Naval Operations. History of the Great War. Based on Official Documents. By Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In Five Volumes. (No Map Volume)

London, Longmans, Green & Co. 1920 (1st.).. 5 Volumes. Hardbacks, 8.5 x 5.5 inches. In leather fine bindings; Quarter bound black leather spines and corners, with raised banding and gilt decorations, gilt lettered red leather spine labels, gilt 'Admiralty' crests to blue cloth boards, blue marbled endpapers and page edges. In very good conditions. Presentation bindings. Some minor rubbing and handling marks to cloth on boards, spine labels faded on vols 1-3. Some minor rubbing to corners. Presentation bookplates to endpapers "Presented by The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to A.A. Duff, for Meritorious Work. Summer 1935." Inside pages all very clean and tight, plates all clean and bright. A couple of small minor light foxing spots to some pages edges (mostly nr small gaps by maps.) Else a very clean and tight set. 5 Vols: Text volumes complete with 46 folding coloured maps, and 5 loose large folding maps in pockets of vol.2. A.A. Duff, (Sir Antony Duff, 1920–2000) joined MI5 as its Director General in 1985. He previously had distinguished military and diplomatic careers. During the Second World War, he served as a submariner and commanded HMS Stubborn. He earned a Distinguished Service Order for a daring escape from German destroyers in February 1944. Due to eye injuries suffered during this action, he left the Royal Navy and joined the diplomatic service after the war. He served in a variety of high-profile diplomatic roles including ambassador to Nepal, high commissioner to Kenya and head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Africa department. He played a key role in the independence negotiations for Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He served as the country's last Deputy Governor before its independence in 1980. He was knighted in the same year. Sir Antony subsequently became Deputy Secretary at the Cabinet Office, serving as Intelligence Coordinator, and chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee. He became Director General of the Security Service in March 1985. He served for two and a half years before retiring in January 1988. Under his management, he carried out important reforms of the Service to establish new working practices and personnel arrangements. This increased the Service's ability to deal with the terrorist threat.