This new book tells the story of the Ocean class of standard cargo ships, their design, building and careers, and the author places them firmly in the context of the battle of the Atlantic which was raging at the time of the first launchings. They entered the vanguard of the Allied shipping effort at a time when the German U-boat threat was at its most dangerous, and British shipping resources were stretched to the limit. They were deployed in the North Atlantic, on the long supply routes around Africa to the Middle East, in the Russian convoys, in operations in support of the invasions of North Africa and Italy and the land campaigns which followed, in the D-Day landings and later amphibious operations on the south coast of France. Finally, some of the class joined an invasion force making its way towards Malaya when Japan surrendered in August 1945\. The Oceans paid a heavy price for these accomplishments, one third of the class being lost to torpedoes, bombs or mines in places as far apart as the Florida coast, the Norwegian Sea, the Bay of Algiers and the Gulf of Oman. While these achievements alone would merit an important place in histories of the war at sea, the impact of the Oceans stretched far beyond the direct contribution of the ships themselves. The yards where they were built also served as models for a series of new American shipyards, designed to mass produce cargo vessels with such speed and in such volume as to completely reverse the mathematics of attrition, which had run so badly against the Allies into 1942\. Even more important, the Oceans' blueprints were used as the basis for the American Liberty ship, the 2,700-strong fleet which finally tilted the balance of the war at sea decisively in the Allies' favour and went on to underpin the post-war renewal of the world merchant fleet. This comprehensive new history, based on extensive archival research and lavishly illustrated with contemporary photographs, restores the Oceans to their rightful place in history. The ships' design antecedents are explained, and their ordering, financing and construction analysed in full. Wartime operations are covered in depth, by theatre and with full details of war losses and other casualties. The book concludes with an assessment of their subsequent peacetime careers and a comparison to other war-built designs. This is a model history of a highly significant class of ship.

The complete and authoritative account of the sinking of the HMAS Sydney, and the finding of her wreck in 2008. On 19 November 1941, the pride of the Australian Navy, the light cruiser Sydney, fought a close-quarters battle with the German armed raider HSK Kormoran off Carnarvon on the West Australian coast. Both ships sank - and not one of the 645 men on board the Sydney survived. Was Sydney's captain guilty of negligence by allowing his ship to manoeuvre within range of Kormoran's guns? Did the Germans feign surrender before firing a torpedo at the Sydney as she prepared to despatch a boarding party? This updated edition covers the discovery of the wreck - with the light this sheds on the events of that day in 1941, and the closure it has brought to so many grieving families. 'Tom Frame has produced the most comprehensive and compelling account of the loss of HMAS Sydney to date. His judgements are fair and his conclusions reasoned. If you only read one book on this tragic event in Australian naval history, and want all the facts and theories presented in a balanced way, Tom Frame's book is for you.' - Vice Admiral Russ Shalders AO CSC RANR Chief of Navy, 2005-08.

Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. In addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as 'the worst journey in the world'. Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. In addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as 'the worst journey in the world'. Fortunately, Charlie, who served on two destroyers, HMS Milne and Savage, kept a record of his experiences and is alive today to describe them. His story, published to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the first convoy, is more than one man's account. It is an inspiring tribute to his colleagues, many of whom were killed in action. No-one reading Surviving The Arctic Convoys could fail to be moved by the bravery and endurance of these outstanding men.

Although many books have been written about naval actions during the Second World War - histories and memoirs in particular - few books have attempted to encompass the extraordinary variety of the experience of the war at sea. That is why James Goulty's viv-id survey is of such value. Sailors in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy experienced a war fought on a massive scale, on every ocean of the world, in a diverse range of ves-sels, from battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines to merchant ships and fishing boats. Their recollections are as varied as the ships they served in, and they take the reader through the entire maritime war, as it was perceived at the time by those who had direct, personal knowledge of it. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the experience of individuals - their recruit-ment and training, their expectations and the reality they encountered on active service in many different offensive and defensive roles including convoy duty and coastal de-fence, amphibious operations, hunting U-boats and surface raiders, mine sweeping and manning landing and rescue craft. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the sailors themselves, what action against the enemy felt like and the impact of casualties - seamen who were wounded or killed on board or were lost when their ships sank. A fascinating inside view of the maritime warfare emerges which may be less heroic than the image created by some post-war accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic impression of the whole gamut of wartime life at sea.

Son of a scientifically-minded Scottish aristocrat, Basil Hall joined the Royal Navy at the age of 13 in 1802. His first naval engagements in America and Spain during the Peninsular War are described, as are his travels in India and the Far East. His renowned interview with Napoleon, while still a prisoner on St. Helena is featured. He was a confidante of Sir Walter Scott, Dickens and many other distinguished authors of his day. Renowned for his curiosity and energy, he became a popular writer himself based on his world-wide travels and adventures, including his involvement in the liberation of Peru and friendship with General San Martin. He embarked on an epic, 10,000-mile journey with his family in North America and twice journeyed across the sub-continent of India under the patronage of the Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, providing delightful vignettes of Indian life of the time. Subsequent travels in Europe introduce personalities such as Lord Byron and the eccentric Countess Purgstall. Although the narrative of his journey in the United States earned him great opprobrium from Americans for his conservative attitudes, his support in Edinburgh to the great American bird painter, John James Audubon, was greatly appreciated by the artist. As an amateur scientist, Hall made important contributions to nautical astronomy, geology and naval technology, being a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Among his scientific friends were Sir John Herschel, Mary Somerville, and Sir Humphrey Davy, among many others. He was in the unusually privileged position of moving among the upper echelons of British society's distinguished writers, scientists and politicians thus providing a fascinating insight into the mores and manners of high society in Edinburgh and London. The inclusion of previously unpublished and often revealing correspondence has contributed to the first full biography of a very colourful individual and his times.

In this highly detailed book, naval historian Edward Hampshire reveals the fascinating history of the nuclear-powered attack submarines built and operated by the Soviet Union in the Cold War, including each class of these formidable craft as they developed throughout the Cold War period. The November class, which were the Soviet Union's first nuclear submarines, had originally been designed to fire a single enormous nuclear-tipped torpedo but were eventually completed as boats firing standard torpedoes. The Alfa class were perhaps the most remarkable submarines of the Cold War: titanium-hulled (which was light and strong but extremely expensive and difficult to weld successfully), crewed with only thirty men due to considerable automation and 30% faster than any US submarines, they used a radical liquid lead-bismuth alloy in the reactor plant. The Victor class formed the backbone of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet in the 1970s and 1980s, as hunter-killer submarines began to focus on tracking and potentially destroying NATO ballistic missile submarines. The Sierra classes were further titanium-hulled submarines and the single Mike-class submarine was an experimental type containing a number of innovations. Finally, the Akula class were being constructed as the Cold War ended, and these boats form the mainstay of the Russian nuclear attack submarine fleet today. This book explores the design, development, and deployment of each of these classes in detail, offering an unparalleled insight into the submarines which served the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War period. The text is supported by stunning illustrations, photographs and diagrams of the submarines.

When Computers Went to Sea explores the history of the United States Navy's secret development of code-breaking computers and their adaptation to solve a critical fleet radar data handling problem in the Navy's first seaborne digital computer system - that went to sea in 1962. This is the only book written on the United States Navy's initial application of shipboard digital computers to naval warfare.
Considered one of the most successful projects ever undertaken by the US Navy, the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was the subject of numerous studies attempting to pinpoint the reason for the systems inordinate success in the face of seemingly impossible technical challenges and stiff resistance from some in the military. The system's success precipitated a digital revolution in naval warfare systems.
Dave Boslaugh details the innovations developed by the NTDS project managers including: project management techniques, modular digital hardware for ship systems, top-down modular computer programming techniques, innovative computer program documentation, and other novel real-time computer system concepts.
Automated military systems users and developers, real-time process control systems designers, automated system project managers, and digital technology history students will find this account of a United States military organization's initial foray into computerization interesting and thought provoking.

USS Iowa (BB-61) was the lead ship in one of the most famous classes of battleships ever commissioned into the US Navy. Transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, the Iowa first fired her guns in anger in the Marshall Islands campaign, and sunk her first enemy ship, the Katori. The Iowa went on to serve across a number of pivotal Pacific War campaigns, including at the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. It ended the war spending several months bombarding the Japanese Home Islands before the surrender in August 1945.

After taking part in the Korea War, the Iowa was decommissioned in 1958, before being briefly reactivated in the 1980s as part of President Reagan's 600-Ship Navy Plan. After being decommissioned a second and final time in 1990, the Iowa is now a museum ship in Los Angeles.

This new addition to the Anatomy of the Ship series is illustrated with contemporary photographs, scaled plans of the ship and superb 3D illustrations which bring this historic battleship to life.

WITHOUT HENRY V'S NAVY, the Battle of Agincourt would never have happened. Henry's fleet played a major - if often unrecognised - part in enabling the king to come within reach of final victory in the Hundred Years War against France. Henry's navy was one of the most successful fleets deployed by England before the time of Elizabeth I. The royal fleet was transformed in Henry's short reign from a few dilapidated craft into a powerful weapon of war, with over thirty fighting vessels, up-to-date technology and four of the biggest ships in Europe. Drawing from extensive research into documentary, pictorial and archaeological sources, Henry V's Navy is about the men, ships and operations of Henry's sea war. Maritime historian Ian Friel explores everything from shipboard food to how crews and their ships sailed and fought, and takes an in-depth look at the royal ships. He also tells the dramatic and bloody story of the naval conflict, which at times came close to humiliating defeat for the English.

The true story of how Britain's maritime power helped gain this country unparalleled dominance of the world's economy, Admirals celebrates the rare talents of the men who shaped the most successful fighting force in world history. Told through the lives and battles of eleven of our most remarkable admirals - men such as James II and Robert Blake - Andrew Lambert's book stretches from the Spanish Armada to the Second World War, culminating with the spirit which led Andrew Browne Cunningham famously to declare, when the army feared he would lose too many ships, 'it takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition.'

USS Saratoga and her sister ship USS Lexington were the two largest aircraft carriers in the world until 1944. The keel of the battle cruiser USS Saratoga (CC-3) was laid by New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey, on September 25, 1920. Work on the fast, formidably armed battle cruiser was suspended in February 1922, when the Washington Naval Conference negotiated limits on warship sizes and numbers. Once the accord was signed, the decision was made to covert the 28 percent complete Saratoga into an aircraft carrier (the same fate befell her sister ship, Lexington). Launched as an aircraft carrier on April 7, 1925, she became the largest ship of that type afloat. Saratogas revolutionary turboelectric drive and hull design allowed her to operate at 33 knots (either forward or backward), a trait believed to be useful in the event of combat damage to either end of her flight deck. And damaged she was. Though in port at San Diego, California, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, during the ensuing war the ship was damaged repeatedly, and sometimes severely. Despite this, she fought throughout the war, earning eight battle stars. Following the war, in view of her age, past damage, and the limitations of her design, Saratoga was deemed surplus and was expended as a target during the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests. She survived the first Able bomb test but was sunk by the Baker test on July 25, 1946. This 144-page volume, an expansion of the authors earlier work, immerses the reader in the construction and operation of the ship at peace and war, as well as detailing the many refits and repairs she underwent, through over 350 photos and illustrations.

Inspired by the recent discovery of mathematically calculated digital plans for a fourth-rate ship by the Deptford master shipwright, John Shish, The Master Shipwright's Secrets is an illustrated history of Restoration shipbuilding focused on the Tyger, one of the smaller but powerful two-deck warships of the period. It examines the proceedings of King Charles II in deciding the types of ship he wanted and his relationship with his master shipwrights.

This fascinating book reveals the many secrets of Charles II's shipwrights through an analysis of John Shish's plans for the Tyger, revealing innovative practical calculations which differ significantly from the few contemporary treatises on the subject and the complicated process of constructing the moulds necessary to make the ship's frame. All the other duties performed by the master shipwrights, such as repairing ships, controlling their men and keeping up with the latest inventions are also discussed in detail.

The Master Shipwright's Secrets is replete with beautiful and detailed illustrations of the construction of the Tyger and explores both its complicated history and its complex rebuilding, complete with deck plans, internal sections, and large-scale external shaded drawings. The title also explores associated ships, including another fourth-rate ship, the Mordaunt, which was purchased into the Navy at the time and underwent a dimensional survey by John Shish. A rare contemporary section drawing of another fourth-rate English ship and constructional drawings of Shish's later fourth-rate ship, St Albans, are also included.

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. This volume is devoted to the famous ships of Admiral Hipper's First Scouting Group. Slower but more robust than their British equivalents, German battlecruisers enjoyed a reputation for absorbing punishment, and although Lutzow was sunk at Jutland, Seydlitz and the rest of the Scouting Group survived heavy damage.This book concentrates on the seven completed ships but coverage extends to the 'proto-battlecruiser' Blucher and the ships building or designed by the end of the war.

For more than a century, the U.S. Navy's battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and amphibious warfare vessels have depended on a small group of specialized auxiliary ships to provide fuel, food, ammunition, parts and other material support and services. Without these workhorse vessels, the U.S. Fleet could not have won in World War II and it could not today deploy and remain on station in the Mediterranean, Arabian Gulf, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. This book provides the rosters, histories, specifications and illustrations of 130 different auxiliary ship types used throughout U.S. history: the little-known ones, the latest expeditionary fast transports and future towing, salvage and rescue ships.

'Beguiling' The Times 'Compelling' Wall Street Journal 'A vivid portrait' Daily Mail Buried in the history of our most famous jail, a unique story of captivity, violence and race. British redcoats torch the White House and six thousand American sailors languish in the world's largest prisoner-of-war camp, Dartmoor. A myriad of races and backgrounds, with some prisoners as young as thirteen. Known as the 'hated cage', Dartmoor wasn't a place you'd expect to be full of life and invention. Yet prisoners taught each other foreign languages and science, put on plays and staged boxing matches. In daring efforts to escape they lived every prison-break cliche - how to hide the tunnel entrances, what to do with the earth... Drawing on meticulous research, The Hated Cage documents the extraordinary communities these men built within the prison - and the terrible massacre that destroyed these worlds. 'This is history as it ought to be - gripping, dynamic, vividly written' Marcus Rediker

Long-awaited, the Normandy landings were the largest amphibious operation in history. Success was achieved by the advent of specialised landing craft, heavy naval firepower and the creation of two artificial harbours and an underwater pipeline. Operation Neptune: The Prelude to D-Day tells the story of this incredible feat using eyewitness accounts of the landings and the breaching of Hitler's famed 'Atlantic Wall'. David Wragg explores the earlier Allied and Axis experiences with amphibious operations and the planning for Neptune and Overlord. He reveals the naval support needed once the armies were ashore and before continental ports could be captured and cleared of mines, with operations such as minesweeping off the Normandy coast, which led to one of the worst 'friendly fire' incidents of the war. This is the must-read book to understand what made D-Day possible.

From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to The Hunt for Red October, readers the world over have demonstrated an enduring fascination with travel under the sea. Yet the riveting story behind the invention of the submarine-an epic saga of genius, persistence, ruthlessness, and deceit-is almost completely unknown. Like Henry Ford and the Wright brothers, John Philip Holland was completely self-taught, a brilliant man raised in humble circumstances, earning his living as a schoolteacher and choirmaster. But all the while he was obsessed with creating a machine that could successfully cruise beneath the waves. His struggle to unlock the mystery behind controlled undersea navigation would take three decades, during which he endured skepticism, disappointment, and betrayal. But his indestructible belief in himself and his ideas led him to finally succeed where so many others had failed. Going Deep is a vivid chronicle of the fierce battles not only under the water, but also in the back rooms of Wall Street and the committee rooms of Congress. A rousing adventure-surrounded by an atmosphere of corruption and greed-at its heart this a story of bravery, passion, and the unbreakable determination to succeed against long odds.

The destruction of the HMS Hood by the Bismarck in 1941 was one of the most shocking episodes in the history of the Royal Navy. Built during World War I, the Hood was the largest, fastest and one of the most handsome capital ships in the world. For the first time, this volume in the renowned Anatomy of a Ship series is available in paperback, and features a detailed description of every aspect of the beloved battlecruiser. In addition to analysing the genesis of its design and contemporary significance, this exceptional study provides the finest documentation of the Hood, with a complete set of superb line drawings, supported by technical details and a record of the ship's service history.

The authoritative story of the Royal Navy's first submarine campaign, told using new research. The Harwich Submarine Flotilla played a key role establishing British dominance in the North Sea at the beginning of the First World War. Letters, diaries, memoirs and combat reports of the participants are used to give a complete account. Much of this is in print for the first time. Foreword by Rear Admiral Jonathan Westbrook CBE, former Royal Navy Submariner. Written in collaboration with the Friends of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, with profits from royalties contributing towards the work of the Museum. Both official and personal archive material is used to tell the story, sourced from British, German and French archives. The text is illustrated by charts and plans prepared using the patrol reports, war diaries and logs of the submarines and warships that took part.##The war experience of the participants is brought to life, giving a real insight into what it was like to fight in these early submarines, whilst also relating what really happened and the true significance of the events. The Flotilla had to battle not just the enemy, but also the hazards of mines, human frailties, mechanical failure and the weather. The story of every patrol in the 1914 campaign is told.##This campaign saw the first torpedo fired in action by a Royal Navy submarine, the first ship to be sunk and the first submarine to be lost in action. The commanders of the submarines were true pioneers, working out for the first time how to wage war with the latest technology of their age. Their patrols took submarine crews and commanders constantly onto the front line of the naval war to face a multitude of hazards. Many paid the ultimate price, with the Flotilla losing three submarines and almost all of their crews in this first campaign. Success brought the names of figures like Roger Keyes and Max Horton to prominence. The early story of the Flotilla is also the story of a pivotal point in their journey to become key figures of the Royal Navy in the twentieth century. For others, even those who would go on to great fame as submariners, such as Martin Nasmith, it would be a challenging start to their wartime careers.

On July 11, 1942, the USS North Carolina steamed into Pearl Harbor. She was a magnificent ship—the first in a new class of battleships, simultaneously monstrous and fast. She was two-and-a-half-football-fields long and so wide she could barely pass through the Panama Canal on her journey to Hawaii. At any given time, 2,339 sailors manned the ship—a total of more than 7,000 during the six years she served. As she glided into the ravaged harbor, past the wreckage of sunken American ships, the morale of the men in the surviving Pacific fleet soared. A little over two years earlier, more than 57,000 people had gathered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the day she was launched. As she went through her “shakedown� period, she returned repeatedly to that same naval yard for adjustments and modifications. Many New Yorkers, including radio commentator Walter Winchell, often witnessed the ship entering and departing New York Harbor and began calling her the “Showboat.� Although she was an impressive structure, she was more than just a showboat. After coming to Pearl Harbor, she saw action in some 50 battles in almost every campaign in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay. In 1960, when the navy announced its intention to scrap the ship, North Carolina citizens, including countless schoolchildren, raised over $330,000 to bring the ship to Wilmington, North Carolina, and preserve her as a state war memorial. In this book, Ramsey tells the story of the battleship through the eyes of the men who served her. After doing research about the ship at the National Archives in 2000, Ramsey spent six days helping the staff of the memorial compile a living-history archive of personal interviews conducted with the surviving crewmembers when they attended the ship's annual reunion. She became fascinated with the stories these men told. For the next few years, she continued talking to the men to flesh out their stories. The result is this narrative about one of the most decorated American battleships in World War II, as seen through the eyes of the young sailors who matured into men while manning this floating fortress. As Ramsey says in her introduction, “Sailors know the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story. A fairy tale begins, ‘Once upon a time.’ A sea story starts simply, ‘Now, this is no bullshit.’ This book is a sea story.� In the early 1960s, Cindy Ramsey was one of thousands of children who raised money to save the battleship North Carolina and bring it to Wilmington, North Carolina. Though her family was poor, her father made sure she and her siblings had money to take to school to help save the ship from becoming scrap. Ramsey grew up in Pender County, north of where the battleship now rests. She graduated with a B.A. in English in 1999 and an M.F.A. in creative writing in 2006, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Ramsey began writing and editing the Pender Post in February 2002, then purchased the newspaper that fall. She sold the newspaper and moved to Columbus, North Carolina, in 2006. She is now retired from the state community college system.

Naval and Military Operations of Great Britain is the single most important contemporary account of the Royal Navy in the 18th century. Its six volumes present a new approach to naval strategy. Defeat in the American Revolutionary War called into question the assumptions of superiority upon which so much earlier commentary on naval affairs had been based. By addressing the specific causes of the disaster, the author, Robert Beatson (1742-1818), hoped to render both the navy and the nation wiser for the future. Lauded by key figures in the development of naval strategy, including John Laughton, Alfred T. Mahan, and Julian Corbett, this work remains fundamental to modern scholarship on the nature of British naval power and is an especially rich source of information on the British army's campaign in North America. This edition contains a substantial new introduction by leading naval scholar, Andrew Lambert (King's College London).

On the four sides of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, serried tablets display the names of 660 honoured commanders of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Most are those of generals and marshals of the French Army - but 26 are the names of admirals, commanders of the fleets of Republican and Napoleonic France. In Napoleon's Admirals, Richard Humble presents not only their individual stories, but an entirely new appraisal of the Anglo-French naval war of 1793-1814: the longest sea war in modern history, exploding many myths along the way. The aristocratic officers of the French Navy did not emigrate en masse when the Revolution came, leaving the Navy leaderless and doomed to repeated defeats at sea. Of the 26 'Admirals of the Arc,' 23 had learned their trade in the French royal and merchant navies of the Ancien Regime. Republican France could call on a wide range of seasoned combat veterans from the American Revolutionary War (1778-83), whose stories are a revelation in themselves. These former King's officers stayed, and loyally tried to serve their country as the Revolution pursued its wasteful and unpredictable course. Three of them paid for their loyalty under the guillotine. Contrary to popular British belief, the naval war did not end with Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in October 1805. Thanks to an energetic warship-building program, the French Navy recovered quickly from Trafalgar, and Napoleon's conquests created an ever-widening network of new French naval bases for the British Admiralty to cover. Collingwood, Nelson's deputy at Trafalgar, was still commanding in the Mediterranean four years later. The Admiralty had not dared to recall him and he died at sea, utterly exhausted, in March 1810. Four months later the French inflicted the greatest humiliation suffered by the Royal Navy in the entire naval war: the annihilation of an entire British frigate squadron in the battle of Grand-Port, Mauritius, in August 1810. In this account of the men who imposed such a strain on the world's greatest navy for 21 years, Richard Humble has provided a remarkable addition to the well-worn pages of conventional naval history.

The hard-hitting history of the Pacific War's 'forgotten battle' of Peleliu - a story of intelligence failings and impossible bravery. In late 1944, as a precursor to the invasion of the Philippines, U.S. military analysts decided to seize the small island of Peleliu to ensure that the Japanese airfield there could not threaten the invasion forces. This important new book explores the dramatic story of this 'forgotten' battle and the campaign's strategic failings. Bitter Peleliu reveals how U.S. intelligence officers failed to detect the complex network of caves, tunnels, and pillboxes hidden inside the island's coral ridges. More importantly, they did not discern - nor could they before it happened - that the defense of Peleliu would represent a tectonic shift in Japanese strategy. No more contested enemy landings at the water's edge, no more wild banzai attacks. Now, invaders would be raked on the beaches by mortar and artillery fire. Then, as the enemy penetrated deeper into the Japanese defensive systems, he would find himself on ground carefully prepared for the purpose of killing as many Americans as possible. For the battle-hardened 1st Marine Division Peleliu was a hornets' nest like no other. Yet thanks to pre-invasion over-confidence on the part of commanders, 30 of the 36 news correspondents accredited for the campaign had left prior to D-Day. Bitter Peleliu reveals the full horror of this 74-day battle, a battle that thanks to the reduced media presence has never garnered the type of attention it deserves. Pacific War historian Joseph Wheelan dissects the American intelligence and strategic failings, analyses the shift in Japanese tactics, and recreates the Marines' horrific experiences on the worst of the Pacific battlegrounds. This book is a brilliant, compelling read on a forgotten battle.

The ShipCraft series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sister-ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic gallery of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. This volume covers the large and powerful German destroyers of the Second World War era. Always popular as modelling subjects, interest in them has been further increased recently by the release of a number of very fine large scale kits. With its unparalleled level of visual information paint schemes, models, line drawings and photographs this book is simply the best reference for any modelmaker setting out to build one of these unusual ships.