Ian Dear served in the Royal Marines – which gave him some experience of covert warfare – before working in the film and book publishing industries. He became a full time writer in 1979 specializing in military and maritime history, and is the author of a number of books on these subjects, including Marines at War, Escape and Evasion (The History Press) and Ten Commando. He is also the editor of The Oxford Companion to World War II and co-editor, with the late Peter Kemp, of The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea.