Download or read book Cruiser written by Mike Carlton and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2011 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the Australians who fought in the Second World War, none saw more action nor endured so much of its hardship and horror as the crew of the cruiser HMAS Perth. Most were young--many were still teenagers--from cities and towns, villages and farms across the nation. In three tumultuous years they did battle with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Vichy French, and, finally, the Imperial Japanese Navy. They were nearly lost in a hurricane in the Atlantic. In the Mediterranean in 1941 they were bombed by the Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force for months on end until, ultimately, during the disastrous evacuation of the Australian army from Crete, their ship took a direct hit and thirteen men were killed. After the fall of Singapore in 1942, HMAS Perth was hurled into the forlorn campaign to stem the Japanese advance towards Australia. Off the coast of Java in March that year she met an overwhelming enemy naval force. Firing until her ammunition literally ran out, she was sunk with the loss of 353 of her crew, including her much-loved captain and the Royal Australian Navy's finest fighting sailor, 'Hardover' Hec Waller. Another 328 men were taken into Japanese captivity, most to become slave labourers in the infinite hell of the Burma-Thai railway. Many died there, victims of unspeakable atrocity. Only 218 men, less than a third of her crew, survived to return home at war's end. Cruiser, by journalist and broadcaster Mike Carlton, is their story. And the story of those who loved them and waited for them.
Download or read book Ship of Courage written by Brendan Whiting and published by Allen & Unwin Australia. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The saga of HMAS Perth and USS Houston in the Battle of Sunda Strait has never been fully told. In 1942, when valour was all that stood between defeat and victory, these two cruisers earned their place in naval history. But this is also the story of a son finding his father. Brendan Whiting's search was triggered when he came upon an old cedar box containing his father's war-time diaries and a letter written to him by his father when he was serving on HMAS Perth. The author's voyage of discovery has led him through the exploits of HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean to the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea and the final battle of the Sunda Strait: the battle from which his father never returned.
Download or read book The Dynamics of Coalition Naval Warfare written by Steven Paget and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the dynamics of coalition naval operations. Since the end of the Second World War, few nations possess the capacity for large scale, sustained and independent naval operations; and even those that do, such as the USA, often find it economically, militarily and politically expedient to act multilaterally. As such, coalition naval operations increasingly became the norm throughout the twentieth-century, and there is little sign of this abating in the twenty-first. Multinational operations provide a number of benefits, but they also present a number of challenges. Examining the dynamics of coalition operations involving the Royal Navy (RN), Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the United States Navy (USN) during the Korean War, Vietnam War and the Iraq War, this book provides a broad overview of naval interoperability between the three navies. Using the naval gunfire support (NGS) capability as a lens through which to analyse operations, the study explores a diverse range of issues, including: command and control, communications, equipment standardisation, intelligence, logistics, planning, rules of engagement, tactics, techniques and procedures and training. Approaching the subject through both historical and contemporary perspectives not only provides a unique assessment of the variation in the effectiveness of interoperability over time, but also offers a platform for better understanding and enhancing the performance of future coalition naval operations. Based on extensive archival research in Australia, the UK and the US, as well as wide-ranging interviews, this book sheds new light on the dynamics of conducting coalition operations. This book will be of great interest to students of naval history, strategic studies, sea power, maritime security, military studies, and IR in general.
Download or read book Cruiser written by Mike Carlton and published by William Heinemann. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AUSTRALASIAN & PACIFIC HISTORY: SECOND WORLD WAR. AUSTRALIAN. Of all the Australians who fought in the Second World War, none saw more action nor endured so much of its hardship and horror as the crew of the cruiser HMAS Perth. Most were young - many were still teenagers - from cities and towns, villages and farms across the nation. In three tumultuous years they did battle with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Vichy French and, finally, the Imperial Japanese Navy. Off the coast of Java in March 1942 she met an overwhelming enemy naval force. Firing until her ammunition literally ran out, she was sunk with the loss of 353 of her crew, including her much-loved captain. Another 328 men were taken into Japanese captivity, most to become slave labourers in the infinite hell of the Burma-Thai railway. Many died there. Only 218 men, less than a third of her crew, survived to return home at war's end. This is their story. And the story of those who loved them and waited for them.
Download or read book Red Lead written by Roland Perry and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary Australian ship's cat who survived the sinking of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway Just after midnight on 1 March 1942, Australia's most renowned cruiser, HMAS Perth, was sunk by Japanese naval forces in the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java. Of the 681 men aboard, 328 survived the sinking and made it to shore-and one cat. Her name was Red Lead, and she was the ship's cat, beloved by the crew and by the Perth's legendary captain Hector Waller. But surviving shellfire, torpedoes and the fierce currents of the Sunda Strait was only the beginning of the terrible trials Red Lead and the surviving crew were to face over the next three-and-a-half years. From Java to Changi and then on the Thai-Burma Railway, Red Lead was to act as a companion, mascot and occasional protector for a small group of sailors who made it their mission to keep her alive in some of the most hellish prison camps on earth. Red Lead's extraordinary story, of courage, loyalty and love amidst battle, imprisonment and death, is brought vividly to life by bestselling author Roland Perry.
Download or read book The Fleet the Gods Forgot written by Walter G. Winslow and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic tale of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in World War II received little attention prior to the publication of this book in 1982, when Winslow chronicled their short and tragic story of heroism and defeat.Greatly outnumbered by vastly superior forces, and saddled with defective equipment; a lack of supplies, reinforcements, and air cover; and, towards the end, an incompetent and bungled Allied combined command, the Asiatic fleet met the Japanese head-on. Within a matter of three months, however, the beleaguered ships were totally wiped out. Captain Walter Winslow, a naval aviator on board the USS Houston, flagship of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, was in a unique position to tell the riveting story. As an active participant in all the major battles the fleet engaged in, he had an intimate understanding of the calamities that befell it. In addition, he drew upon the his own extensive notes he kept from a POW camp while interviewing other American, British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners from the Allied fleet. Winslow also painstakingly tracked down war documents and battle reports from all the ships assigned to the fleet to paint a complete picture filled with graphic details of the fleet’s only victory at Balikpapan; the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea that broke the back of the combined Asiatic fleet; the ghastly spectacle at Sunda Strait where the Houston struggled to survive; the suspenseful episode in the submarine Perch trapped in the mud at the bottom of the sea; and the daring escape from Corregidor of eighteen crewmembers from the USS Quail who refused to surrender to the Japanese forces.
Download or read book Ships from Hell written by Raymond Lamont-Brown and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2002-01-28 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new and frightening insight into Japanese atrocities in the Second World War. The horrific conditions aboard hellships at sea are revealed including the torture, disease and massacre which characterised them.
Download or read book Voyages to Vietnam written by and published by digitalprintaustralia.com. This book was released on 2004 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographic history of the Royal Australian Navy 1962-1972.
Download or read book Commonwealth Cruisers 1939 45 written by Angus Konstam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 20th century Britain's largest colonies established their own small naval presence, and their ships fought alongside the Royal Navy during World War I. These fleets were expanded during the inter-war years, and in 1939 the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy willingly joined the fight on behalf of the British Commonwealth. For the most part these small navies consisted of a few cruisers and destroyers, designed to protect territorial waters and local sea lanes. However, these warships and their crews soon found themselves involved in a global war, and consequently were called upon to fight wherever they were needed, against the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese. This book tells the story of these small cruiser forces, and the men who served the Allied cause so well during the long and brutal war at sea.
Download or read book Lightning from the Sky Thunder from the Sea written by Thomas Petri and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2009 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ANGLICO: "Super Grunts" of 1st ANGLICO were deployed to all four tactical zones of Vietnam in small mobile fire control teams, providing support to U.S. Army and allied elements. This organization was the last tactical unit to stand down from the war and gained distinction as the only Marines in-country reporting directly to MACV. Working closely with Korean Marines, recounting several actions involving these legendary warriors from the Land of the Morning Calm, this little known but highly effective unit had an impact on the war far greater than their small numbers. Field radio operators and naval gunfire spotters composed the tactical membership of this unit. Both professions were cross trained in each competence, and each in turn was further qualified as tactical air controllers. An airborne capable platoon was established, mandating many ANGLICOs attend jump school and undertake other specialty training in the event they are called on to enter combat by unconventional means. Not being able to predict who they may be called on to support, training was pushed to the level of the most elite forces in the free world. BLUE DRAGONS: Most men of the Blue Dragon Brigade came of age during a war that raged fierce on their own homeland little more than a decade earlier. During a short lived occupation by North Korea, the people of the south endured extremely harsh treatment by would be conquerors. Events of recent history still burned in their hearts and haunted their dreams. They were mostly all children at the time leaving scarcely a man untouched by personal tragedy that could only be forged in a crucible of terror. Many were orphaned and all shared a thirst to settle a score that only those who drink deep from the same cup of dread can truly understand.
Download or read book United States Naval Institute Proceedings written by and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 814 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fire Support Bases Vietnam written by Bruce Picken and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fire Support Bases Vietnam is a meticulous documentation of the construction, location and role of fire support bases during the Vietnam War, compiled by Vietnam veteran Bruce Picken. Often makeshift bases hacked out of primary jungle, these artillery gun areas provided essential support to infantry field units during operations in South Vietnam. In its simplest sense, a fire support base was an often hastily constructed fortified artillery base position, usually sited forward close to the centre of the area of operations in support of task force, battalion or company operations. The role of the fire support base was to bring artillery and mortar fire within range of friendly forces operating in depth. Artillery gun areas were not unique to the Vietnam conflict. In previous wars they were deployed in allied territory to cover the front lines and to support advancing troops. The concept was first applied in Vietnam by US forces and quickly adapted by Australian forces arriving in Phuoc Tuy Province in May 1966 to fight a new kind of war. This conflict was not like its predecessors and the fire support bases were now more usually sited in territory dominated by the enemy to provide much-needed protection for forces operating in bitterly contested areas. Fire Support Bases Vietnam is a detailed account that identifies every fire support base by date, location and role and provides an outline of the operations in which they participated. This is an essential reference book for those with a serious interest in the Vietnam War, and adds valuable detail to the study of a campaign that occupies a unique place in the Australian psyche.
Download or read book British Cruisers written by Norman Friedman and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-24 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An extraordinarily detailed account of the development of Royal Navy cruisers . . . a towering work” from the author of Fighting the Great War at Sea (Warship 2012). For most of the twentieth century, Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser—a multipurpose warship needed in large numbers to defend trade routes and police the empire. Above all other types, the cruiser’s competing demands of quality and quantity placed a heavy burden on designers, and for most of the interwar period, Britain sought to square this circle through international treaties restricting both size and numbers. In the process, she virtually invented the heavy cruiser and inspired the large 6in-armed cruiser, neither of which, ironically, served her best interests. This book seeks to comprehend, for the first time, the full policy background—from which a different and entirely original picture of British cruiser development emerges. After the war, the cruiser’s role was reconsidered, and the final chapters of the book cover modernizations, the plans for missile-armed ships, and the convoluted process that turned the “through-deck cruiser” into the Invincible class light carriers. With detailed appendices of ship data, and illustrated in depth with photos and A.D. Baker’s specially commissioned plans, British Cruisers truly matches the lofty standards set by Friedman’s previous books on British destroyers. “Wow! . . . Lavishly illustrated with a photograph or line plan on almost every page. The text is packed with technical information, detail, and description of design, construction and application of these important ships.” —Clash of Steel
Download or read book Ship of Courage the Epic Story of HMAS Perth and Her Crew written by Brendan Whiting and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hellships Down written by Michael Sturma and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 12 September 1944, a wolfpack of U.S. submarines attacked the Japanese convoy HI-72 in the South China Sea. Among the ships sunk were two carrying Allied prisoners of war. Men who had already endured the trials of Japanese captivity faced a renewed struggle for survival at sea. This book tells the broader story of the HI-72 convoy through the stories of two survivors: Arthur Bancroft, who was rescued by an American submarine, and Charles "Rowley" Richards, who was rescued by the Japanese. The story of these men represents the thousands of Allied POWs who suffered not only the atrocious conditions of these Japanese hellships, but also the terror of friendly fire from their own side's submarines. For the first time, the personal, political and legal aftermath of these men's experiences is fully detailed. At its heart, this is a story of survival. Charting the survivors' fates from rescue to their attempts at retribution, this book reveals the trauma that continued long after the war was over.
Download or read book The Excalibur File written by John Somerset and published by Austin Macauley Publishers. This book was released on 2023-05-19 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the year 2024 world debt has skyrocketed to over $300 Trillion, and with the US dollar in free fall a desperate G20 votes a return to the gold standard. The gold price skyrockets overnight, fortunate for Australia which has plenty of gold in the ground – hugely boosted by the discovery of the legendary Lasseter’s Reef. But there is a problem. Now boasting the world’s largest navy and a modern air force, China has been expanding its military bases south and resolves to use them in a ‘military solution’ in its quest for gold and territory. Fortunately, US intelligence has penetrated the PLA State Security Centre and supplies ASIO with China’s complete invasion plan of PNG and northern Australia. Aware that under the ANZUS treaty an isolationist America will supply weapons and technology but no ‘boots on the ground,’ Australia has five years to shore up its defences and find a way to stop the juggernaut. They may have found it in a most unlikely place. A weapon that becomes known as Excalibur.
Download or read book Great Naval Battles of the Pacific War written by and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2022-06-20 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of U.S. Navy reports offers an authoritatively detailed, refreshingly immediate perspective on the major battles of WWII in the Pacific. Scores of historians have chronicled the naval battles fought against Imperial Japan during the Second World War. But as we know, hindsight gives us 20/20 vision. The accounts collected in this volume were written during or immediately after the war—before historians had begun to interpret these momentous events. These accounts were never intended for the general public and are therefore unburdened by jingoistic bias or literary posturing. The authors simply relate each battle accurately and dispassionately, producing a document that reads like a running commentary. Action follows action, minute by minute. Clear, thorough, and utterly impartial, this is the permanent record of these five major battles, each of which represents a dramatic turning point in the struggle for the Pacific.
