Naval War Fiction

Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura's husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.

The book tracks the experiences of a young U.S. Navy commander caught in the cauldron of deadly naval battles off Guadalcanal in 1942. When the book opens, he is a gunnery officer on a heavy cruiser protecting the Marine Corps landings on Guadalcanal, then locked in a vicious night battle against a surprise cruiser attack. He later takes command of a new destroyer, training its crew to a high pitch to ready them against the long odds they face. The ship returns to operations off Guadalcanal and is engaged in another desperate night battle against two massive battleships. This battle marks a...

Can Peter Sinclair and his men foil a Communist revolt in the Caribbean? Lieutenant Peter Sinclair, RN is recalled to serve with the British Section of the United Nations Naval Security Force. In command of one of Britain's first nuclear-powered submarines, HM Nuclear Submarine Rugged, Sinclair manages to man her with most of his former ship's company, including Able Seaman Bill Hawkins and Lieutenant Hank Jefferson, US Navy.

On a routine patrol, HM Submarine Searcher strikes an unidentified moving object where no obstruction should have been and sinks to the bottom of the sea. Her Captain, Lieutenant Peter Sinclair, RN, is court-martialed.

*** 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 ...

1776. A fleet of British transport ships are looming off Staten Island, while the remnants of General George Washington's army huddle behind hastily constructed fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. There, Washington is preparing for the final destruction of the Continental army. Captain Isaac Biddlecomb receives a monumental order – to transport to France the most dangerous secret weapon in the country's arsenal: scientist and philosopher Benjamin Franklin. Biddlecomb's seemingly simple mission to deliver Franklin to the court of Louis XVI is just the first volley in a grand scheme.

Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship, volume 18 in the Tom Swift series, finds our hero building an airship - but not just any airship: this is a battleship of the air, complete with cannons, bombs, and able to stay in the air for at least two weeks on a single tank of gas. It is no surprise that the Swift shops are soon infested with spies and evildoers bent on stealing Tom's ideas, and even better yet, his airship. Will the forces of evil steal Tom's airship and his ideas? Tune in and find out.

A Nazi war criminal believed to have been executed years ago is seen very much alive in Hamburg. When Lieutenant Hank Jefferson, US Navy, goes missing, the Admiralty, already troubled by disturbing rumors of Nazi resurgence, know just the man to find him.

Commander Tony Romella takes a small team on what is expected to be a routine one month trip to Casablanca, Morocco. Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting. An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies.

It begins with torpedo attacks against commercial tankers as the mercenary submarines Wraith and Specter glide beneath the seas, sowing chaos and choking off the flow of fuel to Greece. A secret cabal conspires to force the corrupt and failing nation from the European Union, even if it means fanning the smoldering tensions between Greece and Turkey into all-out war. While Greek warships scramble to locate the submarine provocateurs, international arms dealer Pierre Renard and expelled US naval officer Jake Slate carry out a mission with unforeseeable consequences.

While serving as an assistant to Vice President George H. W. Bush, Chase Untermeyer concluded that the only way to learn how the US government really works was to leave the silken cocoon of the White House and seek a position in one of the departments or agencies. Inside Reagan’s Navy offers an engaging, up-close narrative of Untermeyer’s experiences in the Pentagon, interwoven with descriptions of events and people, humorous anecdotes, and telling quotations.

In this first book of the Jonathan Kinkaid trilogy, our hero finds himself serving as First Lieutenant aboard the American frigate Randolph of 32 guns, blockaded in the port of Philadelphia during the winter of 1776-77. Tasked with orders to undertake “independent action” in the North Atlantic against a mighty British convoy, she manages to elude British warships long enough to transform her crew–from the crusty boatswain’s mate O’Toole to the teenage midshipman Billy Weatherby–into an effective fighting force. The “Lucky Randy” takes a number of important prizes until her ...

"Hazardous Duty" is volume three of the Jonathan Kinkaid Series where Kinkaid takes command of the 18-gun sloop of war, Ranger, tasked with scouting duties for the Continental Fleet. Braving not only the foul and frigid weather of northern waters, Kinkaid must contend with an inexperienced crew, a badly leaking ship, and personality clashes among senior officers; one of them being the bold and aggressive John Paul Jones, in command of the Frigate Alfred.After taking some valuable prizes off the shores of Long Island and Nova Scotia, the American Fleet is dogged by a large and powerful ...

In this exciting second book of the series, Kinkaid’s daring and proficiency are tested to the limit when he is given command of the lightly armed brig, Swift, of 12 guns. Ordered to deliver a diplomat bearing a copy of the Declaration of Independence to the Dutch free port of St. Eustatia in the Caribbean, his mission seems easy enough. But then why have they taken on over 100 muskets and heavy weapons? All Kinkaid is told is that he must assist a major of marines with a secret assignment that takes them to the wet, steaming jungle island of Dominica, inhabited by cannibalistic Carib ...

An aging Coast Guard patrol boat is all that stands between the world and nuclear annihilation! The world is on the brink of war, with NATO mobilizing to counter a Russian threat to Poland and Lithuania and leaders openly discussing war options. In the midst of the crisis, a Russian bomber collides with a U.S. fighter off Florida causing the accidental launch of a nuclear-tipped hypersonic missile. A Coast Guard cutter on a routine patrol finds a drug-laden sailboat smashed and adrift north of the Florida Keys. The boat’s damage is from a near miss by the Russian missile which has not ...

Mission: Five days to destroy the enemy in the Caribbean before a catastrophic weapon is unleashed—but all he can think about is the woman he left behind… The deadliest nerve gas ever made has fallen into the hands of a murderous Caribbean drug cult. The criminal 252 Syndicate has the gas in a secret lab on an oil rig servicing ship, but the ship has been taken for ransom by the Salinas Cartel in a violent drug war. The U.S. can’t use airstrikes and calls on Coast Guard Officer Ben Wyporek to lead his crew through a risky covert raid on the Salinas cult’s fortified island base. He ...