While books on Sealion and the Spitfire Summer are fairly plentiful, most focus on the infighting of the German High Command or the political struggle between Hitler and Churchill. Schenck ignores both aspects and concentrates on the surprisingly complete preparations for the invasion by the German Navy. The traditional view presents the German efforts as half-hearted and shambolic. Schenk, while subscribing to the view that Sealion was a Hitlerian bluff, clearly describes the energetic and comprehensive preparations made by the Navy. Far from being dependant solely on wallowing river barges, great efforts were made to develop effective landing craft and support vessels. While Schenck shows that these efforts were not entirely successful, it is clear that the German Navy's leadership paid more than lip service to the idea of a cross-Channel invasion. Compared with other recent works on Sealion, Schenck scores highly for originality and effort. Unfortunately, the readability of the book does not match the content. Perhaps unfairly, I found myself comparing Schenk unfavourably with a recent work on an earlier invasion scare, Schom's excellent Trafalgar. I could not recommend this book to readers with a passing interest in the subject. As a general work on Sealion and the 1940 invasion scare, it compares very unfavourably with other recent works, in particular John Lukacs' The Duel and Michael Glover's Invasion Scare 1940.
