Showing titles in Naval Forces

In February 1917, German U-boats launched a savage unrestricted campaign against both Allied and neutral shipping. At its peak in April, 860,000 tons of Allied merchant shipping was sunk. Britain's supremacy at sea was being severely challenged and with it the chances of victory in the wider war. Taking up the challenge was Britain's new First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, until the previous December C-in-C of the Britain's Grand Fleet—famously described by Churchill as the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon.

This is the world of the submariner. This is life under pressure. What’s it like to spend three months without sunlight, sharing what little space you have with over a hundred fellow crewmen and more firepower than all the bombs dropped in World War II combined? This is the world of the...

The SS City of Benares was born in the optimism of the interwar years. Launched in 1936 for the Ellerman Line, she embodied reliability, elegance, and the promise of safe passage between Britain and its empire. With her sleek twin funnels and polished interiors, she seemed destined to carry families, officials, and traders eastward in comfort. Yet within only four years, her name would be etched into the darkest chapter of Britain’s wartime history—not for her design or her service in peacetime, but for the lives of the children she carried on her final voyage.

Join veteran submariner and decorated veteran of the submarine service Andrew Karam and the crew of the USS Plunger (SSN 595) as it goes up against the best of the Soviet Navy on an extended "special operation" in the waning days of the Cold War and find out what life at sea is really like.

Samuel Leech provides a fascinating account of life as a sailor in the War of 1812 and through early 19th century. It is a remarkable account of a man who, until the conflict with the USS United States, had fought British Navy but after that battle changed allegiance to the United States and continued sailing with her navy for a further four years. A perfect addition to any sailor's library, A Voice from the Main Deck is a vivid account of life at sea in the early 19th century.

From 1949 to 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) made crucial decisions to establish a navy and secure China's periphery. The civil war had been fought with a peasant army, yet in order to capture key offshore islands from the Nationalist rival, Mao Zedong needed to develop maritime capabilities. Mao's Army Goes to Sea is a ground-breaking history of the founding of the Chinese navy and Communist China's earliest island-seizing campaigns.

At Sea Against the Soviet Fleet examines the critical transformation of naval intelligence during a pivotal era marked by the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict. Bryan Leese meticulously details how US Navy operational intelligence evolved to meet the complexities of modern naval warfare, particularly in response to the increasing threats posed by the Soviet Navy. This book begins by examining the Vietnam War and the institutionalization of shipboard operational intelligence, or what Navy intelligence calls Opintel.

The Dirty Dozen meets Band of Brothers in this true story of how a rusty old New Orleans banana boat staffed with an unlikely crew of international merchant seamen, a gang of inmates from a local jail, and a French harbor pilot spirited out of Morocco by O.S.S. agents in the trunk of a Chevy, were drafted into service in WWII - and heroically succeeded in setting the stage for Patton's epic invasion of North Africa.

Winner of the 2015 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award: “Horwitz’s dogged reporting…combined with crisp, cinematic writing, produces a powerful narrative…. He has written a book that is instructive and passionate and deserving a wide audience” (PEN Award Citation). Six years...

“Strikingly original. . . . Nicolson brings to life superbly the horror, devastation, and gore of Trafalgar.” —The Economist Adam Nicolson takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the...

War at sea made and broke lives across the Mediterranean. This book follows the Order of St. John as they face the Ottoman Empire and North African corsairs from 1291 to 1798. It shows how galleys, forts, and prize courts turned raids into a working system that relied on captives and ransom. The story moves from Rhodes to Malta. It covers the 1480 and 1522 sieges of Rhodes, the 1530 move to Malta, the Great Siege of 1565, the Holy League victory at Lepanto, long fights with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, the rise of sailing ships, and the end in 1798. Each chapter uses records from both ...

On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, the USS Liberty, a United States Navy technical research ship, was attacked by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 US crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the Liberty. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, roughly 25 nautical miles northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

Vice Admiral Sir Peter Gretton's book is a brilliant account of his career in the navy through World War Two: fighting in the Second Battle of the Narvik and guarding convoys in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, before being placed in charge of Escort Group B7. Convoy Escort Commander demonstrates how Allied commanders searched for new methods to repel U-boat assaults, including using direction-finding radio and radar, employing special tactical formations, coordinating with air cover, and endeavoring to keep the convoy together and prevent straggling.

E. J. Jernigan's memoir offers listeners a fascinating glimpse of life as an enlisted man aboard the USS Saufley, one of the most highly decorated destroyers of World War II. It is a rarely told story of the sailors who fought the war from boiler rooms, after-steering spaces, radio shacks, and other gritty places that keep a warship going. For the author, it was a world of strong emotions and quick reactions, where men had to adapt and grow if they were to survive.

In the tradition of great tales of men against the sea, this story offers a compelling look at courage and commitment in the face of certain tragedy. It is a powerful blend of human drama and real-life naval operations, but unlike most books in the genre, its heroes are airmen not seamen, and most survived their ordeal. Published on the twentieth-fifth anniversary of Alfa Foxtrot 586's fatal mission as a tribute to those lost, the account was written by a naval aviator who has flown the same aircraft on the same mission from the same air base.

The last installment of the War in the Far East trilogy, Asian Armageddon 1944-1945, continues and completes the narrative of the first two volumes, describing how a US-led coalition of nations battled Japan into submission through a series of cataclysmic encounters. Leyte Gulf, the biggest naval battle ever, was testimony to the paramount importance of controlling the ocean, as was the fact that the US Navy carried out the only successful submarine campaign in history, reducing Japan's military and merchant navies to shadows of the former selves.

"Battleships. The True History" is dedicated to battleships - the origin of the type, development, design features and service of individual ships and ship classes. This novella contains the text portion of the "Battleships. The True History" so that the text can be used on Kindle devices or as an audiobook. This edition does not contain reference data and tables, drawings and photographs.

In the annals of military history, few events resonate with the same improbable intensity as the evacuation of Dunkirk. The Miracle of Dunkirk: 10 Facts About WWII’s Amazing Evacuation delivers a vivid, gripping, and expertly researched account of this defining moment during the Second World War—not just as a story of retreat, but of remarkable courage, unity, and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.

An engrossing biography of a Civil War naval hero. Ideal reading for those who have enjoyed the books of William C. Davis, Bruce Catton and Craig L. Symonds. David Dixon Porter was the father of the modern United States Navy. He was son of the distinguished naval leader, Commodore Porter, and his adoptive brother was the famous Union Admiral, David G. Farragut. Yet, it was not through nepotism that David Dixon Porter was able to rise to the top of the US Navy. His seamanship abilities first became apparent during the Mexican-American War when he planned and participated in the assault on ...

A War. A Secret Experiment. Men Who Paid the Price. In the fall of 1943, at the height of World War II, the U.S. Navy was fighting an invisible war in the Atlantic. German U-boats prowled shipping lanes. Magnetic mines turned harbors into death traps. Radar and electromagnetic countermeasures promised salvation, but at a cost no one fully understood. At a naval dock in Philadelphia, a newly commissioned destroyer escort became the center of one of the most disturbing legends in American military history. Official records insist nothing unusual occurred. Witnesses, veterans, and decades of ...