Download or read book Battleship Sailor written by Theodore C. Mason and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vigorous and highly readable, this portrait of the enlisted man's life aboard the U.S. battleship California depicts the devastation at Pearl Harbor from the hazardous vantage point of the open "birdbath" atop the mainmast.
Download or read book Tin Can Sailor written by C. Raymond Calhoun and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 800 sailors served aboard the Sterett during her hazardous and demanding duties in World War II. This is the story of those men and their beloved ship, recorded by a junior officer who served on the famous destroyer from her commissioning in 1939 to April 1943.
Download or read book Two Navies Divided written by Brian Lavery and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The title is derived from George Bernard Shaw’s comment that ‘England and America are two countries divided by a common language.’ It is not intended to imply that the two navies were seriously at odds with one another, but rather to suggest, as in the case of language, that common roots and usages varied significantly. And the Second World War is a pertinent moment for comparison. They fought on the same side against a common enemy for nearly four years, but Britain fought the war for the survival of itself and its empire, though in the long term it failed with the latter, while the American government fought to maintain its influence through the balance of power; its people fought for revenge for Pearl Harbor, and out of a sense of justice. In this new book, Brian Lavery describes and analyzes the differences and similarities between the two navies and in doing so sheds fascinating light on how the naval war was fought. For example, both navies had spectacular failures after entering the war – the Royal Navy off Norway, the USN at Pearl Harbor and Savo Island. Paradoxically, both commenced the war with quite amateur performances by professional navies and ended with highly skilled performances by largely amateur manned forces. The training systems for regular officers had flaws in both countries. In Britain, entry was largely dependent on family income, in America, on political influence. But American officers probably had a broader perspective by the time they entered active service. The book covers ships and weapons systems – for instance, the British used too many gun types in the 4 to 6in range, while the Americans concentrated on the well-designed 5in. And the author describes conditions onboard ships. British vessels were awash with alcohol, which had its attractions for Americans when alongside; the Americans offered ice cream in return. These examples represent only a tiny proportion of the subjects covered in this stimulating analysis. Aviation, the marines of both navies, anti-submarine and mine warfare, uniforms, propulsion systems, shipbuilding and building programs, commanders and national leaders, ratings and officers, ship design, geographical environments, naval bases, hammocks and bunks, the deployment of women – these are among the myriad big and small themes that will open the eyes of naval historians and enthusiasts, and show anyone with an interest in the Second World War how these two great allies came together to defeat the Axis forces.
Download or read book Battleship at War written by Ivan Musicant and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P. This book was released on 1986 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the American battleship commissioned in 1941 and its career during World War II.
Download or read book The Battleship Yamato written by Yoshida Mitsuru and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1988-12-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly detailed tribute to the legendary Yamato is now back in print by popular demand. Equipped with the largest guns and heaviest armor and having the greatest displacement of any ship ever built, the Yamato proved to be a formidable opponent to the U.S. Pacific Fleet in World War II. This classic in the Anatomy of the Ship series contains a full description of the design and construction of the battleship including wartime modifications, and a career history. This is followed by a substantial pictorial section with rare onboard views of Yamato and her sister ship, a comprehensive portfolio of more than 600 perspective and three-view drawings, and 30 photographs. Such a handsome and thorough work is guaranteed to impress modelmakers, ship enthusiasts, and naval historians.
Download or read book Battleship Commander written by Paul L Stillwell and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first-ever biography of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr., who served a key role during World War II in the Pacific. Recognizing the achievements and legacy of one of the war's top combat admirals has been long overdue until now. Battleship Commander explores Lee's life from boyhood in Kentucky through his eventual service as commander of the fast battleships from 1942 to 1945. Paul Stillwell draws on more than 150 first-person accounts from those who knew and served with Lee from boyhood until the time of his death. Said to be down to earth, modest, forgiving, friendly, and with a wry sense of humor, Lee eschewed the media and, to the extent possible, left administrative details to others. Stillwell relates the sequential building of a successful career, illustrating Admiral Lee's focus on operational, tactical, and strategic concerns. During his service in the Navy Department from 1939 to 1942, Lee prepared the U.S. Navy for war at sea, and was involved in inspecting designs for battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. He sent observers to Britain to report on Royal Navy operations during the war against Germany and made plans to send an action team to mainland China to observe conditions for possible later Allied landings there. Putting his focus on the need to equip U.S. warships with radar and antiaircraft guns, Lee was one of the few flag officers of his generation who understood the tactical advantage of radar, especially during night battles. In 1942 Willis Lee became commander of the first division of fast battleships to operate in the Pacific. During that service, he commanded Task Force 64, which achieved a tide-turning victory in a night battle near Guadalcanal in November 1942. Lee missed two major opportunities for surface actions against the Japanese. In June 1944, in the Marianas campaign, he declined to engage because his ships were not trained adequately to operate together in surface battles. In October 1944, Admiral William Halsey's bungled decisions denied Lee's ships an opportunity for combat. Continuing his career of service near the end of the war, Lee, in the summer of 1945, directed anti-kamikaze research efforts in Casco Bay, Maine. While Lee's wartime successes and failures make for compelling reading, what is here in this biography is a balanced look at the man and officer.
Download or read book We Will Stand by You written by Theodore C. Mason and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This view of the war from the mess deck of a fleet tug is far different from those written from a flag bridge vantage. A Navy radio man, Ted Mason recalls his years of action in the Pacific with candor and humor, offering perceptive evaluations of shipmates and exhibiting cool skepticism toward his leaders. The USS Pawnee rescued many ships during her 25-month tour of the South and Western Pacific, and this story of the heroics performed by her crew makes intriguing reading.
Download or read book A Sailor s Log written by Frederick T. Wilson and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederick T. Wilson was an engineer who carried the rank of first-class petty officer and served in one of the US Navy's first modern battleships, the USS Oregon. He also participated in the relief of Peking during the Boxer rebellion. This is an uncensored picture of enlisted life.
Download or read book All Hands written by and published by . This book was released on 1959-03 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Twilight of the Gods War in the Western Pacific 1944 1945 The Pacific War Trilogy written by Ian W. Toll and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 891 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller “No one has told the story of World War II in the Pacific, from beginning to bitter end, better than Ian W. Toll. This final volume concludes a brilliant trilogy.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The First Wave and Avenue of Spies In June 1944, the United States launched a crushing assault on the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The capture of the Mariana Islands and the accompanying ruin of Japanese carrier airpower marked a pivotal moment in the Pacific War. No tactical masterstroke or blunder could reverse the increasingly lopsided balance of power between the two combatants. The War in the Pacific had entered its endgame. Beginning with the Honolulu Conference, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with his Pacific theater commanders to plan the last phase of the campaign against Japan, Twilight of the Gods brings to life the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the U.S. Navy won the largest naval battle in history; Douglas MacArthur made good his pledge to return to the Philippines; waves of kamikazes attacked the Allied fleets; the Japanese fought to the last man on one island after another; B-29 bombers burned down Japanese cities; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vaporized in atomic blasts. Ian W. Toll’s narratives of combat in the air, at sea, and on the beaches are as gripping as ever, but he also reconstructs the Japanese and American home fronts and takes the reader into the halls of power in Washington and Tokyo, where the great questions of strategy and diplomacy were decided. Drawing from a wealth of rich archival sources and new material, Twilight of the Gods casts a penetrating light on the battles, grand strategic decisions and naval logistics that enabled the Allied victory in the Pacific. An authoritative and riveting account of the final phase of the War in the Pacific, Twilight of the Gods brings Toll’s masterful trilogy to a thrilling conclusion. This prize-winning and best-selling trilogy will stand as the first complete history of the Pacific War in more than twenty-five years, and the first multivolume history of the Pacific naval war since Samuel Eliot Morison’s series was published in the 1950s.
Download or read book Seas of Venus Second Edition written by David Drake and published by Baen Publishing Enterprises. This book was released on 2013-01-09 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now with new content by David Drake THE MOST COLORFUL MYTH FROM SCIENCE FICTION'S GOLDEN AGE IS REBORN IN SEAS OF VENUS Earth is a dead cinder beyond the dense clouds. On a terraformed Venus the land is ruled by savage plants and the even more savage beasts that prey on them, while monsters out of nightmare swim though the globe-girdling seas. Mankind huddles in domed underwater Keeps, living a purposeless static existence¾dedicated to pleasure but destined for oblivion later if not sooner. Only the Free Companions, the mercenaries who fight proxy wars for the Keeps, live on the surface of Venus. Their warships course the seas, battling one another in struggles to decide victory or defeat for one day, life or death for a few individuals. The Free companions live till they die with the searing thrill of danger, and their deeds bring excitement and color to the bored residents of the Keeps; but Mankind is doomed unless something changes. Few are willing to risk their lives for that change, battling both the terrifying environment and the ruthless oligarchs for whom the status quo means a lifetime of luxury. But there are a handful of courageous visionaries in the Keeps and in the Free Companies where death is a way of life! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "Only a few of us have enough willpower, when a new Dick Francis or the latest volume of a David Drake series comes out in hardcover, to wait for the paperback." -David Friedman, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life "... the best in military science fiction. Recommended...." -Booklist "... the master of the mercenary science fiction novel. He has developed a following... just short of cult proportions." -Rave Reviews "Drake is one of the most gifted users of historical and military raw materials at work today." -Chicago Sun-Times
Download or read book A Sailor s Odyssey written by Andrew Cunningham and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Admiral Andrew Cunningham, best remembered for his courageous leadership in the Mediterranean in the Second World War, is often rated as our finest naval commander after Nelson, and indeed a bust of the Admiral was unveiled in Trafalgar Square close by his predecessor in 1967 by the Duke of Edinburgh. It was during the dark days of 1940–41, after the surrender of France and Italy’s entry into the War and when Britain was fighting single-handed, that Cunningham held the Eastern Mediterranean with a fleet greatly inferior to the Italian; his lack of ships and aircraft was more than made up for by his bold and vigorous command. Taranto, Matapan, Crete, North Africa – these are the critical battles and regions with which he is so closely associated. A Sailor’s Odyssey is the stirring autobiography of this great fighting seaman from his boyhood in Dublin and his early career in the Navy and his service in the First World War, through his commands in the inter-war years, to the great sea battles in the Mediterranean, and then his elevation to First Sea Lord in 1943 and his subsequent responsibility for the operational policy of the Royal Navy during the later stages of the War. He attended the conferences at Casablanca, Teheran, Quebec and Yalta, and gives revealing glimpses of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. His was, truly, a remarkable career. This is a beautifully written and absorbing naval memoir, and it made a significant contribution to the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War when it was first published in 1951; this new paperback edition, with an introduction by his great nephew Admiral Jock Slater, will fascinate and delight a new generation of readers and bring into focus again a great British fighting admiral.
Download or read book Selling Sea Power written by Ryan D. Wadle and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The accepted narrative of the interwar U.S. Navy is one of transformation from a battle-centric force into a force that could fight on the “three planes” of war: in the skies, on the water, and under the waves. The political and cultural tumult that accompanied this transformation is another story. Ryan D. Wadle’s Selling Sea Power explores this little-known but critically important aspect of naval history. After World War I, the U.S. Navy faced numerous challenges: a call for naval arms limitation, the ascendancy of air power, and budgetary constraints exacerbated by the Great Depression. Selling Sea Power tells the story of how the navy met these challenges by engaging in protracted public relations campaigns at a time when the means and methods of reaching the American public were undergoing dramatic shifts. While printed media continued to thrive, the rapidly growing film and radio industries presented new means by which the navy could connect with politicians and the public. Deftly capturing the institutional nuances and the personalities in play, Wadle tracks the U.S. Navy’s at first awkward but ultimately successful manipulation of mass media. At the same time, he analyzes what the public could actually see of the service in the variety of media available to them, including visual examples from progressively more sophisticated—and effective—public relations campaigns. Integrating military policy and strategy with the history of American culture and politics, Selling Sea Power offers a unique look at the complex links between the evolution of the art and industry of persuasion and the growth of the modern U.S. Navy, as well as the connections between the workings of communications and public relations and the command of military and political power.
Download or read book Popular Mechanics written by and published by . This book was released on 1968-10 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science -- PM is the ultimate guide to our high-tech lifestyle.
Download or read book Battle Line written by Thomas C Hone and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2006-04-03 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait in words and photographs of the interwar Navy, this book examines the twenty-year period that saw the U.S. fleet shrink under the pressure of arms limitation treaties and government economy and then grow again to a world-class force. The authors trace the Navy's evolution from a fleet centered around slow battleships to one that deployed most of the warship types that proved so essential in World War II, including fast aircraft carriers, heavy and light cruisers, sleek destroyers, powerful battleships, and deadly submarines. Both the older battleships and these newer ships are captured in stunning period photographs that have never before been published. An authoritative yet lively text explains how and why the newer ships and aircraft came to be. Thomas Hone and Trent Hone describe how a Navy desperately short funds and men nevertheless pioneered carrier aviation, shipboard electronics, code-breaking, and (with the Marines) amphibious warfare —elements that made America's later victory in the Pacific possible. Based on years of study of official Navy department records, their book presents a comprehensive view of the foundations of a navy that would become the world's largest and most formidable. At the same time, the heart of the book draws on memoirs, novels, and oral histories to reveal the work and the skills of sailors and officers that contributed to successes in World War II. From their service on such battleships as West Virginia to their efforts ashore to develop and procure the most effective aircraft, electronics, and ships, from their adventures on Yangtze River gunboats to carrier landings on the converted battle cruisers Saratoga and Lexington, the men are profiled along with their ships. This combination of popular history with archival history will appeal to a general audience of naval enthusiasts.
Download or read book The Twilight Warriors written by Robert Gandt and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2011 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, The Twilight Warriors is the engrossing, page-turning saga of a tightly knit band of naval aviators who are thrust into the final—and most brutal—battle of the Pacific war during World War II: Okinawa. April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Third Reich is collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are overpowering the once-mighty Japanese Empire in the Pacific. For a group of young pilots trained in the twilight of the war, their greatest worry is that it will end before they have a chance to face the enemy. They call themselves Tail End Charlies: They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail end of chow lines, and now they are catching the tail end of the war. What they don’t know is that they will be key players in the bloodiest and most difficult of naval battles—not only of World War II but in all of American history. The Twilight Warriors relives the drama of the world’s last great naval campaign. From the cockpit of a Corsair fighter we gaze down at the Japanese task force racing to destroy the American amphibious force at Okinawa. Through the eyes of the men on the destroyers assigned to picket ship duty, we experience the terror as wave after wave of kamikazes crash into their ships. Standing on the deck of the legendary superbattleship Yamato, we watch Japan’s last hope for victory die in a tableau of gunfire and explosions. The fate of the Americans at Okinawa, including a twenty-two-year-old former art student, an intrepid fighter pilot whose life abruptly changes when his Corsair goes down off the enemy shore, and a young Texan lieutenant who volunteers for the most dangerous flying job in the fleet—intercepting kamikazes at night over the blackened Pacific—is intertwined with the lives of the “young gods”: the honor-bound kamikaes forces who swarm like killer bees toward the U.S. ships. The ferocity of the Okinawa fighting stuns the world. Before it ends, the long battle will cost more American lives, ships, and aircraft than any naval engagement in U.S. history. More than simply the account of a historic battle, The Twilight Warriors brings to life the human side of an epic conflict. It is the story of young Americans at war in the air and on the sea—and of their enigmatic, fanatically courageous enemy.
Download or read book Power at Sea written by Lisle A. Rose and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[Volume 1] Traces the social issues, technological advances, and combative encounters of the international naval race from 1890 through WWI, as the largest industrial nations (U.S, Great Britain, Japan, and Germany) scrambled to secure global markets and empire, using their battleship navies as pawns of power politics"--Provided by publisher.
