Naval category: 2015 books

This is the wartime history of the battleship HMS Royal Sovereign, along with the story of her four sister ships HMS Revenge, HMS Resolution, HMS Royal Oak and HMS Ramillies. These ships were built and launched during World War I and although old and slow, and bitterly criticised by Churchill and...

On 7 December 1941, the Japanese navy attacked Pearl Harbour. Simultaneously, the Japanese army launched all-out assaults on Malaya, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The Japanese sphere of influence spread at a phenomenal rate. As nations of Asia collapsed one by one, and the British and US troops in the...

By the spring of 1945 the Allies were sweeping all before them in the Pacific War against Japan, and a series of victories had reclaimed many of the islands and territories seized by the Imperial Japanese forces in the early months of the war. The dark days of humiliating defeat were far behind the...

“Europe is a molehill….” Everything here is worn out…tiny Europe has not enough to offer. We must set off for the Orient; that is where all the greatest glory is to be achieved.” —Napoleon Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt was the first Western attack in modern times on a Middle Eastern...

Sink ’Em All, was originally published in 1951 by Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, the U.S. 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...

Ten major wars and two hundred minor actions comprise the history of the United States Marine Corps, and parallel the history of America itself. U.S. Marines in Action provides a comprehensive and stirring account of the activities of the military corps that has become synonymous with guts and glory....

Torpedo 8 is the epic story of the death and rebirth of the famous bomber squadron led by Lieutenant Harold "Swede" Larsen. VT-8 rose from the ashes of the Battle of Midway to become an indispensable air arm in the series of engagements for the Solomon Islands and beyond. In three months,...

From the moment when the launching of HMS Dreadnought made every capital ship in the world obsolete overnight, we have been fascinated with these powerful surface combatants. Here Robert M. Farley looks at the history and folklore that makes these ships enduring symbols of national power—and sometimes...

On the night of December 7, 1942, five canoes were launched off the mouth of the Gironde river, each containing a pair of British commandoes tasked with slipping into the port of Bordeaux and destroying as many of the merchant ships as possible. Only two of the canoes made it to the target, but it...

The riveting true story of Japan's top secret plan to change the course of World War II using a squadron of mammoth submarines a generation ahead of their time   In 1941, the architects of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor planned a bold follow-up: a potentially devastating air raid—this time against New...

In 1938, the United States abandoned the constraints imposed by the Washington Teaty and began work on a new class of super-battleships. This book covers the design, construction, and employment of the four Iowa-class battleships, the largest in the American fleet. During World War II, they served...

In this, the first of a five volume series covering the capital ships of the German Navy of World War II, Gordon Williamson examines the design, development and operational use of the battleships used by the Kriegsmarine. The 'Schlesien' and 'Schleswig-Hostein' were used mostly as training ships until...

After the end of World War I, the German Navy came up with the concept of the Panzerschiffe, or Pocket Battleship, as a method of circumventing treaty limitations on the size and types of ship Germany was permitted to build. New, more modern production methods, where welded construction prevailed...

Although often overlooked in favour of the U-boats or battleships, the vast majority of the Kriegsmarine was formed of the smaller vessels of the coastal forces. These ships and boats, which included minesweepers, torpedo boats, patrol boats, and blockade breakers, gave crucial service to Germany...