The Naval Review - The Independent Professional Journal

The Naval Review Diary of the War 1939-1945

You can either select a Date from the three drop down lists, a number of days to show and then click the Show button to display a list of the diary entries for those dates. The dates will then advance by the number of days selected.

Otherwise enter a name or short phrase in the text box and click the Search button to display diary entries which contain the word or phrase.

Please avoid using very short, or commonly occurring words, (eg: and, the, navy, ship etc) as these will produce a large number of results and will take a long time to process. Searches are not case sensitive.

If there is more than one word in your phrase (eg: AIRCRAFT CARRIER) the results will include all entries where either AIRCRAFT or CARRIER occur.

To limit the results to messages where both AIRCRAFT and CARRIER occur, separate the words with + (plus) (eg: AIRCRAFT+CARRIER).

If you want to search for the exact phrase AIRCRAFT CARRIER then enclose your phrase in " (double quotes). (eg: "AIRCRAFT CARRIER").

The word(s) or phrase searched for will be highlighted in the message thus:- Aircraft at each occurrence. Please be aware that the search is for the sequence of characters you have selected and so you may get unexpected results. Thus a search for Dover would return handover as well.

If you make a mistake click Clear to reset the criteria.

The Naval Review was published throughout the Second World War (1939-45). A regular feature of these editions (starting in the May 1941 issue) was the "Naval Diary of the War" which recorded day to day events starting on 1 September 1939. The final diary was printed in the November 1945 issue and ended on 20 September 1945.
The diary was compiled by Mr. F.E. McMurtrie, editor of "Jane's Fighting Ships". Apart from an unexplained gap 17-31 July 1945, the 2,211 days from 1 September 1939 to 20 September 1945 are recorded in 1,812 entries.