Download or read book Untold Stories of Small Boats at War written by and published by . This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dog Boats at War written by Leonard C Reynolds and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-05-29 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Built of plywood and measuring 115 feet long, powered by four supercharged petrol engines and armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, the 'D' Class Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) and Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) were better known as Dog Boats and played havoc with enemy shipping in home and foreign waters. During three years of war they engaged the enemy on more than 350 occasions, sinking and damaging many ships. Dog Boats at War is the authoritative account of operations by the Royal Navy's 'D' Class MGBs and MTBs in the Second World War in Home, Mediterranean and Norwegian waters. As well as drawing on official records - both British and German - the author has contacted several hundred Dog Boat veterans whose eye witness accounts add drama to the unfolding story.
Download or read book The War for England s Shores written by G H Bennett and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-30 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The War for England's Shores examines the Kriegsmarine's S-Boat offensive along the English Channel and the North Sea from 1940 to 1945, together with British and, later, Allied responses to nullify that threat. Very fast, and armed with torpedoes and mines, S-Boats posed a serious threat to the convoys that were forced to run close along the British coast on a daily basis. Despite the significance of this campaign and the real threat to the whole British war economy, it has been, until now, strangely overlooked by historians. Indeed, the book highlights issues around the maritime identity of those states and navies that see themselves in oceanic terms, at the expense of engagement with, and operations in, coastal waters. Using an array of archival materials from Britain, Germany and the USA, The War for England’s Shores examines why the Germans failed to make the most of this opportunity to disrupt British trade. G H Bennett analyzes how the British slowly countered the threat by embracing new technologies and developing a system of sea control that gradually forced the German S-Boat arm from the offensive against Britain's coastal convoys, and on to the defensive in the months leading up to the invasion of France. The author also looks at the S-Boat campaign along these convoy routes in the context of present-day interest in littoral warfare, so that the work has a vital and current appeal and offers significant and surprising insights. The book offers an unparalleled exploration of a key moment in the development of coastal warfare, and will appeal to historians and enthusiasts as well as defense analysts and naval personnel.
Download or read book We Called Ourselves Rocketboatmen written by William Howard Palmer Jr and published by Go to Publish. This book was released on 2021-03-12 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D-Day, June 6, 1944-a day never to be forgotten. More than 156,000 troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy, making it the largest seaborne invasion in history. Leading the pre-invasion ashore were the brave, but little known, rocketboatmen, as they called themselves. Their job, as the first close up Naval offense, was to soften up the German beach defenses with 48 rockets, machine gunnery, and smoke screening, preparing the way for the LCVP infantrymen. Through private diary entries and firsthand accounts, many read here for the first time, the unfolding of the earliest events leading up to the invasion is told in vivid and unforgettable detail. In choppy seas, oftentimes like sitting ducks in the water, these young men manned their landing craft approached the beaches at exactly 6:00 A.M.- half an hour before H-hour-unleashed their barrage of forty-eight rockets, twelve boats at Omaha, twelve at Utah Beach, lighting up the coastline like a Fourth of July grand finale. Several boats actually beached at Omaha and Utah under shell and bombardment and crossfire sustaining casualties, eliminating German coastline pill boxes. Relive their compelling tales in this incredible story.
Download or read book We Called Ourselves Rocketboatmen written by William Howard Palmer and published by . This book was released on 2022-06-10 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D-Day, June 6, 1944-a day never to be forgotten. More than 156,000 troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy, making it the largest seaborne invasion in history. Leading the pre-invasion ashore were the brave, but little known, rocketboatmen, as they called themselves. Their job, as the first close-up Naval offense, was to soften up the German beach defenses with 48 rockets, machine gunnery, and smoke screening, preparing the way for the LCVP infantrymen. Through private diary entries and firsthand accounts, many read here for the first time, the unfolding of the earliest events leading up to the invasion is told in vivid and unforgettable detail. In choppy seas, oftentimes like sitting ducks in the water, these young men manned their landing craft and approached the beaches at exactly 6:00 A.M.- half an hour before H-hour-unleashed their barrage of forty-eight rockets, twelve boats at Omaha, twelve at Utah Beach, lighting up the coastline like a Fourth of July grand finale. Several boats actually beached at Omaha and Utah under shell and bombardment and crossfire sustaining casualties, eliminating German coastline pill boxes. Relive their compelling tales in this incredible story.
Download or read book Untold Stories from World War II Rhode Island written by Christian McBurney and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the success of World War II Rhode Island, author Christian McBurney returns, with new coauthors Norman Desmarais and Varoujan Karentz, to present extraordinary personal stories of local contributions to the war effort. From John F. Kennedy's training as a PT boat commander at Melville to George H.W. Bush's training as a pilot at Charlestown, the smallest state played an oversized role preparing navy officers and sailors. Important innovations are credited here too. Radar used on night-flying aircraft was developed at Jamestown's Spraycliff Observatory and tested at Charlestown, and at Davisville, Seabees developed a pontoon aircraft landing field tested on Narragansett Bay. Scituate was home to the nation's most successful spy listening station. After these and more captivating stories are revealed, the final chapter details existing World War II sites across the state readers can visit.
Download or read book Dog Boats at War written by Leonard C Reynolds and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-05-29 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Built of plywood and measuring 115 feet long, powered by four supercharged petrol engines and armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, the 'D' Class Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) and Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) were better known as Dog Boats and played havoc with enemy shipping in home and foreign waters. During three years of war they engaged the enemy on more than 350 occasions, sinking and damaging many ships. Dog Boats at War is the authoritative account of operations by the Royal Navy's 'D' Class MGBs and MTBs in the Second World War in Home, Mediterranean and Norwegian waters. As well as drawing on official records - both British and German - the author has contacted several hundred Dog Boat veterans whose eye witness accounts add drama to the unfolding story.
Download or read book The Burning Shore written by Ed Offley and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.
Download or read book The War of the Gun Boats written by Bryan Cooper and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-07-19 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This WWII naval history chronicles the development of small fighting boats as well as the evolution of their tactics and coastal warfare operations. Small, fast and highly maneuverable, gunboats and motor torpedo boats were a vital part of naval combat through the Second World War. Every major naval power built their own versions: The Germans had Schnellboote, the Royal Navy had MTBs and MGBs, and the Americans had PT boats. With their daring night raids and close-range battles, they displayed the buccaneering spirit of an earlier age. These small boats fought in coastal waters across the globe, from the narrow waters of the English Channel to the stormy North Sea; in the Mediterranean off the coasts of North Africa and Italy and among the islands of the Aegean; across the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf; in Hong Kong and Singapore; and off Burma's Arakan coast. In The War of the Gun Boats, historian Bryan Cooper traces the development of these craft, beginning with their limited use in the First World War and the fast motorboats designed to break water speed records in the 1930s. Cooper then details their widespread implementation during the Second World War and the development of their own form of naval warfare.
Download or read book World War II written by Linda Warner and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1 Alone, among other men who are also alone. Sleep a little on deck as others keep watch. Wake up. Shake off the groggies. Clean the guns. Reflect. Check the torpedoes. Weary. Wander the deck. No talk of family. Our futures—too tenuous. Survive in the moment. Time floating by in seconds and minutes. Too cold at night. Too hot in the day. Wet. Sunburned. Debilitating hunger. Tokyo Rose lurking in the mangroves. All of this punctuated by intense moments of what happens in war. Historians describe big battles, relate statistics, and overview events that changed the world. But it’s also compelling to visualize how real men experienced real life day by day. It was 1944, and Bill was eighteen. He thought life had prepared him for twenty months in the Pacific on PT Boat 244, but had it? This book records his war memoirs, always inquiring, was there a ghostly presence that beckoned him, brutalized him, haunted him? He probes the questions many veterans ponder: Why did I enlist? The beckoning. Who were the people that most affected me? What did I experience? The brutalizing. What were the lingering consequences? The haunting. When bombs fell upon Japanese cities, the war ended, but not for Bill. For him, it continued for decades of being haunted by night sweats, horrific dreams, confusion. How, after seven decades, he found relief from PTSD is a message that he urgently shares.
Download or read book The War of the Motor Gun Boats written by A. J. Chapman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tony Chapman was born in Southampton in 1924. Aged 16 he watched with horror as the historic High Street of Southampton burnt to the ground in a firestorm caused by a heavy German bombing raid on the night of 30 November 1940. He vowed to join up and fight back. Tony joined the Navy.Within hours of being posted to his first Motor Gun Boat, Telegraphist Tony Chapman was involved in an epic Coastal Forces engagement when his flotilla took on a force of thirty E-boats. Although their unit of two MGBs sank three E-Boats, it was at a high cost. Half of Tony's shipmates were killed or injured.This was the start of an eventful and dramatic wartime service with these little warships. Tony's flotilla operated in the Mediterranean and Aegean where the Motor Gun Boats played a key role in this important but often neglected theatre.rnDaily life on these small ships is vividly described. The flotilla had a busy time showing the flag in the Levant and on combined operations in the Aegean with the Greek Sacred Regiment of Commandos. The culmination of their efforts was when Tony's boat, ML838, took the surrender of the Island of Kos in 1945.rnrnWritten from the perspective of one of the other ranks, War of the Motor Gun Boats fills an important gap in the literature of the Second World War.As featured in the North Devon Journal and Exmoor Magazine.
Download or read book Decision in the Atlantic written by Marcus Faulkner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War. This volume highlights the scale and complexity of this bitterly contested campaign, one that encompassed far more than just attacks by German U-boats on Allied shipping. The team of leading scholars assembled in this study situates the German assault on seaborne trade within the wider Allied war effort and provides a new understanding of its place within the Second World War. Individual chapters offer original perspectives on a range of neglected or previously overlooked subjects: how Allied grand strategy shaped the war at sea; the choices facing Churchill and other Allied leaders and the tensions over the allocation of scarce resources between theaters; how the battle spread beyond the Atlantic Ocean in both military and economic terms; the management of Britain's merchant shipping repair yards; the defense of British coastal waters against German surface raiders; the contribution of air power to trade defense; antisubmarine escort training; the role of special intelligence; and the war against the U-boats in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
Download or read book We Called Ourselves Rocketboatmen written by Jr. William Howard Palmer and published by Go to Publish. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D-Day, June 6, 1944--a day never to be forgotten. More than 156,000 troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy, making it the largest seaborne invasion in history. Leading the pre-invasion ashore were the brave, but little known, rocketboatmen, as they called themselves. Their job, as the first close up Naval offense, was to soften up the German beach defenses with 48 rockets, machine gunnery, and smoke screening, preparing the way for the LCVP infantrymen. Through private diary entries and firsthand accounts, many read here for the first time, the unfolding of the earliest events leading up to the invasion is told in vivid and unforgettable detail. In choppy seas, oftentimes like sitting ducks in the water, these young men manned their landing craft and approached the beaches at exactly 6:00 A.M.-- half an hour before H-hour--unleashed their barrage of forty-eight rockets, twelve boats at Omaha, twelve at Utah Beach, lighting up the coastline like a Fourth of July grand finale. Several boats actually beached at Omaha and Utah under shell and bombardment and crossfire sustaining casualties, eliminating German coastline pill boxes. Relive their compelling tales in this incredible story.
Download or read book Best Little Stories from World War II written by C. Brian Kelly and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold stories of bravery, triumph, and redemption in the depths of the darkest world war. Behind the great powers, global military conflict, and infamous battles are more than 100 incredible stories that bring to life the Second World War. During the six years of war were countless little-known moments of profound triumph and tragedy, bravery and cowardice, and good and evil. These amazing and unbelievable stories of brotherhood, redemption, escape, and civilian courage shed new light on the war that gripped the entire world. Experience the action through the eyes of people like: Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was aboard both the Enola Gay and Bock's Car and felt the force of the shockwave that nearly destroyed the planes after dropping the H-bombs that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Professor William Miller, who collapsed during a death march of POWs in Germany and was saved by the same man who had rescued him from what would have been a fatal car wreck in Pennsylvania five years earlier. The brave civilians who answered the British Admiralty's call to help rescue an army from Dunkirk during the height of a dangerous battle and sailed small fishing boats into relentless German fire, ultimately saving 335,000 men from This is the perfect book for any history buff looking for the untold stories of military and civilian daring during World War 2.
Download or read book The Cumulative Book Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 2170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A world list of books in the English language.
Download or read book Ordinary Heroes written by Stephen Wagner and published by Aperture Press. This book was released on 2012-08-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "My favorite author." –RICHARD WHEELER, author of Iwo Sixty-four heroes. One story. Sharon Wells Wagner, author of Red Wells, collaborated with her son, Stephen Wagner, on this extraordinary account of one of history's greatest conflicts: World War II. Told through the eyes of its participants, Ordinary Heroes is a compelling collection of true stories woven into a single narrative spanning the entire war-from the waters of Pearl Harbor to the sands of Normandy to the mountains of Okinawa. The result of more than sixty interviews, this is a story about enlisted men — ordinary men whose families struggled to survive the Great Depression, who grew up on farms and in the small towns of rural America. When called upon to serve they rose to the challenge. In war they saw the best and the worst of humanity. They experienced hope and despair, joy and heartbreak. Those who survived returned home profoundly changed. War leaves its mark on the best of men, and the courageous individuals within these pages are no exception. They did not turn their backs when history needed them most, but met the challenge head on. In doing so they brought peace to a world at war.
Download or read book The E Boat Threat written by Bryan Cooper and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the major lessons of World War II was the importance of coastal waters. It was not widely recognised beforehand just how vital the control of such waters would become, both in defending essential convoys as well as attacking those of the enemy, and in paving the way for amphibious landings.??While land based aircraft could carry out offshore operations by day and destroyers and cruisers patrolled deeper waters, the ideal craft for use in coastal waters were motor boats armed with torpedoes and light guns. But with the exception of Italy, none of the major powers had more than a handful of these boats operational at the outbreak of war.??From a small beginning, large fleets of highly maneuverable motor torpedo boats were built up, particularly by Britain, Germany and the USA. They operated mainly at night, because they were small enough to penetrate minefields and creep unseen to an enemy's coastline and fast enough to escape after firing their torpedoes. They fought in every major theatre of war, but the first real threat came in the North Sea and English Channel from German E-boats, crossing to attack Britain's vital convoys. Ranged against them in the 'battle of the little ships' were British MTBs and MGBs and, later, American PT boats. They often fought hand to hand at closer quarters than any other kind of warship in a unique conflict that lasted right to the end of the war.??The E-boat Threat describes the development of these deadly little craft, the training of their crews who were usually volunteers and the gradual evolution of tactics in the light of wartime experience. Methods of defence are also related, which included the use of aircraft and destroyers as well as motor gunboats, sometimes acting under a unified command.
