Naval category: 2015 books

A happy idea carried to excellent completion by very competent hands is the best description of The Year of Trafalgar, by Henry Newbolt. It is not likely that this year of splendid memory will find a worthier literary tribute than this delightful volume. Mr. Newbolt’s is much more than a familiar...

This is "naval history at its best" (Bruce Henderson)--the story of the greatest kamikaze attack of World War II Looking toward the heavens, the destroyer crew saw what seemed to be the entire Japanese Air Force assembled directly above. Hell was about to be unleashed on them in the largest...

This is the true story of Tom Genualdi, who served as an engineman's mate during the early 1950's in the U.S. Navy on a Landing Ship, Utility (LSU). We follow his time in the service from 1951 to 1955.  He goes from basic training at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, then to his vessel...

A comprehensive history of Canada’s submarine service and the people who have served in it. Through a Canadian Periscope’s second edition celebrates the story of the Canadian submarine service on the occasion of its centenary in 2014. Created in 1914, at the beginning of World War...

The Guide to the American Revolutionary War at Sea and Overseas chronicles more than 10,500 actions -- far more than other naval histories. Vol. 2 documents 1496 of them which occurred in 1777. It includes the actions of the Continental and state navies, the French and British navies, the actions...

On 26 October 1812, during the war between Britain and the United States, the frigate USS Essex set sail on the most remarkable voyage in the early history of the US navy. After rounding Cape Horn, she proceeded to systematically destroy the British South Seas whaling fleet. When news reached the...

Volume Two of Fred T. Jane’s history of the development of the British battle fleet begins with the Barnaby era and continues through the White, Watts, and Dreadnought eras. The second half of the book studies submarines, naval aviation, and auxiliary navies. Jane’s detailed and an authoritative insight into the evolution of ship design makes this book an indispensable reference.

At 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive which instigated the start of Operation Dynamo. This was the order to rescue the British Expeditionary Force from the French port of Dunkirk and the beaches surrounding it. The Admiralty believed that it would only be able to...

Without the aircraft carrier, the Japanese would not have brought the United States into the Second World War through their attack on Pearl Harbour; without the carrier, the United States could not have rolled back the Japanese forces spread across the wide reaches of the Pacific and carried the war...

The world's first war machines were ships built two millennia before the dawn of the Classical world. Their influence on the course of history cannot be overstated. A wide variety of galleys and other types of warships were built by successive civilisations, each with their own distinctive appearance,...

The famous war correspondent delivers an edge-of-your seat account of the naval chase and battle to take out one of Hitler’s most powerful warships. The Bismarck wasn’t just any warship. Its guns were much stronger and more accurate than any others in its day—meaning it could easily sink...

This is a concise history of the Royal Navy's air arm during World War II, from their Arctic convoys, to the battle of Malta, and the last raids on Japan. Amazingly, the Admiralty only had 406 operational pilots and eight carriers when war broke out, but a mere six years later there were over 3,000...

An acclaimed naval historian tells one of the most inspiring sea stories of World War II: the Japanese attack on the American oiler USS Neosho and the gutsy crew’s struggle for survival as their slowly sinking ship drifted—lost, defenseless, and alone—on the treacherous Coral Sea. In...

The United States Navy has evolved in the last century and a half from humble and often frustrating beginnings during and after the Revolutionary War to become the strongest navy in the world with responsibilities that span the globe. The story of the Navy from its birth through the Civil War and...