Naval Military History

Gallipoli: the mere name summons the story of this well-known campaign of the First World War. And the story of Gallipoli, where in August 1915 the Allied forces made their last valiant effort against the Turks, is one of infamous might-have-beens. If only the Allies had held out a little longer, pushed a little harder, had better luck, Gallipoli might have been the decisive triumph that knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War.

*** An American Library Association Notable Children’s Book *** The year is 1777, and America is in danger of losing the Revolutionary War because of the British blockade… Benjamin Franklin is sent to Paris to seek an alliance with France, but how will he ever be able to convince the French that the American battle is worth joining—especially when the French are still licking their wounds from their own loss to the mighty British Navy? Franklin’s only chance to prove the British Navy is not invincible—and that the American colonists are determined to fight to the end—is to put ...

Mutiny on the Spanish Main tells the dramatic story of HMS Hermione, a British frigate which, in 1797, was the site of the bloodiest mutiny in British naval history, which saw the death of her captain and many of her officers. Though her crew handed her over to the Spanish, Hermione was subsequently recaptured in a daring raid on a Caribbean port two years later.

On the 8th June 1940, the Nazi battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau opened their guns on the aircraft-carrier HMS Glorious. Within minutes, the Glorious was taking on water, and the order was given to abandon ship. Only 40 men survived this ordeal, one of which was Royal Marine Ronald "Tubby" Healiss, who served as a member of a 4.7 gun crew on the Glorious. His award-winning account is a true and terrible record of suffering, which uncovers one of the greatest undocumented naval stories of the Second World War.

At the onset of the American Revolution, the British expected to quell the rebellion quickly with a show of overwhelming force. In an experiment in asymmetric warfare, David Bushnell created the first submarine vessel designed specifically “for the destruction of vessels of war”. In Turtle, the authors provide new insight into Bushnell’s “engine of devastation”, tracing the history of undersea warfare before Bushnell and the origin of the many innovations Bushnell understood would be necessary for conducting a covert submarine attack.

While the Civil War is mainly remembered for its epic battles between the Northern and Southern armies, the Union was simultaneously waging another campaign - dubbed "Anaconda" - that was gradually depriving the South of industry and commerce, thus rendering the exploits of its field armies moot. When an independent Dixie finally met the dustbin of history, it was the North's coastal campaign, as much as the achievements of its main forces, that was primarily responsible.

Author Stephen Young - a seaman on the battleship Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor - recounts his terrifying experience with incredible realism.

In the darkness before moonrise on the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast on August 21, 1940, the night erupted in a fusillade of bullets and shells. The victim was a stalwart English tramp steamer, Anglo Saxon, part of the lifeline that was keeping besieged England in supplies. The attacker appeared to be a merchant ship from a neutral country.

"Find out what is happening in the Atlantic, find ways of getting the convoys through, and sink the U-boats!" (Prime Minister Winston Churchill) 1942. Liverpool. The war isn't going to plan. Distinguished admiral Sir Max Horton is in the game room on his knees commanding a fleet of toy German U-boats. Behind a curtain his unknown opponent is manoeuvring the toy British battleships. Five times the pair have played the game and five times Horton's U-boats have suffered defeat. Exasperated, he demands to know his enemy. And from behind the curtain steps a fresh-faced 17-year-old woman.

Rear Admiral Terry McKnight, USN (Ret.) served as Commander, Counter-Piracy Task Force - Gulf of Aden. After his tour in the waters off the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, he retired from the Navy and began seriously researching the subject. Pirate Alley explores every aspect of Somali piracy, from how the pirates operate to how the actions of a relative handful of youthful criminals and their bosses have impacted the world economy. The book examines various answers to the question: "How do you solve a problem like Somalia?"

After the Battle of Midway, the Japanese were forced into the position of trying to defend the territory they had previously taken; their dreams of expanding their acquisitions and becoming the dominant power in the Pacific were gone. The tide of war in the Pacific had shifted.

La historia de los saqueadores del mar. Hombres sin escrúpulos que, no obstante, ayudaron a crear imperios, construyeron ciudades portuarias y descubrieron rutas comerciales. La piratería es tan antigua como el comercio marino, y no ha habido pueblo en la historia que no la haya sufrido o la haya practicado.

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea.

Vice Admiral John L. McCrea worked with the president of the United States on difficult and unusual assignments, associated with royalty and world-famous political and military leaders, and he commanded the USS Iowa and a task force in the Pacific. Over the years, many urged him to write a book, and before his passing he finally recorded his reminiscences. Captain McCrea's War captures his amazing tales from the World War II years.

El peligro merodeó bajo las aguas frías y grises del Mar del Norte y también bajo las brillantes olas azules del Atlántico tropical durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando el Tercer Reich de Hitler intentaba estrangular las líneas de suministro de los Aliados con ataques de U-Boot.

Have you ever served in the US Navy? Do you know someone who has? Have you ever wondered what shipboard life was like? Then this is the audiobook for you! The author served in the US Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, in the waning days of the Cold War. In this series of 62 Sea Stories, he takes us on an enjoyable journey back to that very different time in US Navy history. He tells it like it was, and no one is spared. Some of the stories are hilarious. Some are tragic. Some are a sobering reminder of the dangers, difficulties, and stresses of naval sea service.

This biography draws heavily on the personal diaries of the subject, Robert Hichens (or ‘Hitch’ as he was universally known). After a brief description of his early life, time at Oxford, his motor racing achievements (including trophies at Le Mans in his Aston Martin), and RN training, the book focuses on his exceptional wartime experiences. Hitch was the most highly decorated RNVR officer of the war with two DSOs, three DSCs and three Mentions in Despatches. He was recommended for a posthumous VC.

January 1972: the tiny outpost of British Honduras is threatened with imminent invasion by battle-hardened, US-trained Guatemalan paratroopers. Britain's response must be immediate and decisive. But there is only one deterrent the government can offer: HMS Ark Royal, once the navy's most powerful warship, now a white elephant on the verge of being scrapped. To save the small colony, she must launch a pair of Buccaneer fighter bombers on an unprecedented long-range mission. But first the old carrier must make a high-speed 1,500-mile dash across the Atlantic.

This is the exciting story about how the young American Republic established the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor to the Coast Guard), designed and built the most powerful class of frigate in the world, trained its seamen in gunnery and naval warfare and gained battle experience in the Quasi-War with France in 1798-1800 and the Barbary War ("Shores of Tripoli") in 1801-1805.

In Too Far on a Whim, Tyler A. Pitrof presents a high-spirited revision of the US Navy's commitment to high-steam propulsion systems, the mainstay of its World War II fleets. Pitrof's research persuasively demonstrates that in its war against the Imperial Japanese Navy, the US Navy succeeded despite its high-steam propulsion systems rather than because of them. Pitrof provides an account that extends far beyond technology and into matters of naval hierarchies and bureaucracy, strategic theory, and ego.