Naval War

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.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Tuohy follows Richard O'Kane, America's undersea ace of aces, and a few fearless submariners, during the U.S. submarine war in the Pacific. This grueling battle saw 10 million tons of Japanese shipping sunk by U.S. submarines, but the cost to the U.S. Navy was one in five of its boats, the highest casualty rate of the U.S. armed services.

In November 1921, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier was launched by the Japanese, followed a year later by the launch of the British Hermes. The conversion of battle cruisers into aircraft carriers after World War I required the consideration of issues including handling aircraft on the flight deck and the techniques of attacking enemy ships, and the evolution of carrier operations was ongoing when World War II broke out.

Scarred—physically and emotionally—by the brutal warfare at Dunkirk, Jack Pembroke decides to leave his home in England to join his father, Admiral Pembroke, in the South African Cape. A fledgling naval force is preparing to fight the coming onslaught of German raiders, and Jack is soon thrust back into action when he is appointed commander of a minesweeping flotilla. Unknown to Jack, a Nazi commerce raider has left Germany for the Cape intending to wreak havoc on Allied shipping.

A fascinating personal memoir of underwater combat in World War II, told by a man who played a major role in those dangerous operations. Frank and beautifully written, this book will be of lasting value as a submarine history by an expert and as an enduring military and political analysis.

In Lethal Tides, Catherine Musemeche weaves together science, biography, and military history in the compelling story of an unsung woman who had a dramatic effect on the U.S. Navy’s success against Japan in WWII, creating an intelligence-gathering juggernaut based on the new science of oceanography. When World War II began, the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for them, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly.

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous 21 year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name.

In a sweeping account, Atlantic Wars explores how warfare shaped the experiences of the peoples living in the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean between the late Middle Ages and the Age of Revolution.

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.

The story of the NR-1 is told against the tense background of the Cold War and peopled with such rich characters as the acerbic Admiral Hyman Rickover, ocean scientist Robert Ballard (who found the Titanic), the designers and builders who faced almost impossible tasks to give life to the ship, the unique officers and sailors who took the little boat down into depths on covert missions, and the families who waited for them on shore, unaware that there would be no escape if the boat ran into trouble.

The enduring image of World War I is of men stuck in muddy trenches, and of vast armies deadlocked in a fight neither could win. It was a war of barbed wire, poison gas, and horrific losses as officers led their troops on mass charges across No Man's Land and into a hail of bullets. While these impressions are all too true, they hide the fact that trench warfare was dynamic and constantly evolving throughout the war as all armies struggled to find a way to break through the opposing lines.

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.

Before becoming an instructor in the Navy's Topgun program, Dave "Bio" Baranek was just another kid with a dream. Upon graduating from college, he joined the Navy with the goal of becoming a fighter pilot. But, his eyesight waning, he knew that he would never be able to reach that goal. Undaunted, he plowed ahead and found his niche as a radar intercept operator in the backseat of the sleek, new Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

Intrepid brings the history of the U.S.S. Intrepid to life in a stirring tribute complete with personal recollections of those who served on the ship and vivid descriptions of the deadly conflicts she endured. It is a story of the people who sailed in her, fought to keep her alive, and perished in her defense, a story which powerfully captures the human element in the history of American heroism.

Edward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite simply the greatest British frigate captain in the age of sail. Left fatherless at age eight, with a penniless mother and five siblings, Pellew fought his way from the very bottom of the navy to fleet command. Victories and eye-catching feats won him a public following. Yet he had a gift for antagonizing his better-born peers, and he made powerful enemies. Redemption came with his last command, when he set off to do battle with the Barbary States and free thousands of European slaves.

Their stories needed to be told. And classmates working together, under a blanket of trust and friendship, was the only way to allow people to open up. It was a three year journey into the hearts and souls of America's youngest heroes to gather these important historical accounts, but it was worth every hour spent. Inside this book are the voices the first Annapolis graduates into a decade of war and they remind us that America is in good hands. They were walking to class on 9/11, wearing Naval Academy summer working blues, when the towers were struck.

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.

Six weeks after the United States entered World War II, Imperial Japan is annihilating American forces across the Far East while the Nazis stand triumphant over much of Europe. Adolf Hitler's forces are about to commence an assault along the East Coast of the United States, but this "Atlantic Pearl Harbor" would prove far more devastating than Japan's attack on Hawaii. The Western Hemisphere holds the key to victory, but only if the vast economic and military resources of North and South America can be carried across the Atlantic by Allied merchant ships.

Winston Churchill once remarked that the only threat to truly frighten him was the peril of Nazi U-boats. Over the course of World War II, Germany’s submariners sank over three thousand Allied ships, nearly three-quarters of Allied shipping losses in all theaters of the war. In the process the submariners endured horrific conditions and suffered a 75 percent death rate, the highest of any arm of service in the conflict. In Wolfpack, historian Roger Moorhouse tells the story of the Battle of the Atlantic from the point of view of the German submariners.

The first British major success of World War II was when the Royal Navy forced the preying pocket battleship, Graf Spee, to scuttle at sea. Hitler had ordered a blockade of the British Isles and for some months German U-boats and warships caused havoc among allied merchant shipping carrying vital supplies.