Naval War

Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason. Submarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia's defences. For the first time, this is their unique story.

Naval combat underwent a significant metamorphosis during World War II. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan launched some of the most powerful battleships ever to sail the world's oceans, yet the conflict witnessed the emergence and triumph of the aircraft carrier as the 20th century's true monarch of the seas.

While some might think of the war as being a continuation of the feudal tradition of knights and peasants, the Hundred Years’ War revolutionized Western European warfare, and it truly helped to usher in the concept of nationalism on the continent. In England, it is remembered as a period of grandeur and success, even though the English lost the war and huge swathes of territory with it, while the French remember it as a strategic victory that ensured the continued independence of France and the denial of English hegemony.

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.

A daring captain. A ship full of weapons. And a sinister plot that could cripple Britain. In the heart of world war one, a devious plan devised by the German navy led to Naval Officer Captain Karl Spindler embarking on a perilous and secret mission. His task - to deliver German weaponry to Ireland and spark what would become the Easter Uprising. Departing from Norway with a disguised ship, Spindler undertook a perilous mission with a small crew and a hold full of explosives.

This book traces the lives of the Macaw and her enigmatic captain, from birth on San Francisco Bay to death at Midway. Ultimately, for Paul Burton and the Macaw the real enemy was the sea, and in a deadly denouement told here in riveting detail, the sea won. Highlighting the underreported role auxiliary vessels played in the war, A Strange Whim of the Sea should engage the military historian and layperson alike with the previously untold story it tells of struggle, sacrifice, death, and survival in the Pacific in World War II.

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.

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.

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.

Hard Aground brings together three intertwined stories documenting the US Navy's strategic and materiel evolution from the end of Civil War through the First World War. The first story focuses on the reconstruction of the US Navy following the swift and near-total dismantling of the Union Navy infrastructure after the Civil War. Jampoler argues that the federal government discovered that the fleet requested by the navy, and paid for by Congress, was the wrong fleet.

On 6th June 1944, HMS Belfast supported troops in action on the beaches of Normandy in the campaign to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany. This audiobook recounts this extraordinary story, focusing on the dramatic events of 6th June but setting the context of the ship's history in the Arctic Convoy Service and Battle of North Cape. It describes the build-up to D-Day as seen and experienced by Belfast's people and explains her role in the longer Battle for Normandy.

John Paul Jones is more than a great sea story. Jones is a character for the ages. John Adams called him the "most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American Navy." The renewed interest in the Founding Fathers reminds us of the great men who made this country, but John Paul Jones teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones' spirit was classically American.

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.

One of the lesser-known stories of the Civil War is the role played by escaped slaves in the Union blockade along the Atlantic coast. From the beginning of the war, many African American refugees sought avenues of escape to the North. Due to their sheer numbers, those who reached Union forces presented a problem for the military. Fortunately, the First Confiscation Act of 1861 permitted the seizure of property used in support of the South's war effort, including slaves. Eventually regarded as contraband of war, the runaways became known as contrabands.

This story has been written in response to a demand for some account of the very generally misunderstood submarine campaign and, particularly, of the means by which it was defeated. While opinions may differ to a certain extent as to the influence exerted upon the campaign by the various forms of tactics, the means and weapons employed, and the general strategy adopted, I have given what I believe to be a consensus of the best-informed opinion upon these matters; I have taken advantage of all of the information now available to ensure accuracy in the account.

In Too Far on a Whim, Tyler A. Pitrof presents a high-spirited revision of the US Navy's commitment to high-steam propulsion systems, the mainstay of its World War II fleets. Pitrof's research persuasively demonstrates that in its war against the Imperial Japanese Navy, the US Navy succeeded despite its high-steam propulsion systems rather than because of them. Pitrof provides an account that extends far beyond technology and into matters of naval hierarchies and bureaucracy, strategic theory, and ego.

To most observers, it seemed clear that Japan and Russia were destined to come into conflict in Korea and Manchuria. However, Russia’s vastly larger population, army, and navy seemed to make it inevitable that Japan would lose if the conflict escalated into war. Few could have foreseen that when war came, it would reveal that Russian power was largely an illusion. That would be underscored by one of the war’s most famous events, a bizarre battle that involved a makeshift Russian fleet under the command of an irascible and unstable admiral sailing around the world to meet its fate.

An epic account of how the Royal Navy tracked down, cornered, and sank one of the most fearsome German warships of the Second World War.

The ability of the US Navy to fight and win a protracted war in the Pacific was not solely the result of technology, tactics, or leadership. Naval aviation maintenance played a major role in the US victory over Japan in WWII. The naval war against Japan did not achieve sustained success until enough aircraft technicians were available to support the high tempo of aviation operations that fast carrier task force doctrine demanded.

On the morning of April 9, 1940, German forces occupied Denmark and invaded Norway, leaving Sweden as the only neutral country in Scandinavia. It was to this country, surrounded by Axis forces, that Captain H. M. Denham was posted as Naval Attaché, arriving after evading capture by the Nazi Wehrmacht in the summer. Over the course of the next five years Captain Denham used his position to covertly provide valuable intelligence to the British military. In Inside the Nazi Ring, Denham gives vivid accounts of his meetings with numerous important political and military figures.