Peter L. N. Padfield (3 April 1932 – 14 March 2022) was a British author, biographer, historian, and journalist who specialised in

naval history Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Even in the interior of large lan ...

and in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

period. His early journalism appeared under the name P. L. N. Padfield. As well as his non-fiction work, he also published four novels.

Life and work

Born on 3 April 1932 in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, in the

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, Padfield attended a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

for boys,

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

, then trained for a naval career as a

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

cadet on HMS ''Worcester''. He then became a navigating officer with the P&O shipping company. In 1957 he was paid off from P&O's London to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

ocean liner An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). Ca ...

''Strathmore'', after being accepted as one of the crew of ''

Mayflower II ''Mayflower II'' is a reproduction of the 17th-century ship ''Mayflower'', celebrated for transporting the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620. "Press Kit - Mayflower X" (with history of the ''Mayflower''), Plimoth Plantation Museum, 20 ...

'', a replica of the original ''

Mayflower ''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...

'', and sailed in her on her maiden voyage from

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. On leaving a junior officer's life with P&O, Padfield later commented that "Cargo boats, public schools, and prisons have a great deal in common". After New York, he returned to sea in the Pacific, including a visit to

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

, where he panned for gold, then wrote ''The Sea is a Magic Carpet'', published as a book in 1959, an account of his adventures.Peter Padfield biography
at andrewlownie.co.uk, accessed 18 October 2015 Padfield settled in England and established a career in journalism. In his second book, ''The Titanic and the Californian'', he defended the reputation of Captain Lord, the master of the '' Californian'' who since 1912 had been widely blamed for the death of hundreds of passengers on the ''Titanic''. He concluded that in the Board of Trade Inquiry chaired by

Lord Mersey John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, (3 August 1840 – 3 September 1929) was a British jurist and politician. After early success as a lawyer, and a less successful spell as a politician, he was appointed a judge, working in commercial la ...

there had been "crazy deductions, distortions, prejudice, and occasional bone-headed obstinacy of witnesses and the court", and the huge success of this enabled him to begin writing books full-time. Next came several works on naval history, including ''The Great Naval Race'' (1976), a study of the rivalry between Britain and Germany in the early 20th century, which led to biographies of three leading Nazis,

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

, and

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

. In 2003 he won the

Mountbatten Maritime Prize The Mountbatten Maritime Award is awarded annually by the Maritime Foundation (formerly the British Maritime Charitable Foundation) to the author of a distinguished publication that has made a significant contribution to the maritime history of th ...

for his ''Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom''.PETER PADFIELD Naval Historian and Biographer
at guypadfield.com, accessed 18 October 2015 Padfield's most recent historical work was ''Hess, Hitler and Churchill'' (2013), in which he explores the mystery of

's flight to Britain in 1941. He developed the theory that it may have been part of a significant German peace offer and suggested that Hess was carrying documents with detailed proposals from Hitler. These would have meant an armistice between Germany and Britain, which would stand neutral in a planned German war against the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, in return for which Germany was willing to withdraw its armed forces from Western Europe.

Personal life

In 1960 Padfield gave up his life at sea and married Jane Yarwood. They settled first at Clare, Suffolk, and brought up a son and two daughters in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

, buying a gaff-rigged Norfolk shrimp boat for sailing on the

River Deben The River Deben is a river in Suffolk rising to the west of Debenham, though a second, higher source runs south from the parish of Bedingfield. The river passes through Woodbridge, turning into a tidal estuary before entering the North Sea at Fe ...

. He lived in

Woodbridge Woodbridge may refer to: Places Australia *Woodbridge, Western Australia formerly called ''West Midland'' *Woodbridge, Tasmania Canada *Woodbridge, Ontario England *Woodbridge, Suffolk, the location of ** Woodbridge (UK Parliament constituency ...

. Taking many holidays in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, until the arrival of old age the couple's interests included cross-country skiing in the winter months, and they continued with mountain walks in the summer. Padfield also sketched and painted in watercolours. He died on 14 March 2022, at the age of 89.

Works

Autobiographical *''The Sea is a Magic Carpet'' (Peter Davies, 1959) Naval history *''The Titanic and the Californian'' (1965, new edition by Thistle Publishing, 2015) *''An Agony of Collisions'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1966) *''Aim Straight: a biography of Admiral Sir Percy Scott'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1968) *''Broke and the Shannon: a biography of Admiral Sir Peter Broke'' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1969) *''Guns at Sea'' (Hugh Evelyn, 1972) *''The Battleship Era'' (Hart-Davis, 1973), later re-issued as ''Battleship'' (Birlinn, 2000) *''Nelson's War'' (Hart-Davis, 1975), with introduction by

Ludovic Kennedy Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (3 November 191918 October 2009) was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and ...

*''The Great Naval Race: Anglo-German Naval Rivalry, 1900–1914'' (Hart-Davis,1976) *''Tide of Empires: Decisive Naval Campaigns in the Rise of the West 1481–1654'' (Routledge, 1979) *''Rule Britannia: the Victorian and Edwardian Navy'' (Routledge, 1981) *''Beneath the Houseflag of the P & O: a social history'' (Hutchinson, 1981) *''Tide of Empires: Decisive Naval Campaigns in the Rise of the West 1654–1763'' (Routledge, 1981) *''Armada: a Celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada'' (Gollancz, 1988) *''War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict, 1939–1945'' (John Murray, 1995) *''Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1588–1782'' (John Murray, 1999) *''Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788–1851'' (John Murray, 2003) Mountbatten Maritime Prize 2003 *''Maritime Dominion and the Triumph of the Free World: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1852–2001'' (John Murray, 2009) Second World War *''Dönitz: the Last Führer'' (Gollancz, 1984) *''Himmler: Reichsführer-SS'' (Macmillan, 1990) *''Hess: Flight for the Führer'' (Weidenfeld, 1991) *''Hess: the Führer's Disciple'' (Macmillan Papermac, 1993) *''War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict, 1939–1945'' (John Murray, 1995) *''Hess, Hitler and Churchill: the real turning point of the Second World War'' (Icon Books, 2013) **U.S. edition ''Night Flight to Dungavel: Rudolf Hess, Winston Churchill, and the real turning point of WWII'' (ForeEdge from University Press of New England, 2014) Novels *''The Lion's Claw'' (1978) *''The Unquiet Gods'' (1980) *''Gold Chains of Empire'' (1982) *''Salt and Steel'' (1986) Selected articles *'Mystery of the Melanesian' in ''The Wide World Magazine'', December 1959 *'We Sailed on All Fools' Day' in ''The Wide World Magazine'', January 1960

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Padfield, Peter 1932 births 2022 deaths British naval historians People educated at Christ's Hospital P&O (company) People from Clare, Suffolk Royal Naval Reserve personnel British Merchant Navy officers British journalists