Naval Military History

Simmering racial tensions inflamed by discriminatory punitive measures sparked a violent confrontation aboard the USS Kitty Hawk while it was engaged in air strikes off the coast of North Vietnam. The US Navy charged Black sailors with rioting and assaults on White sailors in an incident referred to as a race riot, while totally ignoring violent unprovoked assaults committed by White sailors and Marines.

During the night of February 3, 1943, a torpedo shattered the side of the SS Dorchester off the coast of Greenland. The 904 men aboard, who would certainly have drowned, were saved thanks to the tremendous bravery of the four chaplains aboard - the Rev. George L. Fox (Methodist), the Rev. Clark V. Poling (Dutch Reformed), Father John P. Washington (Roman Catholic), and Rabbi Alexander Goode (Jewish) - who distributed life jackets to the troops, including, in the end, their own.

The waters of the Pacific Ocean - stretching deep blue under the tropical sun, or scourged by typhoons - provided World War II's most far-flung battlefield. Two of the world's premier mid-20th century maritime powers, the United States of America and the Empire of Japan, grappled for supremacy across that pelagic expanse. In the process, they forcefully sounded the death knell of battleships and naval gunnery, ushering in the era of the aircraft carrier and the submarine.

On February 2, 2019, the skies over Maynardville, Tennessee, filled with the roar of four F/A-18F Super Hornets streaking overhead in close formation. In each aircraft were two young female flyers, executing the first all-woman Missing Man Formation flyover in Navy history in memory of Captain Rosemary Mariner - groundbreaking Navy jet pilot, inspiring commander, determined and dedicated leader - whose drive to ensure the United States military had its choice of the best America had to offer broke down barriers and opened doors for female aviators wanting to serve their country.

5 August 2005. While conducting a secret mission thirty miles off the remote cost of Kamchatka, the Russian Navy submarine AS-28 became snared in the thick cables anchored to 60-tonne concrete blocks. Without power the stricken boat sunk to the seafloor. Trapped too deep to escape her crew now had just seventy two hours before the air onboard ran out. Twenty-four hours later - still haunted by the loss of the Kursk - the Russian Navy requested assistance.

The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest campaign of World War II, took place upon the Atlantic Ocean as the Allies traveled back and forth from North America to Great Britain with desperately needed oil, provisions, weapons, and supplies for the embattled forces fighting against Nazi Germany. The efforts of those valiant seafarers would eventually make D-Day possible, but there were times when even Winston Churchill feared that the prowess of the U-boats would imperil the Allies in their battle against the Nazi menace that had conquered Western Europe.

FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of this WWI naval history by an author who actually took part in the battle(s) described. This plain, unvarnished account, so far as is known, is the first attempt that has been made to link with the description of the Battle of the Falkland Islands, fought on December 8th 1914, to the events leading up to that engagement. Each phase presented has been read and approved by officers who participated.

Wally Schirra was the only one of the original seven NASA astronauts to command a spacecraft in all three pioneering space programs - Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This chronicle of his experiences takes us into space on Schirra's 1962 Mercury flight that orbited Earth six times and aboard Gemini for the first rendezvous of two manned craft in space.

Are you fascinated by the transformative battles that have shaped our world? The Battle of Lepanto is a thrilling voyage to one of history’s most pivotal naval confrontations. This audiobook isn’t just about a battle; it’s a compelling narrative weaving together military innovation, intense diplomacy, and the birth of cultural masterpieces. Inside this audiobook, you’ll embark on a journey through the turbulent waters leading up to and beyond this legendary clash. Every chapter contains a treasure trove for enthusiasts of 16th-century naval warfare and history aficionados.

In mid-1943, Snelling Robinson joined the crew of the Fletcher class destroyer USS Cotten as a newly commissioned ensign. The Cotten sailed to Pearl Harbor in time to join the Fifth Fleet. Under the command of Admiral Raymond Spruance, the Fifth Fleet participated in the invasions of Tarawa and Iwo Jima and several naval battles in the Philippine Sea and the Leyte Gulf.

David R. Leick uses first-hand accounts from archives such as the Naval History and Heritage Command to examine the campaigns, aircraft, tactics, command decisions, and life aboard ship during the American Pacific campaign against Japan from early 1943 until Princeton’s tragic demise in October 1944. The book focusses closely on the crew and airmen of the Princeton, as well as describing in detail the toll that prolonged combat operations took on the frontline sailor.

They called the wind a sirocco, a wind borne sandstorm from the Sahara Desert that blackens the day. Donland called it a DEVIL’S WIND. It was just one of the perils he faces on The Slave Coast of Africa. He is on his own with only half of Oxford’s crew and with half of her guns. Upon arrival on the Slave Coast the newly married Donland is ordered by the tyrannical governor to dispatch a Spanish frigate captured by pirates who prey on the slave traders. How hard is it to hide a frigate? The Slave Coast of Africa is honeycombed with rivers and coves, each has to be searched and each holds...

On 25 December 1943, the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst slipped out Altenfjord in Norway to attack Arctic convoy JW55B which was carrying vital war supplies to the Soviet Union. But British naval intelligence knew of the Scharnhorst's mission before she sailed and the vulnerable convoy was protected by a large Royal Naval force, including the battleship Duke of York. In effect the Scharnhorst was sailing into a trap. One of the most compelling naval dramas of the Second World War had begun.

In Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom, Peter Padfield presents a superb description and analysis of naval campaigns conducted between 1788 and 1851 that shaped the modern world. Winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Prize, this is the second of Padfield's masterful trilogy that traces the impact of naval power on modern history, and the means by which it has been enacted.

The Mediterranean, 1943... The HMS Rob Roy. A tiny machine, just 230 feet from stem to stern. In peacetime she would have trawled for cod. Now her catch is deadlier by far. Lieutenant-Commander Ian Ransome is a veteran of the treacherous front line of naval combat. Under sealed orders in the battle-tossed waters of the Mediterranean, he and his jack-tired crew face one final test of their courage....

As the war in Iraq continues, the idea of being a soldier in wartime is of interest to many Americans. Why Marines Fight by James Brady is a ruthlessly candid book told in the words of U.S. Marines themselves, who answer provocative questions about what drives them to fight so competently and ferociously.

This riveting World War II escape story was published in 1943. On 6 May, 1942, hours after US Army General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered all US and Filipino forces on the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay to the Imperial Japanese Army, 18 US Navy sailors from USS Quail set out on their adventurous escape to freedom. Led by Lieutenant Commander John Morrill, the 18 sailors began their 2000-mile journey to Darwin in Australia in a 36-foot gasoline boat. The narrative provides amazing detail of the people and places they encountered on the journey to freedom.

In the early months of 1970, Lt. Thomas Medici, NILO Ha Tien, enters Cambodia on US Naval Intelligence missions and negotiates a secret weapons agreement with the Cambodian Navy, then thwarts the destruction of of the Port of Sihanoukville - for which he is tried at a Naval Board of Inquiry.

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.

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?