Dr Tim Benbow studied at Oxford as an undergraduate (at Brasenose College) and as a graduate (at St Antony's College). He also spent a year at Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar and a year at King's College London.

After being awarded his doctorate he remained at Oxford, conducting a post-doctoral research project and teaching International Relations and Strategic Studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including one year as a Tutor in Politics at University College.

Tim spent two years teaching at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, before joining the Defence Studies Department in 2004. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008, to Reader in 2016, and to Professor of Strategic Studies in 2024.

He created the Defence Studies Department PhD programme in 2011. In 2015 the Institute of Historical Research awarded him the Sir Julian S Corbett Prize in Modern History.

 

Research Interests:

• Naval Strategy and History (especially naval aviation and amphibious warfare) - Second World War and after
• UK strategy and defence policy
• Warfare since 1945
• Changing character of war and future warfare

His current research projects cover the role in naval and national strategy of battleships during and immediately after the Second World War; and the Royal Navy and the aircraft carrier question, 1945-1963.

 

Publications

Articles

• ‘Largely a matter of sentiment’? The demise of the battleship in the post-1945 Royal Navy, in Historical Research, 2024, published online [link: https://academic.oup.com/histres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hisres/htae016/7717324]
• Battleships, D-Day and Naval Strategy, Benbow, T.J., 2021, In: War in History, published online 
• The contribution of Royal Navy aircraft carriers and the Fleet Air Arm to Operation ‘Overlord’, 1944, Benbow, T., 1 Apr 2019, In : War in History. 26, 2, p. 265-286
• The Royal Navy and Sea Power in British Strategy, 1945-55, Benbow, T., May 2018, In : HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 91, 252, p. 375-398

Books

• Operation Dynamo: The Evacuation from Dunkirk, May-June 1940, Benbow, T. J. (ed.), 2016, Solihull: Helion and Company. (Naval Staff Histories of the Second World War)

• Operation Neptune: The D-Day Landings, 6 June 1944: Naval Staff Histories of the Second World War, Benbow, T. J. (ed.), 2015, Solihull: Helion and Company.

Chapters

• ‘Between Following and Leading: The Royal Navy and Coalition Operations in the Korean War’, in Ian Bowers (ed.), Coalition Navies During the Korean War: Understanding Combined Naval Operations (Routledge, 2024), pp.57-71
• UK Military Strategy: The Maritime Pivot, Benbow, T.J., 2020, Military Strategy in the 21^st Century: The Challenge for NATO.  Matlary J.H. & Johnson, R. (eds).  Hurst / Oxford University Press, pp.349-67 

 

MA Special Subject:

• Making Strategy: From Policy to the Use of Military Power

 

PhD Supervision:

Dr Tim Benbow is happy to offer PhD supervision in the following subject areas:

• Naval history and strategy; Second World War and post-1945
• UK Strategy and defence policy; Second World War, post,-1945 and contemporary

 

Dr Tim Benbow PURE Profile