Figureheads developed from an ancient tradition of decorating vessels with painted eyes, carved figures and animal heads. Vikings in Northern Europe adorned the bows of their ships with dragon heads, which were thought to help ships see their way through the sea. But what other purposes did sailors believe figureheads served? What stories do these beautiful objects tell? And what do the different characters symbolise? Exploring the history and traditions associated with figureheads, this illustrated guide contains 60 examples from the National Maritime Museum, home to the world's largest collection of figureheads. With a selection of short in-focus studies, the book looks at mythology, memorial, gender, empire, politics and literature surrounding these unique carvings. The National Maritime Museum is part of Royal Museums Greenwich.

'I saw that ship sink, I never closed my eyes. I saw it, I heard it, and nobody could possibly forget it. I can remember the colours, the sounds, everything. The worst thing I can remember were the screams.' EVA HART This is the amazing story of how Eva survived the sinking of the Titanic - the disaster that claimed the life of her father. The events of a few hours during her childhood had a huge impact on Eva. Her vivid memories of being bundled into a lifeboat and of watching the unsinkable ship slip beneath the surface remained with her for the rest of her life, although it was nearly forty years before she could talk openly about the tragedy. A Girl Aboard the Titanic is the only eyewitness description we have from a child of this famous maritime disaster.

'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaper An enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited them Lighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea. They encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose was much more noble, conceived as navigational gifts for the safety of all. Still today, we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland: twenty towers built between 1811 and 1904, so-called because they were constructed on desolate, slippery rock formations in the middle of the sea, rising, mirage-like, straight out of the waves, with lights shining at the their summits. Seashaken Houses is a lyrical exploration of these magnificent, isolated sentinels, the ingenuity of those who conceived them, the people who risked their lives building and rebuilding them, those that inhabited their circular rooms, and the ways in which we value emblems of our history in a changing world.

In October 1917, an invasion force of some 25,000 German soldiers, accompanied by a flotilla of 10 dreadnoughts, 350 other vessels, a half-dozen zeppelins, and 80 aircraft, attacked the Baltic islands of Dago, Osel, and Moon at the head of the Gulf of Riga. It proved to be the most successful amphibious operation of World War I. The three islands fell, the Gulf was opened to German warships and was now a threat to Russian naval bases in the Gulf of Finland, and 20,000 Russians were captured. The invasion proved to be the last major operation in the East. Although the invasion had achieved its objectives and placed the Germans in an excellent position for the resumption of warfare in the spring, within three weeks of the operation, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia (November 7, 1917) and Albion faded into obscurity as the war in the East came to a slow end.

In this fascinating and exciting overview, Donald B. Freeman explores the role of the Pacific Ocean in human history. Covering over one third of the globe, the Pacific Ocean plays a vital role in the lives and fortunes of more than two billion people who live on its rim-lands and islands. It has played a crucial part in shaping the histories of the different Pacific cultures, towards which it has appeared in a variety of different guises. Exploring the ocean's place in human history, this wide ranging book draws together the long and varied physical, economic, cultural and political history of the Pacific, from Prehistory through to the present day. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to show the changing viewpoints of those who explored, exploited and settled the Pacific, including the inhabitants of its Asian and American rim-lands. The book draws on new research in a variety of areas, such as early Pacific migrations, impacts of European colonization, the effects of climate change, and current economic and political developments. It provides a uniquely broad overview that will be of vital interest to students and to all those with an interest in World History.

Between 1500 and 1750, European expansion and global interaction produced vast wealth. As goods traveled by ship along new global trade routes, piracy also flourished on the world's seas. Pillaging the Empire tells the fascinating story of maritime predation in this period, including the perspectives of both pirates and their victims. Brushing aside the romantic legends of piracy, Kris Lane pays careful attention to the varied circumstances and motives that led to the rise of this bloodthirsty pursuit of riches, and places the history of piracy in the context of early modern empire building. This second edition of Pillaging the Empire has been revised and expanded to incorporate the latest scholarship on piracy, maritime law, and early modern state formation. With a new chapter on piracy in East and Southeast Asia, Lane considers piracy as a global phenomenon. Filled with colorful details and stories of individual pirates from Francis Drake to the women pirates Ann Bonny and Mary Read, this engaging narrative will be of interest to all those studying the history of Latin America, the Atlantic world, and the global empires of the early modern era.

The short history of this great battleship is presented in this volume. Many never before published photographs chart its most infamous history.

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's great epics - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history's great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor. Fletcher Christian and the mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers and some Tahitian men and women, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island - at the time not even marked on British maps - and settling there. This astonishing story is historical adventure at its very best, encompassing the mutiny, Bligh's monumental achievement in navigating to safety, and Fletcher Christian and the mutineers' own epic journey from the sensual paradise of Tahiti to the outpost of Pitcairn Island. The mutineers' descendants live on Pitcairn to this day, amid swirling stories and rumours of past sexual transgressions and present-day repercussions. Mutiny on the Bounty is a sprawling, dramatic tale of intrigue, bravery and sheer boldness, told with the accuracy of historical detail and total command of story that are Peter FitzSimons' trademarks.

A fascinating personal memoir of underwater combat in World War II, told by a man who played a major role in those dangerous operations. Frank and beautifully written, Submarine Commander's breezy style and irrepressible humor place it in a class by itself. This book will be of lasting value as a submarine history by an expert and as an enduring military and political analysis. In early 1943 the submarine USS Scorpion, with Paul R. Schratz as torpedo officer, slipped into the shallow waters east of Tokyo, laid a minefield, and made successful torpedo attacks on merchant shipping. Schratz participated in many more patrols in heavily mined Japanese waters as executive officer of the Sterlet and the Atule. At war's end he participated in the Japanese surrender, aided the release of American POWs, and had a key role in the disarming of enemy suicide submarines. He then took command of the revolutionary new Japanese submarine I-203 and returned it to Pearl Harbor. But this was far from the end of Schratz's submarine career. In 1949 he commissioned the ultramodern USS Pickerel, the most deadly submarine then afloat, and set a world's record in a 21-day, 5,200-mile submerged passage from Hong Kong to Honolulu. With the outbreak of the Korean War, the Pickerel was immediately sent to Korea to participate in secret intelligence operations only recently declassified and never before revealed in print. Schratz's broad military experience makes this a far from ordinary memoir.

The story of how the fearsome Atlantic Ocean was explored by early sailors, including the Vikings, whose brilliant navigation matched their bravery. The early voyages into the deep waters of the Atlantic rank among the greatest feats of exploration. In tiny, fragile vessels the Irish monks searched for desolate places in the ocean in which to pursue their vocation; their successors, the Vikings, with their superb ship-building skills, created fast, sea-worthy craft which took them far out into the unknown, until they finally reached Greenland and America. G.J. Marcus looks at the history of theseexpeditions not only as a historian, but also as a practical sailor. Besides the problem of what these early explorers actually achieved, he poses the even more fascinating question of how they did it, without compass, quadrant, or astrolabe. From the opening descriptions of the launching of a curach on the Aran Islands, through the great pages of the Norse Sagas describing the first recorded sighting of America, the author brilliantly conveys theexcitement and danger of the conquest of the North Atlantic in a narrative that is based equally on scholarly research and sound seamanship. G.J. MARCUS's previous books include The Maiden Voyage, on the sinking of the Titanic.

How old is Earth? Can we look back in time? How long is a light year? How short is a femtosecond? What is Greenwich Mean Time? How did astronauts tell the time on the Moon? When did time begin? It's high time you knew the answers to these and many more intriguing questions, so why not pass the time reading this lighthearted, illustrated miscellany, packed with hundreds of amazing facts from the time experts at the Royal Observatory. In less than no time, you'll have discovered the myriad of influences that time has on our daily lives.

Patrick O'Brien provides the forward to this edition of the most successful Conway Maritime title. This book is the perfect guide to Nelson's Navy for all those with an interest in the workings of the great fleet. The book is eminently readable and is the first single-volume work to cover in such depth this vast and complex subject. Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the sailing navy the book contains considerable original research to give a clear and authentic picture of the Senior Service as a whole. With a foreword by one of the most successful maritime fiction authors of the current age, the book is also of interest to all those with enthusiasm for the literature based on the Nelsonic-era.

The First World War and subsequent peace settlement shaped the course of the twentieth century, and the profound significance of these events were not lost on Harold Temperley, whose diaries are presented here. An established scholar, and later one of Britain's foremost modern and diplomatic historians, Temperley enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the war in August 1914. Invalided home from the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, he spent the remainder of the war and its aftermath as a general staff officer in military intelligence. Here he played a significant role in preparing British strategy for the eventual peace conference and in finalising several post-war boundaries in Eastern Europe. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Temperley was to co-edit the British diplomatic documents on the origins of the war; and the vicissitudes of modern Great Power politics were to be his principal preoccupation. Beginning in June 1916, the diary presents a more or less daily record of Temperley's activities and observations throughout the war and subsequent peace negotiations. As a professional historian he appreciated the significance of eyewitness accounts, and if Temperley was not at the very heart of Allied decision-making during those years, he certainly had a ringside seat. Trained to observe accurately, he recorded the concerns and confusions of wartime, conscious always of the historical significance of what he observed. As a result there are few sources that match Temperley's diary, which presents a fascinating and unique perspective upon the politics and diplomacy of the First World War and its aftermath.

Presents a wealth of original research findings on how medieval ports actually worked, providing new insights on shipping, trade, port society and culture, and systems of regional and international integration. This book responds to the increasing interest of maritime historians in the study of ports. These enclaves offer significant insights into a variety of subjects, including ships and shipping; trade, commodities, and consumption patterns; the economy, society and culture of port workers and port communities; and systems of regional and international integration. Based on extensive research in a wide range of European archives, the book provides much detailon the nature of ports in the medieval period, especially on the crucial subject of the operation of ports. Covering a range of ports in France, Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands, the book contains a wealth of original research findings. It will be particularly welcomed by English-speaking scholars and others outside the region analysed, since it gives access to non-English-language archives, thereby considerably enriching the study of medieval portsbeyond ports in Britain and Ireland.

A bold and authoritative maritime history of World War II which takes a fully international perspective and challenges our existing understanding Command of the oceans was crucial to winning World War II. By the start of 1942 Nazi Germany had conquered mainland Europe, and Imperial Japan had overrun Southeast Asia and much of the Pacific. How could Britain and distant America prevail in what had become a "war of continents"? In this definitive account, Evan Mawdsley traces events at sea from the first U-boat operations in 1939 to the surrender of Japan. He argues that the Allied counterattack involved not just decisive sea battles, but a long struggle to control shipping arteries and move armies across the sea. Covering all the major actions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as those in the narrow seas, this book interweaves for the first time the endeavors of the maritime forces of the British Empire, the United States, Germany, and Japan, as well as those of France, Italy, and Russia.

Maritime security is of vital importance to the South China Sea, a critical sea route for maritime transport of East Asian countries including China. The adjacent countries have rendered overlapping territorial and/or maritime claims in the South China Sea which complicate the situation of maintaining maritime security and developing regional cooperation there. This book focuses on contemporary maritime security in the South China Sea as well as its connected sea area, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. It identifies and examines selected security issues concerning the safety of navigation, crackdown on transnational crimes including sea piracy and maritime terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. In the context of non-traditional security, issues such as maritime environmental security and search and rescue at sea are included. The book explores ways and means of international cooperation in dealing with these maritime security issues.

Discusses the lessons which Britain learned in the war of 1739-48 which, when applied in later wars, brought about Britain's global naval supremacy. The British involvement in the war of 1739-1748 has been generally neglected. Standing between the great victories of Marlborough in the War of Spanish Succession [1701-1713] and the even greater victories of the Seven Years War[1756-1763], it has been dismissed as inconclusive and incompetently managed. For the first time this book brings together the political and operational conduct of the war to explore its contribution to a critical development in British history during the eighteenth century - the emergence of Britain as the paramount global naval power. The war posed a unique set of problems for British politicians, statesmen and servicemen. They had to overcome domestic and diplomatic crises, culminating in the rebellion of 1745 and the threat of French invasion. Yet, far from being incompetent, these people handled the crises and learned a great deal about the conduct of global warfare. Thechanges they made and decisions they took prepared Britain for the decisive Anglo-French clash of arms in the Seven Years War. In this misunderstood war lie some of the key factors that made Britain the greatest naval power for the next one hundred and fifty years. RICHARD HARDING is Professor of Organisational History at the University of Westminster. He is the author of numerous articles and books on naval history and editor, with Helen Doe,of Naval Leadership and Management, 1650-1950 (Boydell, 2012).

On 22 September 1914 between 6.20am and 7.55am three British cruisers went down off the Dutch coast, HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy. Of the combined crew of 2296 no less than 1459 men perished on their ships or in the sea. There were 837 survivors. The perpetrator was a simple German submarine, U-9. This event in the early days of the First World War came as a big boost to the Germans. But for the British it was a dire blow, the biggest loss ever inflicted on the Royal Navy, hitherto deemed invincible. The suffering was the more grievous now that among the fatalities were thirteen young boys, aged 15 and 16, while most of the other victims were reservists, mainly young family fathers from a few villages in the Chatham area. After some years of research the author has written a uniquely accessible reconstruction of this tragedy. Successively he pictures the build-up to this calamity, the crew's trials and tribulations, as well as the consequences of the incident from both a British and a German point of view. The hard times of the crewmembers had to go through are reflected in the personal accounts of some of the survivors of the catastrophe. Two Dutch merchant vessels had rescued a number of them and the men were then received and looked after in Holland. That too is part of this pitiful tragedy, which, though almost forgotten, was one of the largest calamities ever in the history of naval warfare.

The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History presents the first such narrative of the earth's tenth largest body of water. In this beautifully written and illustrated volume, John S. Sledge explores the people, ships, and cities that have made the Gulf's human history and culture so rich. Many famous figures who sailed the Gulf's viridian waters are highlighted, including Ponce de Leon, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, Francis Drake, Jean Laffite, Tyrone Power, Richard Henry Dana, Libbie Custer, Elizabeth Agassiz, Ernest Hemingway, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as Charles Dwight Sigsbee, at the helm of the doomed Maine. But Sledge also introduces a fascinating and diverse array of people connected to maritime life in the Gulf, including Mesoamerican pyramid builders, Spanish conquistadores, French pirates, Creole women, Cajun fishermen, African American stevedores, British jack-tars, and Greek sponge divers.Gulf events of global historical importance are detailed, such as the only defeat of armed and armored steamships by wooden sailing vessels, the first accurate deep-sea survey and bathymetric map of any ocean basin, the development of shipping containers by a former truck driver frustrated with antiquated loading practices, and the worst environmental disaster in American annals. Occasionally shifting focus ashore, Sledge explains how people representing a gumbo of ethnicities built some of the world's most exotic cities--Havana, way station for conquistadores and treasure-filled galleons; New Orleans, the Big Easy, famous for its beautiful French Quarter, Mardi Gras, and relaxed morals; and oft-besieged Veracruz, Mexico's oldest city, founded in 1519 by Hernan Cortes. Throughout history the residents of these cities and their neighbors along the littoral have struggled with challenges both natural and human-induced--devastating hurricanes, frightening epidemics, catastrophic oil spills, and conflicts ranging from dockside brawls to pirate raids, foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution. In the modern era the Gulf has become critical to energy Production, fisheries, tourism, and international trade, even as it is threatened by pollution and climate change. The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History is a work of verve and sweep that illuminates both the risks of life on the water and the riches that come from its bounty.

Since its publication in 1911, Sir Julian's Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy has remained a key document within naval strategic thinking. Yet despite his undoubted influence, Corbett's theories have not been subjected to scientific review and systematic comparison with other naval thinkers. In this assessment, Dr Widen has provided a fresh interpretation of Corbett's legacy and his continued relevance as a classic theorist of naval war. Divided into three parts, the book begins with a brief biographical overview of Corbett's life, highlighting in particular his bibliographic history and the influences on his thinking. The latter two sections then describe and assess Corbett's views on military and naval theory, respectively. Together these two parts represent his overall theory of maritime strategy, including his conception of limited war, his intellectual debt to Clausewitz, command of the sea, his critic of decisive battle, as well as the different methods of naval operations. By means of a thorough assessment of Corbett's theory of maritime strategy, Dr Widen highlights the continued relevance of his theories. Both the strengths and shortcomings of Corbett's thinking are discussed and reflections offered on their intellectual, practical and doctrinal value. In so doing, Dr Widen has written a book that deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in the past, present or future of maritime strategy.

On the morning of December 22, 1853, a brand new steamship left New York Harbor on its maiden voyage. The length of a football field, the San Francisco was arguably the best-made ocean-going vessel built up to that time, and had been chartered by the United States Government to carry most of the men of the Third Artillery to the Pacific Coast. Only two days out, 300 miles off the coast of Delaware, the San Francisco ran into one of the great hurricanes of maritime history. Her sails and masts were blown away, the engine was wrecked, and scores of human beings were washed overboard. With no power of her own, the ruined steamer became a floating coffin as cholera broke out on board. With people dying fast, and with the ocean constantly threatening to drag the ship down at any moment, the men battled frantically with the pumps to keep afloat. Other vessels began to pass by, but with the seas so high they could be of little help. Finally, with the storm abating, three ships in succession managed to take off the survivors and bring them back to civilization. After two weeks, the nightmare was over. But the drama continued. Two of the three rescuing vessels had been so damaged by the storms that they were hardly in a position to take on such a large number of unexpected passengers, let alone the threat of cholera, and it wasn't long before water and provisions began to run out. Facing death at every turn from thirst, starvation, exhaustion, exposure, and even a mutiny, they barely made it back to land. But they did. As for the Third Artillery, it had been decimated. Then came the aftermath, the accusations, the denials, the shocking revelations of ineptitude and gross negligence by the Government, the cover-up, and finally the Inquiry and the price to be paid.