John Winton was the pen-name of Lieutenant-Commander John Pratt, who was an author and obituarist

Obituary

An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...

 after his career in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. He was born in London and served in the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 and during the Suez Crisis

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

. Whilst still in the Navy, he wrote the comic novel We Joined the Navy

We Joined the Navy

We Joined the Navy is a 1962 British CinemaScope comedy film based on the novel of the same name by John Winton, directed by Wendy Toye and starring Kenneth More, Lloyd Nolan, Joan O'Brien, Derek Fowlds, Graham Crowden, Esma Cannon and John Le Mesurier....

, featuring the character of 'The Artful Bodger'. Several other novels, and a number of non-fiction works on naval subjects, followed, including a biography of Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe

John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe

Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...

. Pratt also served for 14 years as an obituarist for The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

.

Works

Fiction:

• We joined the navy (London : Michael Joseph, 1959)

• We saw the sea (London : Michael Joseph, 1960)

• Down the hatch (London : Michael Joseph, 1961)

• Never go to sea (London : Michael Joseph, 1963)

• All the nice girls (London : Michael Joseph, 1964)

• HMS Leviathan (London : Michael Joseph, 1967)

• The fighting 'Téméraire' (London : Michael Joseph, 1971)

• One of our warships (London : Michael Joseph, 1975)

• Good enough for Nelson (London : Michael Joseph, 1977)

• Aircraft carrier (London : Michael Joseph, 1980)

• The good ship Venus, or, The lass who loved a sailor : a novel (London : Michael Joseph, 1984)

• A drowning war : a novel (London : Michael Joseph, 1985)

• Polaris (London : Michael Joseph, 1989)

• The night of the scorpion (Sutton : Severn House, 1994)

Non-fiction:

• Freedom's battle : the war at sea 1939-1945 : an anthology of personal experience (London : Hutchinson, 1967)

• The forgotten fleet (London : Michael Joseph, 1969) [account of the British Pacific Fleet]

• HMS Campbeltown (USS Buchanan) (Windsor : Profile Publications, 1971) [Profile Warship No. 5]

• The little wonder : the story of the Festiniog Railway (London : Michael Joseph, 1975)

• Sir Walter Raleigh (London : Michael Joseph, 1975)

• Air power at sea 1939-1945 (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1976)

• Hurrah for the life of a sailor : life on the lower-deck of the Victorian Navy (London : Michael Joseph, 1977)

• The Victoria Cross at sea (London : Michael Joseph, 1978)

• War in the Pacific : Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)

• Sink the Haguro! : the last destroyer action of the Second World War (London : Seeley, 1979)

• Hands to action stations! : naval poetry and verse from World War Two (Denbigh : Bluejacket, 1980)

• Find, fix and strike! : the Fleet Air Arm at war 1939-1945 (London : Batsford, 1980)

• Below the belt : novelty, subterfuge and surprise in naval warfare (London : Conway Maritime, 1981)

• Jellicoe (London : Michael Joseph, 1981) [biography of Admiral Earl John Rushworth Jellicoe]

• Captains and kings : the Royal Family and the Royal Navy, 1901-1981 (Denbigh : Bluejacket, 1981)

• Convoy : the defence of sea trade 1890-1980 (London : Michael Joseph, 1983)

• The death of the Scharnhorst (Chichester : Antony Bird, 1983)

• The litte wonder : 150 years of Festiniog Railway (Revised edition) (London : Michael Joseph, 1986)

• Carrier Glorious : the life & death of an aircraft carrier (London : Leo Cooper, 1986)

• Air power at sea [1940 to today] (London : Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987)

• Warrior : the first and the last (London : Maritime Books, 1987)

• ULTRA at sea (London : Leo Cooper, 1988)

• The naval heritage of Portsmouth (Southampton : Ensign, 1989)

• For those in peril : fifty years of Royal Navy search and rescue (London : Robert Hale, 1992)

• Ultra in the Pacific : how breaking Japanese codes & cyphers affected naval operations against Japan 1941-45 (London : Leo Cooper, 1993)

• Signals from the Falklands : the Navy in the Falklands conflict : an anthology of personal experience (London : Leo Cooper, 1995)

• Cunningham (London : John Murray, 1998) [biography of Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham]

• The submariners : life in British submarines 1901-1999 : an anthology of personal experience (London : Constable, 1999)

• An illustrated history of the Royal Navy (London : Salamander, 2000)