Bertram Ramsay has acquired almost mythical status in the history of the Second World War, firstly as the principal organizer of the Dunkirk evacuation and then as naval commander of the Allied invasion of Normandy - in the eyes of many, 'the organizer of victory'. But because Ramsay was killed in January 1945 and never wrote his own memoirs, his life has until now been difficult to pin down.

Andrew Gordon, prize-winning author of The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, writing with the help of Ramsay's descendants, now describes the career of this intense and territorial man in full, for the first time establishing his true role in the two great tests of his life and conveying his very particular personality. This is a superb biography of a naval officer, which also illuminated afresh British history in the first half of the twentieth century.