Ship History

Listeners will learn over 100 facts about military sea and military air vehicles, such as helicopters, bombers, and stealth flighters, as well as submarines, mammoth ships, and militarized barges.

In 1858, a ship destined for the goldfields of Australia is wrecked on a reef on the outer quarter of the Solomon Islands. What happens next is a tale of courage, resilience, and adventure that will have one man questioning all that he thought he knew. A bold decision to change the route of the Elizabeth May ends in tragedy when the ship is wrecked near Heron Island. Many of the crew and the 300 Chinese laborers onboard perish and for the stricken survivors, the future looks dire. After a series of calamitous events, a longboat carrying the captain, a few crew members, and young Matt Jones ...

Kurofune is a powerful and moving novel that explores the human cost of war and the resilience of the human spirit. This gripping story sheds light on a lesser known chapter of the Pacific theatre of World War Two, one that will leave readers with a deeper understanding on the complexities of war and its impact on individuals and communities. With its richly drawn characters, vivid battle scenes and themes of love, sacrifice and redemption, Kurofune is a must read for fans of historical fiction or anyone interested in the human cost of war.

In 1819, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its 20-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During 90 days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

For nearly 200 years huge wooden warships called “ships of the line” dominated war at sea and were thus instrumental in the European struggle for power and the spread of imperialism. Foremost among the great naval powers were Great Britain and France, whose advanced economies could support large numbers of these expensive ships. This book, the first joint history of these great navies, offers a uniquely impartial and comprehensive picture of the two forces - their shipbuilding programs, naval campaigns, and battles, and their wartime strategies and diplomacy.

On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret, since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was the most qualified officer to head the risky mission.

In his major new work, Michael Palin - former Monty Python stalwart and much-loved television globe-trotter - brings to life the world and voyages of HMS Erebus, from its construction in the naval dockyards of Pembroke, to the part it played in Ross’s Antarctic expedition of 1839-43, to its abandonment during Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition, and to its final rediscovery on the seabed in Queen Maud Gulf in 2014.

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.

The Bismark was the greatest warship ever built, with guns so powerful and accurate it could destroy an enemy ship while safely staying outside the line of fire. But the Allies had to sink it...or risk losing the war. William Shirer, famed World War II correspondent and author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, captures every suspenseful moment of the perilous mission.

Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.

"Ryōma!" tells the life story of Sakamoto Ryōma, one of the great figures in the turmoil that engulfed Japan in the years before the 1868 Meiji Restoration. The novel is a masterwork by the prolific historical novelist Shiba Ryōtarō and has sold more than 24 million copies in Japan since publication in 1966—and still counting! The novel has everything: a winning main character, an action-packed plot, swordfights, and romance, but it is also a fascinating, easy-to-digest history lesson about Japan’s response to the shocking arrival of United States Commodore Matthew Perry’s “...

Built in 1927, the German ocean liner Cap Arcona was the greatest ship since the Titanic. When the Nazis seized control, she was stripped down for use as a floating barracks and troop transport. Hitler's minister, Joseph Goebbels, later cast her as a "star" in the epic propaganda film about the sinking of the legendary Titanic. In the Third Reich's final desperate days, when SS Cap Arcona was mistakenly bombed by the British Air Force, concentration camp prisoners packed the ship.

The Olympic Class ships were intended to be the greatest liners to ever sail the oceans, but the Britannic sank only four years after her sister ship the Titanic. While the wreck of the Titanic is two miles below the surface and rapidly deteriorating, the Britannic is much more accessible (only 400 ft down) and remains largely intact. One of the largest passenger ships ever to have sunk, her wreck presents a unique opportunity to explore the interior of the Olympic Class liners, and examine areas which on the Titanic simply no longer exist.

In Same Blood, Different Boats, the author explores the psychological and cultural dissonance between Caribbean immigrants and African Americans, who share a common ancestry but often experience profound disconnection. Drawing on history, sociology, and personal narrative, the book exposes the inherited naivety with which many Caribbean immigrants arrive in the United States, often unaware of the deeply rooted racial dynamics, historical trauma, and cultural undercurrents that shape the Black American experience.

Handsome and charismatic, Albert Hicks had long been known in the dive bars and gin joints of the Five Points, the most dangerous neighborhood in maritime Manhattan. For years, he operated out of the public eye, rambling from crime to crime, working on the water in ships, sleeping in the nickel-a-night flops, drinking in barrooms where rat-baiting and bear-baiting were great entertainments. Rich Cohen tells the story of this notorious underworld figure, from his humble origins to the wild, globe-crossing, bacchanalian crime spree that forged his ruthlessness and his reputation.

On June 19, 1864, just off the coast of France, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. On a clear day with windswept skies, the dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish, the outcome of which would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas.

"28 Universal Floods" is a captivating book that immerses us in a fascinating journey through the flood stories present in different mythologies, religions and stories around the world. From the Biblical tales of Noah to the legends of Matsya in Hindu mythology and Deucalion in Greek mythology, this book offers a comprehensive and insightful look at the many floods that have captured the imagination of mankind over the centuries. With careful research and gripping narration, the author immerses us in each of these 28 floods, exploring their origins, characteristics, and symbolic meanings. ...

In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed it all: the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar; perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers, and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some 50 lives with her.

For more than 200 years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the 19th century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the 20th. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.