Showing titles in Naval Forces

In an era of global uncertainty, one forgotten strategy could shift the tides. Modern Privateering makes a bold case for the revival of a centuries-old tool: privateering. Once dismissed as a relic of the Age of Sail, it’s now reimagined as a cost-effective, legally sanctioned means to degrade enemy power, deter aggression, and defend freedom on the seas. Whether facing authoritarian regimes, pirates, or transnational criminals, this strategic handbook lays out how privateering could: *Impose steep economic costs on U.S. adversaries.

One of WWII’s pivotal events was the capture of U-505 on June 4, 1944. The top secret seizure of this massive Type IX submarine provided the Allies with priceless information on German technology and innovation. After the war, U-505 was transported to Chicago, where today several hundred thousand visitors a year pass through its well-preserved hull at the Museum of Science and Industry. Hunt and Kill offers the first definitive study of U-505.

For six years, Britain and Nazi Germany fought a bitter battle for control of the Atlantic. Allied offensives against Hitler's armies on the continent were conditioned by their bases on the British Isles, which made air strikes and landings possible. But during 1939, the Germans began to ‘starve’ the British into surrender by cutting off vital supplies of food and equipment from the Allies. This was done with the help of U-boats that tried to sink more cargo ships than the shipyards could produce - even when these actions were suicidal.

Ranging from the Vikings and Wako pirates in the Middle Ages to modern day Somali pirates, Lehr delves deep into what motivates pirates and how they operate. He also illuminates the state's role in the development of piracy throughout history: from privateers sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth to pirates operating off the coast of Africa taking the law into their own hands. After exploring the structural failures which create fertile ground for pirate activities, Lehr evaluates the success of counter-piracy efforts - and the reasons behind its failures.

The SS City of Benares was born in the optimism of the interwar years. Launched in 1936 for the Ellerman Line, she embodied reliability, elegance, and the promise of safe passage between Britain and its empire. With her sleek twin funnels and polished interiors, she seemed destined to carry families, officials, and traders eastward in comfort. Yet within only four years, her name would be etched into the darkest chapter of Britain’s wartime history—not for her design or her service in peacetime, but for the lives of the children she carried on her final voyage.

“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS.” –old folk prayer In late December 1951, laden with passengers and nearly forty metric tons of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage, she hit the eye of a ferocious...

In this book, historian Robert C. Stern analyzes the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first major fleet engagement where the warships were never in sight of each other. Unlike the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Coral Sea has received remarkably little study. Stern covers not only the action of the ships and their air groups but also describes the impact of this pivotal engagement.

Sink 'Em All was originally published in 1951 by Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, the US Navy commander of the Pacific submarine fleet during World War II. Lockwood, in his leadership role, knew the skippers and crews of the submarines and retells their wartime successes and tragedies with an intimacy and realism often missing in second-hand accounts.

As the 100th anniversary of the fateful night approaches, Palmer follows up innumerable conflicting stories and theories that still, to this day, surround the doomed liner. Charles Herbert Lightoller, Palmer’s great uncle, was the highest-ranking surviving officer from the disaster. It was only after the great man’s death in 1952 that his sister, Gertrude, Palmer’s eccentric grandmother, began to hint to her young grandson of the contradictory accounts of both her brother’s supposed heroism and his suspect testimonies at the investigations into the sinking.

USS Nevada (BB-36) was America's first modern battleship. When its keel was laid in 1912, kings and emperors still ruled much of the world. When it finally slipped beneath the waves in 1948, America was the undisputed global superpower.

The last installment of the War in the Far East trilogy, Asian Armageddon 1944-1945, continues and completes the narrative of the first two volumes, describing how a US-led coalition of nations battled Japan into submission through a series of cataclysmic encounters. Leyte Gulf, the biggest naval battle ever, was testimony to the paramount importance of controlling the ocean, as was the fact that the US Navy carried out the only successful submarine campaign in history, reducing Japan's military and merchant navies to shadows of the former selves.

A close-up, action-filled account of the crucial role the U.S. Navy played in the early years of the Cold War, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fleet at Flood Tide and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors “A lucid, fast-moving and fitting finale to [Hornfischer’s] career...

For centuries, ships' commanders kept journals that recorded their missions. These included voyages of discovery to unknown lands, engagements in war and sea and general trade. Many of their logs, diaries and letters were lodged at The National Archives and give a vivid picture of the situations that they encountered. Entries range from Captain James Cook's notes of his discovery of the South Pacific and Australia, to logs of the great naval battles, such as Waterloo and Trafalgar.

Whilst the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet, restricted for much of the period after 1919 by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was relatively small in comparison to the Royal Navy, it did possess a number of highly potent battleships and other capital vessels that could - and did - pose a major threat to British interests in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Amongst the most powerful were the two battleships - the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.

The unheralded story of how salvage helped the Allies win back North Africa. By the time America joined World War II, Edward Ellsberg had already earned his place as one of the world’s great marine salvage engineers, and his best-selling accounts of raising doomed submarines and histories of classic diving operations had made him a literary star.

Often romanticized in print and on the silver screen, real-life pirates were a brutal menace that plagued the high seas. In this book, Angus Konstam separates myth from reality, tracing the history of piracy through the centuries, from the pirates who plagued the Ancient Egyptians to the Viking raids and on to the era of privateers. He discusses the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy" and colorful characters such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, before examining the West's initial encounters with Eastern pirates off the Chinese coast and the phenomenon of the modern pirate.

Seventy years ago, more than 6000 Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a 50-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy.

His Majesty's Submarine Unbeaten was last heard from via a signal sent to Flag Officer Submarines on November 1, 1942. The signal simply stated: "Operation Bluestone completed". After this date the 58-meter British U-Class submarine inexplicably disappeared. Unbeaten was fully operational for just over two years. During its short tenure, Unbeaten successfully returned to war-torn Malta many times, symbolically flying its Jolly Roger.

Battleship Commander explores Lee's life from boyhood in Kentucky through his eventual service as commander of the fast battleships from 1942 to 1945. 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.

Elliot Carlson's biography of Captain Joe Rochefort is the first to be written of the officer who headed the U.S. Navy's decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and broke the Japanese Navy's code before the Battle of Midway. Listeners will share Rochefort's frustrations as he searches in vain for Yamamoto's fleet prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and share his joy when he succeeds in tracking the fleet in early 1942 and breaks the code that leads him to believe Yamamoto's invasion target is Midway.