE IN DUSTWRAPPERS

16 vols., sm. 8vo., with very numerous photographs, diagrams, maps and charts throughout; cloth, backstrips lettered in silver, all very good to near fine copies in dustwrapper, one or two dustwrappers lightly sunned at backstrip. Ian Allan's acclaimed 'Sea Battles in Close-Up' series, launched in 1970 and continued through to 1976, constitutes a landmark in British naval publishing. Compiled by a carefully selected cadre of authors, many of whom have since developed reputations as naval historians of international standing, the 16 volumes are uniformly praised for their accuracy and detail; certainly their relatively small physical size wholly belies their value and importance to scholar and historian alike. The set comprises 1. Watts (A.J). Loss of the Scharnhorst; 2. Pack (S.W.C). Night Action off Cape Matapan; 3. Schofield (B.B). Loss of the Bismarck; 4. Bennett (G). Battle of the River Plate; 5. Pack (S.W.C). The Battle for Crete; 6. Schofield (B.B). The Attack on Taranto; 7. Bennett (G). The Loss of the Prince of Wales & Repulse; 8. Frere-Cook (G). The Attacks on the Tirpitz; 9. Dickens (P). Narvik. Battles in the Fjords; 10. Schofield (B.B). Operation Neptune; 11. SMITH (P.C) and E. Walker. The Battles of the Malta Striking Forces; 12. Millot (B.A). The Battle of the Coral Sea; 13. Dickson (W.D). The Battle of the Philippine Sea; 14. Kemp (P). Escape of the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau; 15. Pack (S.W.C). The Battle of Sirte; 16. Van Oosten (F.C). The Battle of the Java Sea. Law: 0521 (1); 0299 (2); 0253 (3); 0103 (4); 0325 (5); 0303 (6); 0395 (7); 1675 (8); 0125 (9); 0590 (10); 0353 (11); 0422 (12); 0494 (14); 0295 (15); 0415 (16). ALL VOLUMES ARE SCARCE IN THIS CONDITION; some titles (notably Narvik and Java Sea) remarkably elusive. COMPLETE SETS ARE SELDOM AVAILABLE FOR SALE. An outstanding opportunity to acquire a complete set of titles of considerable importance in the history of the Royal Navy in WWII.