Iain Ballantyne Audiobooks

Killing the Bismarck: the hunt for Germany's most feared battleship

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

1 listener rating

Who is Iain Ballantyne?

Killing the Bismarck names its subject without ceremony. Iain Ballantyne writes naval history of the operational kind, the sort that stays close to the ships, the weather and the men working the guns rather than retreating to a map table.

The pursuit and destruction of the German battleship is among the most retold episodes of the war at sea, which places a particular burden on anyone approaching it again: the outcome is known before the first chapter, so the telling has to earn its place. Detail, first hand voices and a feel for the conditions are what separate a good account of it from a merely serviceable one.

Iain Ballantyne in audiobooks

The recording runs to eleven and a half hours and is narrated by Traber Burns, whose steady, unadorned delivery suits military history considerably better than a dramatic reading would. Ratings are too thin to be worth quoting.

This is a scheduled arrival rather than something available today, so the page is worth saving if the subject appeals. When it goes live it will sit in our classics and heritage listings alongside other narrative history, and the panel below will show it as soon as it lands.