Originally published in 1936, this is a wonderful, autobiographical account of a life of adventure on the high seas. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include: Pennsylvania Dutch - Shipwreck And A Haunted Ship - Shanghaied On The "Patagonia" - I Meet Sir Godfrey - Strange Happenings On The "Arethusa" - The Mandalay Caf - "Abandon Ship" - I Meet Joseph Conrad - Adventurer With A Cobra - I Come To The River Of Darkness - "Lord Jim" Takes A Wife - Strange Experiences Ashore And At Sea - The Great Samoan Hurricane - I Meet Robert Louis Stephenson - The Virgin of Barratonga - The Twin Pearls of Morea - Johnny The Lamb - Gunrunners, Cannibals, And Pirates - Holiday At Savaii - I Marry Elsie - Halfway Round The World - From Tigers To Sheep - The Boer War - I Meet Queen Victoria - Mutiny and Mystery - Tragedy of the Coolies - Escape From Port Arthur - Enough For The Present

Originally published in 1927, this is a detailed biography of the famous sea-faring man. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include The Age of Adventure Smith goes Abroad Travels Across Europe In Single Combat The Wandering Warrior Slave of Slaves The Colonial Idea The Voyage Out The Founding of Jamestown Relations With The Indians Organization and Administration Exploring Virginia Problems of Pioneering The Corn Supply Dangers and Adversities The End of Endeavour At Sea again Smith comes Ashore Appendix Bibliography Index

U.S. and British naval power developed in quite different ways in the early 20th century before the Second World War. This study compares, contrasts, and evaluates both British and American naval power as well as the politics that led to the development of each. Naval power was the single greatest manifestation of national power for both countries. Their armies were small and their air forces only existed for part of the period covered. For Great Britain, naval power was vital to her very existence, and for the U.S., naval power was far and away the most effective tool the country could use to exercise armed influence around the world. Therefore, the decisions made about the relative strengths of the two navies were in many ways the most important strategic choices the British and American governments ever made. An important book for military historians and those interested in the exercise and the extension of power.

High Adventure on the China Seas
For readers who enjoy tales of naval adventure in non-fiction or fiction this book will not disappoint. The British author managed to squander his substantial inheritance in 4 years and turned to life as a merchant seamen in the latter part of 19th century. Eventually he found himself aboard an American screw steamer, captained by a 'devil-may-care' gun-runner, bound for Imperial China with a hidden cargo of arms in a desperate attempt to break through the blockade of the Japanese navy as the Sino-Japanese War raged through the East. Predictably matters went wrong immediately and he and his comrades were running for their lives as a cruiser's shells crashed into their vessel. The epic sea conflict, the Battle of Yalu followed and in Port Arthur James Allen was accidentally left ashore as the Japanese forces took the city by storm and he had to run once again and fight for his life with bayonet and axe among the alleys and burning houses of the city to avoid the massacre of the population that followed. A thrilling race to safety brought more dangers on board a floating hulk and a Chinese junk before his eventual rescue. This is an astonishing true story-the very foundation for exactly the kind of fictional adventure that was so popular in the early twentieth century and formed the characters of many of the most well known heroes of that time. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket for collectors.

Chester Nimitz was an admiral's Admiral, considered by many to be the greatest naval leader of the last century. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz assembled the forces, selected the leaders, and - as commander of all U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean - led the charge one island at a time, one battle at a time, toward victory. A brilliant strategist, he astounded contemporaries by achieving military victories against fantastic odds, outpacing more flamboyant luminaries like General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral "Bull" Halsey. And he was there to accept, on behalf of the United States, the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship USS Missouri in August 1945. In this first biography in over three decades, Brayton Harris uses long-overlooked files and recently declassified documents to bring to life one of America's greatest wartime heroes.

Volume one of a classic seafaring memoir
George Coggeshall's name is a renowned one among American merchant seafaring men of the early nineteenth century. His writings on his own experiences and his history of the American Privateers are considered classics of the genre. In this, the first volume of Coggeshall's voyages, we join the author at the age of just sixteen aboard the schooner 'Charlotte'. These lively memoirs recount voyages, incidents at sea, colourful personalities, interesting ports and destinations and of course the true heroines of the sea themselves including 'Industry', 'Leo', 'Sea Serpent', 'Nymph' and others. This book is a must for all captivated by sailors and ships from the time when the maritime highways of the world were the domain of majestic sail. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket for collectors.

While we know a great deal about naval strategies in the classical Greek and later Roman periods, our understanding of the period in between--the Hellenistic Age--has never been as complete. However, thanks to new physical evidence discovered in the past half-century and the construction of Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme) by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we now have new insights into the evolution of naval warfare following the death of Alexander the Great. In what has been described as an ancient naval arms race, the successors of Alexander produced the largest warships of antiquity, some as long as 400 feet carrying as many as 4000 rowers and 3000 marines. Vast, impressive, and elaborate, these warships "of larger form"--as described by Livy--were built not just to simply convey power but to secure specific strategic objectives. When these particular factors disappeared, this "Macedonian" model of naval power also faded away--that is, until Cleopatra and Mark Antony made one brief, extravagant attempt to reestablish it, an endeavor Octavian put an end to once and for all at the battle of Actium. Representing the fruits of more than thirty years of research, The Age of Titans provides the most vibrant account to date of Hellenistic naval warfare.

The German Navy - known as the Kriegsmarine - played a crucial role during World War II in disrupting Allied shipping, especially in the early years, when Britain stood alone against Nazi aggression following the fall of France. Broken down by campaign and key encounters within each theatre of war, German Kriegsmarine in World War II illustrates the strengths and organizational structures of the Third Reich's naval forces, building into a detailed compendium of information. Full-colour order of battle tree diagrams at fleet and flotilla level help the reader quickly understand how and where the ships and U-boats of the German Navy were employed at any given time between 1939 and 1945. Reference tables provide fleet strengths while organizational diagrams show the types and numbers of ships involved in specific operations, such as the U-Boat wolfpacks that hunted Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic and the invasion fleet used for the assault on Crete. With extensive organizational diagrams and full-colour operations maps, German Kriegsmarine in World War II is an easy-to-use guide to German naval forces. The book is an essential reference for anyone with a serious interest in the naval warfare of World War II.

These essays explore the link between the naval strength and global power of Great Britain and the United States from 1815 to the present. The British Way of Warfare assumed that the country with control of the sea could ensure safe and rapid communications for its commerce. The American theory of naval strategy, on the other hand, assumed that one had to engage the enemy in order to assure command of the sea. These case studies illustrate once again that naval history must include cultural, economic, political, and social contexts.

On July 4, 1991, the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers, the most powerful surface combatants in naval history, was commissioned. It was the culmination of a century-and-a-half evolution of the destroyer—an evolution captured in this vivid and timely history of the world's most popular warship. Destroyers: An Illustrated History of Their Impact tells the story of one of the most-recent, most-rapidly evolving additions to the world's navies. Coverage ranges from the 1882 launch of the first destroyer, through the nonstop technical and strategic innovations of the world war eras, to the current high watermarks of destroyer design such as the Arleigh Burke class (named for the navy's most-famous destroyer squadron combat commander). With its ship-by-ship analysis, this masterful volume shows how destroyers have continually met the challenge of protecting naval and land operations from ever more dangerous attacks. The book also captures the flavor of shipboard life for officers and crew and looks at the crucial role of the destroyer as a standard-bearing status symbol of naval might and political intention.

A respected writer of naval history, Long is most qualified to write this first biography of Mad Jack, an unusual and controversial figure in the early days of the U.S. Navy. Using family accounts and primary materials, Long recounts the 40-year naval career of this maverick naval officer and in doing so gives the low-down on how the Navy worked in its nascent years. Anyone interested in eighteenth and nineteenth century military history will find this engrossing reading.

This popularly written but scholarly study covers the unusual Navy captain, whose career spanned the globe. Long provides a chronological account of Captain Percival's early years; his command during the War of 1812; his administrative duties at the Boston Navy Yard; his trips to the Pacific; mutinies; an incident with missionaries in Hawaii and the subsequent trial; cruises to the Caribbean; South America; and the Mediterranean; a trek around the world in the mid-1840s; his retirement; and his final years. Extensive notes and a bibliographical essay guide the reader to other important sources for those studying the period. Numerous maps are also provided.

The Careers of Six Famous Royal Navy officers
The age of sail-particularly as it related to the Royal Navy-has, perhaps been justifiably, dominated by the great Nelson. His victory at Trafalgar meant that Britannia effectively did rule the waves and the threat of British sea power meant that the Royal Navy did not have to fight a major battle for a hundred years whilst the British Empire prospered. The often quoted and lauded 'Nelson Tradition, ' all but implies he originated it. In fact Nelson was part of an established tradition of great British seamanship that began before him, accompanied and supported him and survived his immediate passing. This book outlines the lives of some of the finest and most successful of those men-all famous in their own right and all remarkable despite their eclipse by the master, Nelson himself. The sea battles of Hawke, Jervis, Howe, Saumarez, Rodney and Pellew are expertly described here by Mahan-one of the finest historians of this subject-making it an essential read for all those interested in the exploits of the Royal Navy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This is the story of a man and a Navy--Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki and the Imperial Japanese Navy. By 1945 the Imperial Navy was physically destroyed and Admiral Ugaki was given the task of defending the Japanese homeland against attack, and he sent hundreds of kamikazes against the American naval forces operating around Okinawa. After Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on August 15, Ugaki stripped off his insignia of rank, climbed into a torpedo bomber, and flew to Okinawa, where he intended to crash into an American ship. But like so many of the other kamikazes, his mission was fruitless, his plane was shot down by American nightfighters. But Admiral Ugaki died, as he has promised to do, in the fashion of the thousands of young men he had sent to their deaths. Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki was the only high official of the Imperial Japanese Navy to have left a significant record, in the form of a diary started during the preparations for the China Incident, and kept throughout the war--from the planning phase of 1940, through the Pearl Harbor attack, and up until Japan's surrender. Hoyt draws on the diary and numerous other accounts by admirals and historians to create a picture of a Japanese Navy that began in a position of strength but was eventually destroyed by powerful Allied forces, shattering Japan's drive for conquest.

From riverine operations in the American Civil War and China in the 1860s to the major fleet engagements of the World Wars, plus more recent naval actions in the Falklands/Malvenas War and Gulf War, Lindberg and Todd methodically show how geography has shaped the strategy, tactics, and tools of naval warfare. Alfred T. Mahan was perhaps the first naval professional to recognize and acknowledge fully the influence of geography on navies and naval warfare. Many of his principles of seapower were inherently geographical and influenced both what kind of naval force a state would possess and how it would be utilized. In the time that has passed since Mahan made his observations, naval warfare and navies have experienced major technological changes, yet geographical factors continue to exert their influence on how navies fight, how they are structured, and the design of the ships that they deploy.

After providing a comprehensive review of geostrategic theory and its application to naval warfare, the book is organized by major operational environments in which such warfare occurs--the high seas, littoral regions, and inland waterways. Lindberg and Todd illustrate how such geographical factors as distance, location, surface, and subsurface conditions influence naval operations, including fleet-to-fleet engagements, amphibious assault, coastal defense, logistical support, and riverine actions. A separate chapter takes an in-depth look at the ways in which geography influences navies themselves with issues such as primary mission type, force structure development, and ship design. Through the use of historical case studies, this volume applies long held geographical concepts to fundamental naval theories and practices to illustrate just how pervasive geography's influence has been during the past 140 years.

William S. Dudley, Editor, Michael J. Crawford, Associate Editor. Provides a detailed chronology of events leading to and various battles during the War of 1812. Introductory material describes the early development of the American Navy from 1775 through 1811. The chapters that follow include battle by battle descriptions of the war in the Atlantic, the Northern Lakes (Great Lakes), and the Gulf Coast. The document concludes with the USS Constitution's victory over the HMS Java on Dec. 29, 1812. This is a superior quality reprint of this volume originally published in 1985 by the Navy Historical Center, U.S. Department of the Navy.

In Post-war Japan as a Sea Power, Alessio Patalano incorporates new, exclusive source material to develop an innovative approach to the study of post-war Japan as a military power. This archival-based history of Asia's most advanced navy, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF), looks beyond the traditional perspective of viewing the modern Japanese military in light of the country's alliance with the US. The book places the institution in a historical context, analysing its imperial legacy and the role of Japan's shattering defeat in WWII in the post-war emergence of Japan as East Asia's 'sea power'.

An omnibus edition of two collections of deeply eccentric autobiographical essays by Lord Fisher, the father of the Dreadnought and of the battle cruiser.

From the preface to the first volume, Memories:

Readers of this book will quickly observe that Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher has small faith in the printed word; and those who have enjoyed the privilege of having " his fist shaken in their faces" will readily admit that the printed word, though faithfully taken down from his dictation, must lack a large measure of the power-the " aroma," as he calls it-which his personality lends to his spoken word.

Had Lord Fisher been allowed his own way, there would have been no Book. Not for the first time in his career, the need of serving his country and his country's Navy has over-ridden his personal feeling. These "Memories," therefore, must be regarded as a compromise ("the beastliest word in the English language"-see "The Times" of September gth, 1919) between the No-Book of Lord Fisher's inclination and the orderly, complete Autobiography which the public wishes to possess.

The book consists in the main of the author's ipsissima verba, dictated during the month of September, 1919. One or two chapters have been put together from fugitive writings which Lord Fisher had collected and printed (in noble and eloquently various type) as a gift to his friends after his death. The discreeter passages of the letters which he wrote to Lord Esher between 1903 and 1912 illustrate some portions of the life's work which-caring little for the past and much for the future, much for the idea and little for the fact-Lord Fisher has successfully declined to describe in his own words.

They were the deadliest ships of World War II--nine German commerce raiders disguised as peaceful cargo ships, flying the flags of neutral and allied nations. In reality, these heavily armed warships roamed the world's oceans at will, like 20th-century pirates. They struck unsuspecting freighters and tankers out of the darkness of night or from behind a curtain of fog and mist. For almost three years they led the Royal Navy on a deadly chase from sea to sea, seeding Allied ports with hundreds of mines and, on one occasion, even bombarding a shore installation.

Masquerading as unarmed merchantmen, the raiders carried an awesome array of weapons cleverly hidden behind false structures and concealed inside empty packing crates on their decks. Seaplanes and motorboats helped them seek out their victims on the vast seas. They then fed off of these unsuspecting targets, pumping fuel from their prey into their own tanks and taking food from captured pantries to feed their own crews and the thousands of prisoners that they picked up along the way. These secret ships also acted as supply ships for U-boats, helping their fellow hunters remain at large for longer periods. At sea for months--or even years--those raider sailors lucky enough to survive were hailed as heroes when they returned home.

This book presents the most accurate picture of the United States Marine Corps at the onset of the American Civil War and describes the actions of the Marines at the Battle of First Manassas, or as the Union called it, Bull Run. To tell the story of the actions of the U.S. Marines in the Manassas Campaign, distinguished Marine Corps historians Bruce H. Norton and Phillip Gibbons begin with Marine actions in October 1859 at Harpers Ferry, where they were instrumental in suppressing John Brown's raid on the town's Federal Armory and attempted slave insurrection. The Marines were the only professional fighting force that could respond immediately when the call for assistance came to retake the Armory, which Brown's men had seized. The Marines were led by highly professional and well-trained officers and non-commissioned officers who represented a decades-old standard of excellence well established by the eve of the Civil War. The book then discusses Marine actions at the Battle of First Manassas, the Civil War's first battle, on July 21, 1861, a story that has never been adequately or accurately told. In both engagements, the Marines proved that they were "at all times ready," as the Corps remains to this very day.