We come unseen - Jim Ring

From the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the threat of a nuclear Armageddon was an everyday reality. The front line of what Churchill called the balance of terror was the submarine forces whose missiles were targeted on the world's cities. Hundreds of feet beneath the waves, these leviathans vied for supremacy that could mean global dominance - or destruction. Alongside them worked the attack submarines, tasked wtih finding the missile submarines and - in time of war - with destroying them. Hitherto, on this side of the Atlantic, little more than hints of this remarkable tale have come to light. Now, granted exclusive access to its leading submarine commanders by the Royal Navy, Jim Ring tells the full story from its beginnings. With more than a side-glance at the Falklands War, the book culminates in the submarine operations of the Reagan-Thatcher Star Wars era that finally crushed Soviet hopes of victory at sea. In the words of Sir John Coward, Flag Officer Submarines: There was a war and we won it. This book is as much about personnel as operations, and it follows the careers of six submarine commanders from their early days at Dartmouth to their remarkable escapades in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Norwegian and the Barents Seas. It provides a fascinating insight into the sort of men trained and prepared - literally - to press the nuclear button, who in the end gave us peace in our time. They are the more than worthy successors to Churchill's Few.