Naval Military History

This wonderfully illustrative publication provides a comprehensive and informative history of the Royal Navy. From the first standing navy created to repel Viking invasions during the reign of King Alfred and England's famous victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, to the D-Day landings at Normandy during WWII and the Navy's role in the 21st century, this is a gripping account of the warfare force that became the most powerful navy in the world.

On March 9, 1862, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia met in the Battle of Hampton Roads—the first time ironclad vessels would engage each other in combat. For four hours the two ships pummeled one another as thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers and civilians watched from the shorelines. Although the battle ended in a draw, this engagement would change the nature of naval warfare by informing both vessel design and battle tactics.

Following the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) a decade-long wave of sea-robbery plagued the Atlantic rim—often glamorized as the "Golden Age of Piracy". Boston-based laborer, Edward Low, left his mark on pirate history as the most vicious and sadistic raider of them all.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt described December 7, 1941, the date when the Japanese launched a surprise attack against the United States while the two countries were still officially at peace, as a day that would live in infamy. The action hurled the United States into the global conflict of World War II, a violent conflagration that the nation, fiercely isolationist, had intended to ignore. But the rising tide of militarism across the globe meant that American neutrality could not last. War was contagious, and sooner or later, no matter how a nation tried to quarantine itself, the infection would find it.

For many years, thousands of people have walked past an unassuming black timber fishing boat bobbing in the water down at the wharves of Sydney's Darling Harbour. But appearances can be deceptive. This humble little trawler played a key role in one of World War II's most audacious and successful commando raids. In September 1943, fourteen young Z special operatives sailed the small fishing boat from Australia to Japanese-occupied Singapore. Battling deadly tides, fierce storms, hostile ships and detection from the air, this little ship and its crew made it to the heart of the enemy stronghold.

On October 31, 1803, the frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground on a reef a few miles outside the harbor of Tripoli. After hours under fire, the Philadelphia, aground and defenseless, surrendered, and 307 American sailors and marines were captured. The bashaw ordered the crew moved into an old warehouse, and the officers were eventually moved to a dungeon beneath the Bashaw's castle. While the officers were treated as "gentlemen," although imprisoned, the sailors worked as enslaved laborers.

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.

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.

A lesser-known event during World War II, the sinking of the Blücher is key part of naval history that marked the beginning of the Norwegian Campaign. The Sinking of the Blücher is a comprehensive investigation into why the German cruiser, named for Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (Prussian victor of the Battle of Waterloo), was approaching Oslo on the night of 9th April 1940, why and how she was sunk, and the ramifications and significance of the event.

Sailors who served aboard one of many L.S.T.s: This book is to hopefully help the world know just what these truly brave young men went through serving aboard their ship during World War Two, and how their brave contributions contributed to the Allies’ triumphs over both the Japanese and Germans during the war. Listen to the book to become aware of their exciting and unbelievable story.

Having Seaman Jenna as the mascot on the USS Vandegrift was never meant to be a statement or symbolic act, or to put the crew on the radars of four-star admirals. Jenna came aboard unannounced, a Christmas gift that brought instant joy to the crew and transformed a gray ship into a home for 225 sailors. Her addition was not pre-approved by the chain of command—contrary to military protocol. Before long, Jenna became a phenomenon—the only dog on a Navy ship since World War II—despite the best efforts to keep her from the public eye.

Every Friday, Secretary Thomas Modly wrote a personal message to the entire department, regardless of rank. Those messages were called SECNAV Vectors. Each Vector was intended to clearly communicate his priorities and to establish a rapport with all levels of the organization. The subject of each Vector was inspired by ongoing events that occurred in real time. As these events unfolded, the secretary’s unyielding emphasis on being prepared for the unpredictable was proven to be prescient as the navy found itself, unintentionally, in the center of the Covid-19 crisis.

Most books gloss over submarines at Midway and, if they are mentioned at all, conclude they failed miserably and had little impact on the outcome of the battle. It is undeniable that carrier aviation and intelligence saved the day, but the role of the submarine was an important one in defense of an anticipated amphibious assault. Midway Submerged is a comprehensive examination of a little-known aspect of this pivotal naval battle, explaining how Nimitz used his submarines at Midway and the Japanese misused theirs based on a flawed tactical plan.

From 1949 to 1950, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) made crucial decisions to establish a navy and secure China's periphery. The civil war had been fought with a peasant army, yet in order to capture key offshore islands from the Nationalist rival, Mao Zedong needed to develop maritime capabilities. Mao's Army Goes to Sea is a ground-breaking history of the founding of the Chinese navy and Communist China's earliest island-seizing campaigns.

Book four of Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine relates a historic period in US Marine Corps Aviation, the first "off the shelf" procurement of a major weapons system from a foreign country and the introduction of the first operational V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff or landing) aircraft into the Untied States arsenal. The story is related through the eyes of our pilot and family from books one, two, and three. His writing style again puts the listener in the cockpit with him as he learns the intricacies of flying a V/STOL aircraft.

Of all the threats that faced his country in World War II, Winston Churchill said, just one really scared him—what he called the "measureless peril" of the German U-boat campaign.

Admittedly small and vulnerable, PT boats were, nevertheless, fast - the fastest craft on the water during World War II - and Dick Keresey's account of these tough little fighters throws new light on their contributions to the war effort. As captain of PT 105, the author was in the same battle as John F. Kennedy when Kennedy's PT 109 was rammed and sunk. The famous incident, Keresey says, has often been described inaccurately and the PT boat depicted as unreliable and ineffective.

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.

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.

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.