On 15 June 1940, the British Admiralty launched Operation Ariel – a rescue effort in western France that followed the Dunkirk evacuations. Over the course of 10 days, Allied ships took terrible risks to snatch more than 500,000 civilian refugees and British soldiers from the grasp of advancing German forces.

This image-led title was produced to mark the 80th anniversary of the remarkable evacuation of more than a third of a million troops from the Normandy beaches. It highlights the ‘brilliant impromptu organisation’ to assemble a fleet of ferries, fishing vessels, coasters and other small craft to carry out the rescue work over a frantic nine-day period from 27 May to 4 June 1940.

Nautilus Telegraph's Book of the Month for November 2020. This meticulously researched and very well-produced book examines the fate of many scores of ships seized from the losing sides in both world wars.

Here’s a very credible thriller that demonstrates just how vulnerable the industry would be to a maritime 9/11-style attack.

Anyone interested in studying maritime history should be happy to read this gripping and scholarly study of Captain James Cook’s 18th century voyages in search of Antarctica.

SS Terra Nova was most famous for being the vessel to carry the ill-fated 1910 polar expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, but the story of this memorable ship, built in wood to enable flexibility in the ice, continued until 1943, when she sank off Greenland.