Download or read book Force Z Shipwrecks of the South China Sea written by Rod Macdonald and published by Whittles. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragedy of the loss in 1941 of two Royal Navy capital ships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, the core of Churchill's deterrent Force Z, stunned the world. Churchill had hoped that sending a small powerful squadron of ships to Singapore would deter a threatened Japanese invasion of Malaya and Thailand. He was to be proved tragically wrong. Denuded of aircraft cover, Force Z was left disastrously exposed to air attack. Within eight days of their arrival at Singapore both ships were sunk with huge loss of life in a mass attack by 85 Japanese bombers. It was the Royal Navy's greatest loss in a single engagement and the first time a modern battleship had been sunk by air power. With the naval force at the bottom of the sea, and the RAF almost wiped out in Malaya on day one, Singapore was left with no air or sea protection and fell two months later. This is the first book to explore in detail the wrecks of these two vessels and grippingly narrates a summary of the Japanese threat, Fortress Singapore and the subsequent Japanese invasion. Today the wrecks of these two famous British warships lie on the bottom of the South China Sea, 200 miles north of Singapore and 50 miles offshore. The author was invited as a civilian expert on a military expedition to dive and survey these wrecks and now, for the first time, the wrecks are revealed as they are today. Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned artist's illustrations of the wrecks, each one is looked at in detail. The story of the loss of these two ships, and of the sacrifice of the men who served in them, is remembered. This has been a personal quest for the author whose grandfather was serving in Singapore when Force Z arrived. His wife and the author's father and two brothers were among the last civilians evacuated from Singapore before the final siege. His grandfather was taken into internment at Changi Gaol by the Japanese and suffered there for three years until Singapore was reoccupied by the British in1945. Had the Fall of Singapore not happened the way it did the author would not be here to write this truly remarkable book.
Download or read book Sinking Force Z 1941 written by Angus Konstam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history and analysis of one of the most dramatic moments in both air power and naval history. With the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, no battleship was safe on the open ocean, and the aircraft took its crown as the most powerful maritime weapon In late 1941, war was looming with Japan, and Britain's empire in southeast Asia was at risk. The British government decided to send Force Z, which included the state-of-the-art battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse, to bolster the naval defences of Singapore, and provide a mighty naval deterrent to Japanese aggression. These two powerful ships arrived in Singapore on 2 December - five days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But crucially, they lacked air cover. On 9 December Japanese scout planes detected Force Z's approach in the Gulf of Thailand. Unlike at Pearl Harbor, battleships at sea could manoeuvre, and their anti-aircraft defences were ready. But it did no good. The Japanese dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers were the most advanced in the world, and the battle was one-sided. Strategically, the loss of Force Z was a colossal disaster for the British, and one that effectively marked the end of its empire in the East. But even more importantly, the sinking marked the last time that battleships were considered to be the masters of the ocean. From that day on, air power rather than big guns would be the deciding factor in naval warfare.
Download or read book Hidden Warships written by Nicholas A. Veronico and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photo-filled tour of wrecked warships around the world, with their stories recounted in “a wonderfully clear [and] lively style” (Seattle Post Intelligencer). Sunk by enemy fire, scuttled, or run aground, the number of World War II-era battleships, cruisers, submarines, and other warships that ended their service on the bottom of the world’s oceans and seas is enormous. In the decades since the conflict, wreck hunters have pored over historical records and combed the world’s oceans to find their remains. Now you too can see them up close—without getting your feet wet. In Hidden Warships, naval historian Nicholas A. Veronico details the history, recovery, and preservation of these sunken combat ships—including accounts from the divers and restorers who have worked with them. Beginning with the Japanese midget submarines that attacked Pearl Harbor and continuing into the modern era, including the 2006 sinking of the postwar aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, Veronico provides rich detail on each noteworthy vessel, including over 150 photographs, ship specifications, geographic coordinates, and more. For the enthusiast who wants an even more complete experience, the book concludes with a list of preserved ships, an Internet resource guide, and a suggested reading list to continue the exploration. Whether you plan on visiting these historic sites yourself or simply enjoy their compelling stories, Hidden Warships will guide you, above the surface and underwater, through some of the most famous relics of World War II naval warfare. “A tantalizing selection of sunken vessels, including many recent discoveries.” —Naval History Magazine
Download or read book Skeletons on the Zahara written by Dean King and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2004-02-16 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.
Download or read book Task Force 58 written by Rod Macdonald and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new breed of American fast aircraft carriers could make thirty-three knots, and each carried almost 100 strike aircraft. Brought together as Task Force 58, also known as the Fast Carrier Task Force, this awesome armada at times comprised more than 100 ships carrying more than 100,000 men afloat. By 1945, more than 1,000-combat aircraft, fighters, dive- and torpedo-bombers could be launched in under an hour. The fast carriers were a revolution in naval warfare – it was a time when naval power moved away from the big guns of the battleship to air power projected at sea. Battleships were eventually subordinated to supporting and protecting the fast carriers, of which, at its peak, Task Force 58 had a total of seventeen. This book covers the birth of naval aviation, the appearance of the first modern carriers in the 1920s, through to the famous surprise six-carrier _Kido Butai_ Japanese raid against Pearl Harbor on 8 December 1941 and then the early US successes of 1942 at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The fast carriers allowed America, in late 1942 and early 1943, to finally move from bitter defence against the Japanese expansionist onslaught, to mounting her own offensive to retake the Pacific. Task Force 58 swept west and north from the Solomon Islands to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, neutralising Truk in Micronesia, and Palau in the Caroline islands, before the vital Mariana Islands operations, the Battle of Saipan, the first battle of the Philippine Sea and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The strikes by Task Force 58 took Allied forces across the Pacific, to the controversial Battle of Leyte Gulf and to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Task Force 58 had opened the door to the Japanese home islands themselves – allowing US bombers to finally get close enough to launch the devastating nuclear bombing raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Task Force 58 participated in virtually all the US Navy’s major battles in the Pacific theatre during the last two years of the war. Having spent many years investigating naval shipwrecks across the Pacific, many the result of the devastating effectiveness of Task Force 58, diver and shipwreck author Rod Macdonald has created the most detailed account to date of the fast carrier strike force, the force that brought Japan to its knees and brought the Second World War to its crashing conclusion.
Download or read book Burma Memories WWII written by Sandra Campagnac-Carney and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short stories of Anglo-Burmese and others who bore the brunt of abandonment during WWII, as the British, unprepared for the onslaught of the Japanese abandoned them in WWII Burma. Facing unimaginable hardship, they faced the woes of war, many of them dying without any help.
Download or read book The Eastern Fleet and the Indian Ocean 1942 1944 written by Charles Stephenson and published by Pen and Sword Maritime. This book was released on 2022-04-06 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the British Eastern Fleet, which operated in the Indian Ocean against Japan, has rarely been told. Although it was the largest fleet deployed by the Royal Navy prior to 1945 and played a vital part in the theater it was sent to protect, it has no place in the popular consciousness of the naval history of the Second World War. So Charles Stephenson’s deeply researched and absorbing narrative gives this forgotten fleet the recognition it deserves. British prewar naval planning for the Far East is part of the story, as is the disastrous loss of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in 1941, but the body of the book focuses on the new fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir James Somerville, and its operations against the Japanese navy and aircraft as well as Japanese and German submarines. Later in the war, once the fleet had been reinforced with an American aircraft carrier, it was strong enough to take more aggressive actions against the Japanese, and these are described in vivid detail. Charles Stephenson’s authoritative study should appeal to readers who have a special interest in the war with Japan, in naval history more generally and Royal Navy in particular.
Download or read book Pearl Harbor s Revenge written by Rod Macdonald and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "...informative and detailed with some interesting and little-known anecdotes as well." — National Maritime Historical Society. Early on Sunday, 7 December 1941, Japanese carrier-borne aircraft launched a surprise attack against the US Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. It was a date that President Roosevelt declared “will live in infamy”. During the strike, Japanese planes attacked the seven US battleships lined up in Battleship Row – and the flag battleship USS Pennsylvania, in drydock for overhaul. The battleship USS Arizona exploded from a bomb hit at the forward magazine killing 1,177 officers and men. On USS Oklahoma, 429 men were killed – many trapped inside as the great battleship capsized after aerial torpedo strikes. USS West Virginia, meanwhile, was hit by at least seven torpedoes and several bombs, and engulfed in flames; she settled onto the bottom on an even keel. USS California was hit by a pair of torpedoes and a bomb, flooding slowly, she too settled on the bottom. The other four battleships present were more lightly damaged, with the crippled Nevada, the only battleship to get underway during the attack, being successfully beached. By the time the assault was over, eight battleships, three light cruisers, three destroyers, a training ship and other smaller vessels had been sunk or damaged. Hundreds of US aircraft had been damaged or destroyed, while 2,403 Americans had been killed. Within a week of the Japanese attack, a great salvage organization had been formed. Very quickly the lightly damaged battleships Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee had been repaired in naval yards and put back into service to protect the west coast of the USA. Of the eight battleships attacked, all but Arizona were raised, temporarily patched-up and sent back to naval yards on the west coast of America for final repair and modernization. Main battery guns and ordnance were recovered from the wrecked Arizona, which would then be left to rest on the bottom of the harbor for eternity – as a memorial to the events of that fateful December day. USS Nevada was lifted off the bottom in February 1942, California in March 1942 and West Virginia in June 1942. The capsized Oklahoma, while eventually parbuckled and raised, was found to be too badly damaged to be fully rebuilt. Six of the eight battleships would thus return to service, with improved protection against bombs and torpedoes and being fitted with the latest anti-aircraft and gunnery systems. They would re-enter to the war to wreak a terrible revenge – making their presence felt during the reconquest of the Aleutian Islands and the Philippines, and the great battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Nevada would go on Atlantic convoy duty before bombarding German positions off Utah beach as the D-Day Normandy landings began. This is the story of those six.
Download or read book Spitfire Faces written by Dilip Sarkar and published by Air World. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supermarine Spitfire arguably remains the most iconic fighter aircraft ever produced. Unsurprisingly, it has become a symbol of British excellence and national pride. Interest in the Spitfire remains undiminished as time goes on, and its bibliography is virtually infinite. while many of these books feature the technical and operational history of the Spitfire, this book features the human element of the story, concentrating on the stories of not only those who flew the Spitfire into battle, but also the men and women who maintained and built it. By the summer of 1941, the Spitfire had replaced the Hurricane as the RAFs front-line fighter, seeing service in every theater of war, from north-west Europe to the Far East, and operating in many roles never envisaged by its gifted, yet tragic, designer, R.J. Mitchell. Although intended as a short-range daylight interceptor, Spitfires became dive-bombers, offensive escort fighters, night-fighters, photographic reconnaissance mounts and more. R.J. Mitchell, however, was always very conscious that a human being would risk his or her life flying his creation and this book concentrates on that human story. Covering the Spitfires design, development and wartime operational history, Spitfire Faces features photographs from the personal collections of survivors, collated as the result of the authors close personal relationships and friendships with so many of them.
Download or read book Understanding Victory written by Geoffrey Till and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using four warship-centered examples, this book shows how naval battles are won or lost—and how technological advantage is rarely as decisive in defeat or victory as is often claimed. Providing a unique assessment of naval strategy and historic outcomes across centuries of warfare, Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands presents four case studies that examine each ship-based battle narrative to expose and analyze the factors that contributed to each side's success or defeat. The work opens with an overview of the general causes of success and failure in naval operations. Each case study starts with a detailed narrative of the battle and then reviews the conflict from the key perspectives identified in the introduction. These classic examples of naval warfare underscore how the outcome of naval operations is often predetermined by the clarity and quality of the mission aim, and point out striking constants in naval warfare despite the obvious differences in military technologies over a long span of time.
Download or read book Dive Palau written by Rod Macdonald and published by Whittles. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An historical account of the build-up to the massive US Fast Carrier air raid and a gripping retelling of the raid itself. Reveals for the first time the extent of Palau's underwater WWII heritage.
Download or read book Shipwreck in the South China Sea written by Claire Daniel and published by . This book was released on 200? with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oceanic Histories written by David Armitage and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freshly presents world history through its oceans and seas in uniquely wide-ranging, original chapters by leading experts in their fields.
Download or read book Grave Misfortune The USS Indianapolis Tragedy written by Richard A. Hulver and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dedicated to the Sailors and Marines who lost their lives on the final voyage of USS Indianapolis and to those who survived the torment at sea following its sinking. plus the crews that risked their lives in rescue ships. The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a decorated World War II warship that is primarily remembered for her worst 15 minutes. . This ship earned ten (10) battle stars for her service in World War II and was credited for shooting down nine (9) enemy planes. However, this fame was overshadowed by the first 15 minutes July 30, 1945, when she was struck by two (2) torpedoes from Japanese submarine I-58 and sent to the bottom of the Philippine Sea. The sinking of Indianapolis and the loss of 880 crew out of 1,196 --most deaths occurring in the 4-5 day wait for a rescue delayed --is a tragedy in U.S. naval history. This historical reference showcases primary source documents to tell the story of Indianapolis, the history of this tragedy from the U.S. Navy perspective. It recounts the sinking, rescue efforts, follow-up investigations, aftermath and continuing communications efforts. Included are deck logs to better understand the ship location when she sunk and testimony of survivors and participants. For additional historical publications produced by the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, please check out these resources here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/naval-history-heritage-command Year 2016 marked the 71st anniversary of the sinking and another spike in public attention on the loss -- including a big screen adaptation of the story, talk of future films, documentaries, and planned expeditions to locate the wreckage of the warship.
Download or read book The Sea Hunters written by Clive Cussler and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-09 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects accounts of the underwater discoveries made by the author and his team of volunteers dedicated to the exploration of historic wrecks, including the Lexington and the Arkansas.
Download or read book Naval Accidents 1945 1988 written by William M. Arkin and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Handbook of First Aid Treatment for Survivors of Disasters at Sea written by United States. Navy Department. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
