The Hunting of Force Z

By Richard Hough

This is the story of the great men of war whose task it was to halt the Japanese military dominating the Pacific.

Britain did not want to face the prospect of war at sea without five new battleships, regardless of their cost. Force Z was the name given to these British warships, equipped with their own torpedoes that sailed to the Far East in the autumn of 1941.

When the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales arrived in Singapore on 2 December, they were seen as the saviours of the British Empire. But the attack on Pearl Harbour followed five days later… and Force Z was left alone to face the appalling might of Japan.

The Hunting of Force Z is the dramatic story of those ships which were hounded to their destruction by the Japanese navy.

Richard Hough, the distinguished naval historian, was the author of many acclaimed books in the field, including The Fleet That Had to Die, Admirals in Collision, The Great War at Sea: 1914-18, and The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45. He was the biographer of Mountbatten, and his last biography, Captain James Cook, became a world bestseller.