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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Naval forces & warfare
In late 1942, Britain was desperate to win the ongoing Battle of
the Atlantic. German U-boats had sunk hundreds of Allied ships
containing millions of tons of cargo that was needed to continue
the war effort. Prime Minister Churchill had to find a solution to
the carnage or the Nazis would be victorious. With the support of
Churchill and Lord Louis Mountbatten, eccentric inventor and
amateur spy Geoffrey Pyke proposed a dramatic project to build
invincible ships of ice - massive, unsinkable aircraft carriers
that would roam the mid-Atlantic servicing fighter planes and
bombers on missions to protect shipping from predatory U-boat wolf
packs. This is the fascinating story of the rise and fall of
Project Habbakuk and how an outlandish inventor, the British Navy,
the National Research Council of Canada and a workforce of
conscientious objectors tested the bizarre concept in the Canadian
Rocky Mountains, far from the theatre of war.
Original designed in 1934 for anti-submarine training, by the end
of the war seventy-two U-Class subs had been commissioned.
Seventeen were lost to the enemy and three in accidents. Manned by
crews from seven nations' navies, they served world-wide and never
more successfully than in the Med, where they made a major
contribution to the defeat of Rommel's Afrika Corps. The quality of
their service is born out by the 375 gallantry medals awarded to
crewmen including Lt Cdr David Wanklyn's VC.
The Royal Navy's dramatic race to save the crew of a trapped
Russian submarine. 5 August 2005. On a secret mission to an
underwater military installation 30 miles off the coast of
Kamchatka, Russian Navy submersible AS-28 ran into a web of cables
and stuck fast. With 600 feet of freezing water above them, there
was no escape for the seven crew. Trapped in a titanium tomb, all
they could do was wait as their air supply slowly dwindled. For
more than 24 hours the Russian Navy tried to reach them. Finally -
still haunted by the loss of the nuclear submarine Kursk five years
before - they requested international assistance. On the other side
of the world Commander Ian Riches, leader of the Royal Navy's
Submarine Rescue Service, got the call: there was a sub down. With
the expertise and specialist equipment available to him Riches knew
his team had a chance to save the men, but Kamchatka was at the
very limit of their range and time was running out. As the Royal
Navy prepared to deploy to Russia's Pacific coast aboard a giant
Royal Air Force C-17 airlifter, rescue teams from the United States
and Japan also scrambled to reach the area. On board AS-28 the
Russian crew shut down all non-essential systems, climbed into
thick thermal suits to keep the bone-chilling damp at bay and
waited, desperate to eke out the stale, thin air inside the
pressure hull of their craft. But as the first of them began to
drift in and out of consciousness, they knew the end was close.
They started writing their farewells. 72 HOURS tells the
extraordinary, edge-of-the-seat and real-life story of one of the
most dramatic rescue missions of recent years.
This is an important study of the new types of warships which
evolved in the navies of the Mediterranean in the 4th and 3rd
centuries BC, and of their use by Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans in
the fleets and naval battles in the second and first centuries,
culminating in the Battle of Aktion. The book includes a catalogue
and discussion of the iconography of the ships with over fifty
illustrations from coins, sculptures and other objects. John Coates
discusses reconstructions, crews, ships and tactics illuminated by
the recent experiments with the reconstructed trireme Olympias .
Complete with gazetteer, glossary, bibliography and indexes.
As a linguist with the U.S. Navy Fleet Support Detachment in Da
Nang, Herb Shippey was assigned to air reconnaissance during the
Vietnam War. Flying with fellow "spooks" over the Gulf of Tonkin
and Laos, his duty was to protect American aircraft and ships
threatened by MiG 21 fighter jet activity. Shippey's introspective
memoir recounts dangerous missions aboard non-combat aircraft
(EC-121 Warning Star, P-3 Orion, A-3 Sky Warrior), rocket attacks
and typhoons, and the details of his service, some of them
classified for forty years.
'Compelling' Sunday Times 'A triumph' Daily Mirror 'Gripping'
Jonathan Dimbleby 1941. The Battle of the Atlantic is a disaster.
Thousands of supply ships ferrying vital food and fuel from North
America to Britain are being torpedoed by German U-boats. Britain
is only weeks away from starvation - and with that, crushing
defeat. In the first week of 1942 a group of unlikely heroes - a
retired naval captain and a clutch of brilliant young women -
gather to form a secret strategy unit. On the top floor of a
bomb-bruised HQ in Liverpool, the Western Approaches Tactical Unit
spends days and nights designing and playing wargames in an effort
to crack the U-boat tactics. As the U-boat wolfpacks continue to
prey upon the supply ships, the Wrens race against time to save
Britain. With novelistic flair, investigative journalist Simon
Parkin shines a light on Operation Raspberry and these unsung
heroines in this riveting true story of war at sea. 'History
writing at its best' Booklist 'Splendid . . . Simon Parkin's book
rips along at full sail and is full of personality and
personalities' Sunday Express 'Vivid, engaging' New Yorker
This was the signal that Admiral Donitz sent to the commanders of
the 21 U-boats of the Markgraf wolf-pack on 9 September 1941 just
before the US entered the war. Sixty-three merchant ships; a number
old and dilapidated and all slow and heavy-laden with vital
supplies from the United States for the United Kingdom, were strung
out in 12 columns abreast, covering 25 miles of inhospitable ocean.
They set sail from Nova Scotia at a time when the German U-boats
were sinking more than one hundred ships a month and the US Navy
could do nothing but stand-by and watch (at least officially). The
convoy's escort of one destroyer and three corvettes of the Royal
Canadian Navy, all untried in combat, was hopelessly outclassed
when the battle for SC42 commenced. The battle lasted for seven
days and covered 1,200 miles of ocean. First hand accounts by
participants on both sides add interest and drama. The true story
of U-571.
Called by some a "Mediterranean Jutland," the Battle of the
Otranto Straits involved warships from Austria, Germany, Italy,
Britain, and France. Although fought by light units with no
dreadnoughts involved, Otranto was a battle in three dimensions
engaging surface vessels, aircraft, and subsurface weapons (both
submarines and mines). An attempt to halt the movement of
submarines into the Adriatic using British drifters armed with nets
and mines led to a raid by Austrian light cruisers. The Austrians
inflicted heavy damage on the drifters, but Allied naval forces
based at Brindisi cut off their withdrawal. The daylight hours saw
a running battle, with the Austrians at considerable risk. Heavier
Austrian units put out from Cattaro in support, and at the
climactic moment the Allied light forces had to turn away,
permitting the Austrians to escape. In the end, the Austrians had
inflicted more damage than they suffered themselves. The Otranto
action shows the difficulties of waging coalition warfare in which
diplomatic and national jealousies override military
efficiency."
The rise of Adolf Hitler, America's Great Depression in the
heartland, the bombing of Pearl Harbour, American life following
World War II, the Korean War, America's development of atomic
weapons in the Cold War age, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban
Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Mariel boatlift. Captain
Allen Brady not only witnessed all of these events but actually
participated in them, in many instances as a US Naval Aviator. So
many Americans and global citizens alike are not even aware of the
importance of these pivotal moments; as generations age and pass
on, without important accounts like this one, much is forgotten.
More than just a memoir, Brady's book is an important document from
one of the last of his generation, reminding us of the pivotal
moments that should not be lost to history. Witnessing the American
Century is Captain Brady's firsthand account of his incredible
life, and his memories elucidate America's role in the most
significant world events from the previous century.
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