This is a study of Samuel Pepys diary where the focal point is emotions in his professional life, emotions are understood through Barbara H. Rosenweins theory of Emotional Communities. The main part is made up of two chronological chapters following through the ten years Pepys kept a diary. The point is to illuminate Pepys professional life in the British Royal Navy through the perspective of emotions. We follow Pepys’s professional development, where emotions is discussed in relation to concepts such as personal interest and social status. From the first years of the diary to latter perspectives of him turning into the great naval administrator he became known as. Pepys in his professional sphere strictly controlled his emotions and soared above his competitors. He was a man who was puritan raised, highly emotional, educated and curious - on the fringes of the power epicentre in restoration-era England.

American military plans for a war with the British Empire, first discussed in 1919, have received varied treatment since their declassification. the most common theme among historians in their appraisals of WAR PLAN RED is that of an oddity. Lack of a detailed study of Anglo-American relations in the immediate post-First World War years makes a right understanding of the difficult relationship between the United States and Britain after the War problematic. As a result of divergent aims and policies, the United States and Great Britain did not find the diplomatic and social unity so many on both sides of the Atlantic aspired to during and immediately after the First World War. Instead, United States’ civil and military organizations came to see the British Empire as a fierce and potentially dangerous rival, worthy of suspicion, and planned accordingly. Less than a year after the end of the War, internal debates and notes discussed and circulated between the most influential members of the United States Government, coalesced around a premise that became the rationale for WAR PLAN RED. Ample evidence reveals that contrary to the common narrative of “Anglo-American” and “Atlanticist” historians of the past century, the First World War did not forge a new union of spirit between the English-speaking nations. the experiences of the War, instead, engendered American antipathy for the British Empire. Economic and military advisers feared that the British might use their naval power to check American expansion, as they believed it did during the then recent conflict. the first full year of peace witnessed the beginnings of what became WAR PLAN RED. the foundational elements of America’s war plan against the British Empire emerged in reaction to the events of the day. Planners saw Britain as a potentially hostile nation, which might regard the United States’ rise in strength as a threatening challenge to Britain’s historic economic and maritime supremacy.

On 10 February 1964 during naval night exercises off the south coast of Australia, the destroyer HMAS Voyager was lost after colliding with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. 82 men were killed. Following the collision, there were two Royal Commissions that sustained a political controversy that lasted for over four years. This thesis examines the loss of Voyager as a watershed in the operational and administrative history of the RAN and as a major event in Australian national history. This study has four broad objectives: to describe the loss of Voyager and the long running controversy that accompanied the disaster; to offer a convincing explanation of the causes of the collision and why two royal commissions concluded that the causes for the disaster were inexplicable; to assess the effect on the RAN, in terms of specific reforms and its influence on Service culture and professional ethos, of the disaster and the inquiries that followed; and finally, to analyse the loss of Voyager as a media and political cause celebre in Australian history. As so little has been written about Voyager using primary sources, this thesis was committed to detailed description of events as well as analysis of themes. This thesis draws upon an extensive body of primary source material in the form of official naval and Royal Commission records to which complete access was given; several large collections of private papers; over one hundred interviews with principal participants; and comprehensive files of press cuttings. The discussion seeks to demonstrate that a series of naval accidents preceding the loss of Voyager contributed in a substantial way to shaping the public reaction to, and political handling of, the disaster; that the method of inquiry played a major role in generating public and political disquiet; that the collision was both a catalyst and stimulus to change in naval operations and reform in naval administration; that the inability of two Royal Commissions to ascertain the causes of the collision and then to public suspicion of a cover-up; and, that the collision was most probably caused by the incorrect relaying of a tactical signal on the bridge of Voyager. The loss of HMAS Voyager appears to be a key event in the development of the RAN, not as a direct result of the collision or its causes, but as a consequence of its long and controversial aftermath.