The Turtle and the Dreamboat is the first detailed account of the race for long-distance flight records between the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy less than fourteen months after World War II. The flights were risky and unprecedented. Each service intended to demonstrate its offensive capabilities during the new nuclear age, a time when America was realigning its military structure and preparing to create a new armed service - the United States Air Force. The first week of October 1946 saw the conclusion of both record-breaking, nonstop flights by the military fliers. The first aircraft, a two-engine U.S. Navy P2V Neptune patrol plane nicknamed the Truculent Turtle, flew more than eleven thousand miles from Perth, Western Australia, to Columbus, Ohio. The Turtle carried four war-honed pilots and a young kangaroo as a passenger. The second plane, a four-engine U.S. Army B-29 Superfortress bomber dubbed the Pacusan Dreamboat, flew nearly ten thousand miles from Honolulu to Cairo via the Arctic. Although presented as a friendly rivalry, the two flights were anything but collegial. These military missions were meant to capture public opinion and establish aviation leadership within the coming Department of Defense. Both audacious flights above oceans, deserts, mountains, and icecaps helped to shape the future of worldwide commercial aviation, greatly reducing the length and costs of international routes. Jim Leeke provides an account of the remarkable and record-breaking flights that forever changed aviation.

Admiral Andrew Cunningham, best remembered for his courageous leadership in the Mediterranean in the Second World War, is often rated as our finest naval commander after Nelson, and indeed a bust of the Admiral was unveiled in Trafalgar Square close by his predecessor in 1967 by the Duke of Edinburgh. It was during the dark days of 1940 41, after the surrender of France and Italy's entry into the War and when Britain was fighting single-handed, that Cunningham held the Eastern Mediterranean with a fleet greatly inferior to the Italian; his lack of ships and aircraft was more than made up for by his bold and vigorous command. Taranto, Matapan, Crete, North Africa -these are the critical battles and regions with which he is so closely associated. _A Sailor's Odyssey_ is the stirring autobiography of this great fighting seaman from his boyhood in Dublin and his early career in the Navy and his service in the First World War, through his commands in the inter-war years, to the great sea battles in the Mediterranean, and then his elevation to First Sea Lord in 1943 and his subsequent responsibility for the operational policy of the Royal Navy during the later stages of the War. He attended the conferences at Casablanca, Teheran, Quebec and Yalta, and gives revealing glimpses of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. His was, truly, a remarkable career. This is a beautifully written and absorbing naval memoir, and it made a significant contribution to the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War when it was first published in 1951; this new paperback edition, with an introduction by his great nephew Admiral Jock Slater, will fascinate and delight a new generation of readers and bring into focus again a great British fighting admiral.

A familiar sight on the Thames at London Bridge, HMS Belfast is a Royal Navy light cruiser, launched in March 1938. Belfast was part of the British naval blockade against Germany and from November 1942 escorted Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union and assisted in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944 Belfast supported the Normandy landings and in 1945 was redeployed to the British Pacific Fleet. After the war she saw action in the Korean War and a number of other overseas actions. She has been part of the Imperial War Museum since 1978, with 250,000 visitors annually.

This fascinating book comprises a series of documents that give information on the building of the ship, her wartime service history and life on board.

"I am just one of many who experienced life on a submarine during World War II. Silent Running is a story sincerely told—free of any revisionism or cynicism—and I commend Vice Admiral Calvert for sharing this dramatic personal account of that difficult and exciting time." —President George Bush

"Hardened old sub vet that I am, I still felt the need for two weeks R&R after reliving Jim's only too realistic war patrolling adventures." —C. W. Nimitz, Jr., Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.)

"I believe it is the best personal account yet written on U.S. submarine operations in the Second World War. [Calvert] writes with lucidity and a rare candor. We get an extraordinary sense of what it was like, feeling the tensions and emotions, sharing the successes and disappointments, ... This is a true story with teal people, always gripping and sometimes tender. It is exciting to read and hard to put down. —J. L. Holloway, Admiral, USN (Ret.) President, Naval Historical Society, Chief of Naval Operations, 1974-1978.

"I knew Jim Calvert Throughout the war, and in this book he has told the submarine story in a way that catches the flavor and tang of the real thing. This is the way it really was." —Frederick B. Warder, Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.) Legendary W.W. II skipper of the Seawolf.

The launch in 1906 of HMS _Dreadnought_, the worlds first all-big-gun battleship, rendered all existing battle fleets obsolete, but at the same time it wiped out the Royal Navy's numerical advantage, so expensively maintained for decades. Already locked in an arms race with Germany, Britain urgently needed to build an entirely new battle fleet of these larger, more complex and more costly vessels. In this she succeeded spectacularly: in little over a decade fifty such ships were completed, almost exactly double what Germany achieved. It was only made possible by the country's vast industrial nexus of shipbuilders, engine manufacturers, armament firms and specialist armour producers, whose contribution to the creation of the Grand Fleet is too often ignored. This heroic achievement, and how it was done, is the central theme of this book. It charts the rise of the large industrial conglomerates that were key to this success, looks at their reaction to fast-moving technical changes, and analyses the politics of funding this vast national effort, both before and during the Great War. It also attempts to assess the true cost and value of the Grand Fleet in terms of the resources consumed. And finally, it describes the effects of the post-war recession, industrial contraction, and the very different conditions that influenced the last generation of British battleships built before and during the Second World War.

Four years ago the Second Sea Lord of the Royal Navy asked Andrew St George to spend time with every level of the Navy staff, from junior sailors in the engine room of an aircraft carrier, to handlers of landing craft, through to Royal Marines, ships' commanders, and Royal Navy staff right up to Navy Board and Cabinet level, with the aim of creating a book which distils the leadership culture of perhaps the most highly respected and efficient organization in the world. This book charts that journey - representing the largest piece of research on Royal Navy leadership ever done - and it is the current state of the art leadership framework for the Navy. St George writes about how to plan and execute, how to exercise judgment and how to motivate people. Everything in the book is here because it works, tested over thousands of hours of hard training, rigorous assessment and absolute measurement. The book's messages are deceptively simple. In order to succeed we must have: the clarity of intent; the strategy; the resources; a contingency plan; an emotional investment. These tenets stand in all walks of business and personal life. The Royal Navy's way of getting things done depends on soft skills, high emotional intelligence and an understanding of how people work in small teams.This book (15,000 copies) will be issued to every Royal Navy officer and Senior Rate (middle manager) in the Service. The book's insights are profound and their applications are wide-ranging: for industry, for finance, for professional services, for commerce, for academia and for the public sector these methods of planning, executing and inspiring make a tried, tested and effective way of leadership.

On December 7, 1941, even as Japanese carrier-launched aircraft flew toward Pearl Harbor, a small American cargo ship chartered by the Army reported that it was under attack from a submarine halfway between Seattle and Honolulu. After that one cryptic message, the humble lumber carrier Cynthia Olson and her crew vanished without a trace, sparking one of the most enduring nautical mysteries of the war. What happened to the ill-fated ship? What happened to her crew? And was she Japan's first American victim of the Pacific War? Based on years of research, Dawn of Infamy explores both the military and human aspects of the Cynthia Olson story, bringing to life a complex tale of courage, tenacity, hubris, and arrogance in the opening hours of America's war in the Pacific.

Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War the details of Soviet ships, their activities and fates remain an enigma to the West. In wartime such information was classified and after a brief period of glasnost ( openness') the Russian state has again restricted access to historical archives. Therefore, the value - and originality - of this work is difficult to exaggerate. It sees the first publication of reliable data on both the seagoing fleets and riverine flotillas of the Soviet Navy, listing over 6200 vessels from battleships to river gunboats, and mercantile conversions as well as purpose-built warships. Divided into three volumes, this first covers major surface warships down to MTBs and armoured gunboats, as well as submarines. For every class there is a design history analysing strategic, tactical and technical considerations, and individual ship detail includes construction yard, key building dates, commissioning, fleet designations, relocations and ultimate fate. Once a closely guarded secret, the wartime loss of every ship and boat (over 1000) is described. Furthermore, the confusion caused by frequent name changes is clarified by indexes that run to 16,000 items. By following the ships through both their wartime and earlier history, the book reveals many aspects of Russian history that remain highly sensitive: clandestine co-operation with Weimar Germany and fascist Italy, the NKVD-enforced closure of Soviet borders, the Gulag Fleet', the faked Metallist sinking that excused the military occupation of Estonia, and the ill-conceived pact with Nazi Germany. Restrictions recently imposed on historical publications in Russia mean this book could certainly not have been published there - as proven by the fact that most of the authors' Russian collaborators preferred not to disclose their identities. This is undoubtedly one of the most important naval reference works of recent years and will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in warships, the Soviet Navy or wider maritime aspects of the Second World War.

In recent times, international society has countered a myriad of 'outlaw' threats at sea, including piracy, terrorism, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the threat posed by 'rogue states'. Whilst the US has promoted 'coalitions of the willing' and sought to transform international maritime law in response to these 'outlaws', Japanese governments have developed an innovative maritime security strategy centering on the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). Concerned by Japan's international image as a former imperialist power, Tokyo has relied upon the identity of the JCG as a law enforcement and rescue organization to garner support for its maritime security strategy. Japan's non-military efforts have developed the capacities of states and built institutions in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. The JCG's response to maritime 'outlaws' belies characterizations of Japan as a passive state that does not contribute to international order.

Now available in paperback, False Flags tells the epic untold story of German raider voyages to the South Seas during the early years of World War II. In 1940 the raiders Orion, Komet, Pinguin, and Kormoran left Germany and waged a "pirate war" in the South Seas as part of Germany's strategy to attack the British Empire's maritime trade on a global scale. Their extraordinary voyages spanned the globe and are maritime sagas in the finest tradition of seafaring. The four raiders voyaged across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Arctic and Antarctic. They sank or captured 62 ships in a forgotten naval war that is now being told in its entirety for the first time. The Orion and Komet terrorised the South Pacific and New Zealand waters before Pearl Harbor when the war was supposed to be far away. The Pinguin sank numerous Allied merchant ships in the Indian Ocean before mining the approaches to Australian ports and capturing the Norwegian whaling fleet in Antarctica. The Kormoran raided the Atlantic but will always be remembered for sinking the Australian cruiser Sydney off Western Australia, killing all 645 sailors on board in tragic circumstances. False Flags is also the story of the Allied sailors who encountered these raiders and fought suicidal battles against a superior foe as well as the men, women and children who endured captivity on board the raiders as prisoners of the Third Reich. False Flags is an engrossing tale that will appeal to not only military experts, but also to anyone interested in Maritime History.

From muddy creek to naval-industrial powerhouse; from constructing wooden walls to building Dreadnoughts; from maintaining King John's galleys to servicing the enormous new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers: this is the story of Portsmouth Dockyard. Respected maritime historian Paul Brown's unique 800-year history of what was once the largest industrial organisation in the world is a combination of extensive original research and stunning images. The most comprehensive history of the dockyard to date, it is sure to become the definitive work on this important heritage site and modern naval base.

This book foregrounds the role of the Royal Navy in creating the British Atlantic in the eighteenth century. It outlines the closely entwined connections between the nurturing of naval supremacy, the politics of commercial protection, and the development of national and imperial identities - crucial factors in the consolidation and transformation of the British Atlantic empire. The collection brings together scholars working on aspects of the Royal Navy and the British Atlantic in order to gain a better understanding of the ways that the Navy protected, facilitated, and shaped the British-Atlantic empire in the era of war, revolution, counter-revolution, and upheaval between the beginning of the Seven Years War and the end of the conflict with Napoleonic France. Contributions question the limits - conceptually and geographically - of that Atlantic world, suggesting that, by considering the Royal Navy and the British Atlantic together, we can gain greater insights into Britain's maritime history.

The Battle of Tsushima, the epic battle between the Japanese and Russian navies on May 27-28 1905, is examined in far greater detail than ever before. Making extensive use of official records, personal accounts and a wealth of untouched information on the Russian Navy's activities, this battle, little known about by a general readership, is brought vividly to life. Also the immense coaling operation, with the names of all the colliers, is described in very informative and sometimes amusing detail. The later stages of the battle, its details often described as lost in the 'fog of battle', are clearly portrayed, as is the chaotic, high-speed night action when numerous Japanese destroyer and torpedo-boat flotillas terrorised the Russian seamen. Exhaustive examination of Japanese flotilla records has made it possible to reproduce an exciting and very informative account, placing the reader on board the attacking vessels, suffering collisions and gunfire as they career in and around the Russian battle line, while the human side of both participants brings into sharp focus the horrors of war. Tsushima was not only the culmination and climax of the pre-Dreadnought era; it was the most decisive naval battle ever fought. Other battles are more well known, but they did not achieve such a result, neither in their decisiveness nor in bringing the war in which they were fought to a conclusion.

One of the greatest and most terrible years in world history.'This war has now assumed the character', wrote Benito Mussolini, before 1941 was six months old, 'of a war between two worlds', and the Italian dictator had rarely predicted more truly. Before the year had ended, following Hitler's surprise assault on Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, thirty-seven nations were engaged in an all-out war reminiscent of Armageddon, 'the battle of that great day of God Almighty'. Richard Collier's latest narrative spans both this entire, devastating year, as well as the events that led up to it. From the hunting of the Bismarck through the North Atlantic to the triumphs of Rommel's Afrika Korps, from the horror and heroism of besieged Leningrad to the debacles of Hong Kong, Malaya and the Far East, this is a panorama of truly world-wide proportions. An unputdownable narrative of the most extraordinary year in world history, perfect for readers of Max Hastings, James Holland and Antony Beevor.

...It is remarkable that one man should have been involved in so much action in so few years...I commend his biography to the reader: ...by any standard he was a hero, and he tells his life's story with modesty and humour. Extract from the Foreword by Admiral Lord Boyce Captain Mervyn Wingfield was one of the last of his generation of submariners who made their reputation in the Second World War. Pre-war he had served on the China station and lived the riotous life of a young officer; in the war he commanded three submarines, Umpire, Sturgeon and Taurus, survived a collision in the North Sea, spent a winter in the Arctic, penetrated the Norwegian fjords submerged through a minefield, surfaced off St Nazaire in view of German guns to act as a navigation marker for the raiding force, fought cavalry in the northern Aegean, and later, off Penang, was the first British submariner to sink a Japanese submarine - and barely survived the subsequent, vicious counterattack after Taurus was severely damaged and became stuck in the mud at the bottom. Any one of these incidents would have merited a place for Wingfield in the history of naval warfare and the pantheon of submarine heroes. The Royal Navy's most senior submariner, Admiral Lord Boyce, notes in his Foreword that the diesel-powered submarines in which both men served were not so different, but the risks which Wingfield took in wartime were greater and Lord Boyce admired the way in which Wingfield led his crew and was loved by them. Many men were burned-out by the war, but in the postwar years Wingfield enjoyed a successful peacetime career in the Royal Navy where, finally, his personal qualities and his diplomacy were put to the test as a naval attache. In retirement Wingfield was well-known for hosting lively beef and Stilton lunches at the London Boat Show! He was also one of the last of the generations of Anglo-Irish families who served the Crown and provided officers and men for the Army and the Navy, and his story additionally gives some insights into his early days, especially with regard to being a young officer in the Royal Navy in the 1930s.

This is the first biography of Captain Robert Ryder V.C., Royal Navy (1908-1986), one of the greatest naval heroes of the Second World War. Ryder led the audacious raid on St Nazaire in March 1942 which completely destroyed the ports dry dock, depriving the Germans mighty pocket battleships of its use for the remainder of the war. The raid was one of the most brilliantly-executed combined operations of the war, much of the credit for which must go to Ryders outstanding planning and courageous leadership. He received one of five Victoria Crosses awarded for the operation. Although Ryders name will be forever linked with the raid on St Nazaire, the rest of his war service was no less distinguished. Torpedoed in a Q ship in 1940 he was rescued after clinging to a piece of wreckage for four days. After St Nazaire, he was heavily involved in the planning of combined operations and took part in the ill-fated raid on Dieppe. On D Day he lead a naval assault party in the first wave of the invasion. For the rest of the war Ryder commanded a destroyer on the Arctic convoys. Ryders naval career before the war was, as The Times put it on his death, unorthodox. In 1933-34 he, as captain, and four other young naval officers sailed the Tal-Mo-Shan, a 54 food ketch, from Hong Kong to England via the Panama Canal in a voyage lasting exactly a year, an outstanding achievement. Recently there has been press speculation that the voyage was a cover for naval espionage in Japanese waters. The Tal-Mo-Shan herself has now acquired international celebrity as a result of her sail-on part in the Abba film Mamma Mia. Between 1934 and 1937 Ryder served in the Antarctic as captain of the Penola, the base ship of the British Graham Lane Expedition. His formidable navigation and seamanship was largely responsible for the Penola, which was ill-adapted to polar conditions, surviving her ordeal intact. Ryder also took part in some of the earliest ocean yacht races, including the second Fastnet race in 1926.

While a large number of books have dealt with the navies and war at sea during the World Wars, the immediate aftermaths have generally received only minimal coverage. However, the fates of defeated navies are of enormous interest from a number of perspectives. These include the relative priorities of the victorious powers, acquisition and testing of ex-enemy materiel and the intended future capabilities of those ex-enemy navies that were to be allowed to continue to exist. This new book traces the histories of navies and ships of the defeated powers from the months leading up to the relevant armistices or surrenders through to the final execution of the appropriate post-war settlements. In doing so, it discusses the way in which the victorious powers reached their final demands, how these were implemented, and to what effect. The later histories of ships that saw subsequent service, either in their original navies or in those navies which acquired them, are also described. In doing this, much use is made of material drawn from archival, and in some cases archaeological, sources, some of which has never previously been used. Through these, a wide range of long-standing myths are busted, and some badly distorted modern views and assessments of events in the wake of the conflicts put right. The fascinating narrative will be accompanied by tabulated lists of all major navy-built (and certain significant ex-mercantile) enemy ships in commission at the relevant date of the armistice or surrender, or whose hulks were specifically listed for attention in post-Second World War allied agreements. These will include key dates in their careers and their ultimate fates. This highly original book, drawing on archaeological evidence as well as archival sources, and including numerous photographs will become an essential reference tool for all those interested in the naval history of the two World Wars.

The Command of the Ocean describes with unprecedented authority and scholarship the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government. It describes not just battles, voyages and cruises but how the Navy was manned, how it was supplied with timber, hemp and iron, how its men (and sometimes women) were fed, and above all how it was financed and directed. It was during the century and a half covered by this book that the successful organizing of these last three - victualling, money and management - took the Navy to the heart of the British state. It is the great achievement of the book to show how completely integrated and mutually dependent Britain and the Navy then became.

The new breed of American fast aircraft carriers could make thirty-three knots, and each carried almost 100 strike aircraft. Brought together as Task Force 58, also known as the Fast Carrier Task Force, this awesome armada at times comprised more than 100 ships carrying more than 100,000 men afloat. By 1945, more than 1,000-combat aircraft, fighters, dive- and torpedo-bombers could be launched in under an hour. The fast carriers were a revolution in naval warfare - it was a time when naval power moved away from the big guns of the battleship to air power projected at sea. Battleships were eventually subordinated to supporting and protecting the fast carriers, of which, at its peak, Task Force 58 had a total of seventeen. This book covers the birth of naval aviation, the appearance of the first modern carriers in the 1920s, through to the famous surprise six-carrier _Kid? Butai_ Japanese raid against Pearl Harbor on 8 December 1941 and then the early US successes of 1942 at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The fast carriers allowed America, in late 1942 and early 1943, to finally move from bitter defence against the Japanese expansionist onslaught, to mounting her own offensive to retake the Pacific. Task Force 58 swept west and north from the Solomon Islands to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, neutralising Truk in Micronesia, and Palau in the Caroline islands, before the vital Mariana Islands operations, the Battle of Saipan, the first battle of the Philippine Sea and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The strikes by Task Force 58 took Allied forces across the Pacific, to the controversial Battle of Leyte Gulf and to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Task Force 58 had opened the door to the Japanese home islands themselves - allowing US bombers to finally get close enough to launch the devastating nuclear bombing raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Task Force 58 participated in virtually all the US Navy's major battles in the Pacific theatre during the last two years of the war. Having spent many years investigating naval shipwrecks across the Pacific, many the result of the devastating effectiveness of Task Force 58, diver and shipwreck author Rod Macdonald has created the most detailed account to date of the fast carrier strike force, the force that brought Japan to its knees and brought the Second World War to its crashing conclusion.

Four pipes and flush decks - these ships were a distinctively American destroyer design. Devised immediately prior to and during the United States' involvement in World War I they dominated the US Navy's destroyer forces all the way through to World War II.

They were deployed on North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea convoys, and virtually everywhere in the Pacific, from Alaska to Australia. Fifty were given to Great Britain in its hour of need in 1940, and many would serve in other navies, fighting under the Soviet, Canadian, Norwegian, and even the Imperial Japanese flags. They also served in a variety of roles becoming seaplane tenders, high-speed transports, minesweepers and minelayers. One was even used as a self-propelled mine during Operation Chariot, destroying the dry dock at St. Nazaire.

Fully illustrated throughout with commissioned artwork and contemporary photographs, this volume reveals the operational history of these US Navy ships that fought with distinction in both World Wars.

The final months of Allied naval bombardments on the Home Islands during World War II have, for whatever reason, frequently been overlooked by historians. Yet the Allies' final naval campaign against Japan involved the largest and arguably most successful wartime naval fleet ever assembled, and was the climax to the greatest naval war in history. Though suffering grievous losses during its early attacks, by July 1945 the United States Third Fleet wielded 1,400 aircraft just off the coast of Japan, while Task Force 37, the British Pacific Fleet's carrier and battleship striking force, was the most powerful single formation ever assembled by the Royal Navy. In the final months of the war the Third Fleet's 20 American and British aircraft carriers would hurl over 10,000 aerial sorties against the Home Islands, whilst another ten Allied battleships would inflict numerous morale-destroying shellings on Japanese coastal cities. In this illustrated study, historian Brian Lane Herder draws on primary sources and expert analysis to chronicle the full story of the Allies' Navy Siege of Japan from February 1945 to the very last days of World War II.