Naval History

Often romanticized in print and on the silver screen, real-life pirates were a brutal menace that plagued the high seas. In this book, Angus Konstam separates myth from reality, tracing the history of piracy through the centuries, from the pirates who plagued the Ancient Egyptians to the Viking raids and on to the era of privateers. He discusses the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy" and colorful characters such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, before examining the West's initial encounters with Eastern pirates off the Chinese coast and the phenomenon of the modern pirate.

For more than three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence.

On 7th December 1941, naval aircraft from six Japanese aircraft carriers destroyed the US battlefleet at Pearl Harbor, forcing the US Navy to rely on its own aircraft carriers to counter Japanese advances across the Pacific. Very fortunately, no US carriers were in port during the attack and the USN rapidly evolved a revised naval war strategy based on air strikes from aircraft carriers, the fleet’s new capital ship, placed at the centre of self-sufficient task groups. Unmatched US industrial capacity enabled the design and construction of large numbers of highly capable carriers, their ...

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.

Having spent the past few years on missions in the Caribbean, Captain Bliven Putnam is all but ready to retire and settle down at home in Connecticut with his wife, Clarity. But as the Texas Revolution ignites and tensions in the Gulf of Mexico rise, Putnam is sent orders for a secret cruise that could decide the fate of their rebellion. American settlers in Texas have revolted against an increasingly tyrannical Mexican government.

On December 7, 1941, even as Japanese carrier-launched aircraft flew toward Pearl Harbor, a small American cargo ship chartered by the army reported that it was under attack from a submarine halfway between Seattle and Honolulu. After that one cryptic message, the humble lumber carrier Cynthia Olson and her crew vanished without a trace, sparking one of the most enduring nautical mysteries of the war. What happened to the ill-fated ship? What happened to her crew?

On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic separated from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole, seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the risks, they had a better chance of survival than the rest of Convoy PQ-17, a fleet of 35 cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel - the limited help Roosevelt and Churchill extended to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance.

In Beyond the Blue Horizon, best-selling science historian Brian Fagan tackles his richest topic yet: the enduring mystery of the oceans, the planet’s most forbidding terrain. This is not a tale of Columbus or Hudson, but of much earlier mariners. From the moment when ancient Polynesians first dared to sail beyond the horizon, Fagan vividly explains how our mastery of the oceans has changed history, even before history was written.

On 25 May 1982, at a critical juncture in the Falklands War, the destroyer HMS Coventry was attacked by Argentinean aircraft. In a devastating strike, she was hit by three bombs, two of which exploded inside her hull, killing 19 of her crew and leaving many others badly injured. Within minutes Coventry had capsized, and would finally sink the following day. It was the first occasion since the Second World War that a British captain and crew had to abandon a stricken ship.

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.

Few naval battles in American history have left a more enduring impression on America's national consciousness than the Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry's battle flag emblazoned with the message "Don t Give Up the Ship", now enshrined at the U.S. Naval Academy, has become a naval maxim. His succinct after-action report, "We have met the enemy and they are ours", constitutes one of the more memorable battle summaries in American history.

A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy is a deliberately compact introductory work aimed at junior seafarers, those who make decisions affecting the sea services, and those who educate seafarers and decision-makers. It introduces listeners to the main theoretical ideas that shape how statesmen and commanders make and execute maritime strategy in times of peace and war.

One of WWII’s pivotal events was the capture of U-505 on June 4, 1944. The top secret seizure of this massive Type IX submarine provided the Allies with priceless information on German technology and innovation. After the war, U-505 was transported to Chicago, where today several hundred thousand visitors a year pass through its well-preserved hull at the Museum of Science and Industry. Hunt and Kill offers the first definitive study of U-505.

Douglas Webster was a young pilot from Ohio, newly married and with 17 combat missions under his belt. On December 5, 1965 he strapped into an A-4 Skyhawk bomber for a routine weapons loading drill and simulated mission. After mishandling the maneuver, the plane and its pilot sunk to the bottom of the South China Sea, along with a live B43 one-megaton thermonuclear bomb. A cover-up mission began.

Submarines glide along on their dangerous missions, their crews performing difficult tasks under arduous conditions. The mystique associated with these boats is evidenced by the number of movies and television shows dedicated to the subject. But nowhere else will you find the lighter side of submarine operations - childish pranks, retrieving lost sailors, and even humorous episodes involving the father of the nuclear Navy, Admiral Rickover.

The most horrific struggle of the American Revolution occurred just 100 yards off New York, where more men died aboard a rotting prison ship than were lost to combat during the entirety of the war. Moored off the coast of Brooklyn until the end of the war, the derelict ship, the HMS Jersey, was a living hell for thousands of Americans either captured by the British or accused of disloyalty. Crammed below deck - a shocking one thousand at a time - without light or fresh air, the prisoners were scarcely fed food and water.

In a tour-de-force of document sleuthing and insights gleaned from the excavation of a remarkable vessel, distinguished Civil War-era historian Tom Chaffin presents the most thorough telling of the H. L. Hunley's story possible. Of panoramic breadth, this Civil War saga begins long before the submarine was even assembled and follows the tale into the boat's final hours and through its recovery in 2000.

"Top Secret" mystery missions, many without other ships in support, were becoming uncomfortably familiar for the crew of the USS Nashville CL43. It started like a Hollywood thriller, secretly transporting from England $25 million in British gold bullion, delivered to the ship in unguarded bread trucks, a pre-war "Neutrality Patrol" that was really an unofficial hostile search for the far bigger and more powerful German battleship Prinz Eugen, and sneaking through the Panama Canal at night with the ship’s name and hull number covered for secrecy.

Danger prowled under both the cold gray waters of the North Sea and the shimmering blue waves of the tropical Atlantic during World War II as Adolf Hitler's Third Reich attempted to strangle Allied shipping lanes with U-boat attacks. German and British submarines combed the vast oceanic battlefield for prey, while scientists developed new technologies and countermeasures.

During World War II, Port Chicago was a segregated naval munitions base on the outer shores of San Francisco Bay. On July 17, 1944, an explosion rocked the base, killing 320 men — 202 of whom were Black ammunition loaders. In the ensuing weeks, White officers were given leave time and commended for heroic efforts, whereas 328 of the surviving Black enlistees were sent to load ammunition on another ship. When they refused, 50 men were singled out and charged — and convicted — of mutiny. It was the largest mutiny trial in US naval history.