Des Curtis was one of the founder members of 618 Squadron. Formed within days of the illustrious 617, 618's primary objective was to mount a daylight low-level attack by Mosquitos on the German battleship Tirpitz within hours of the attack on the Ruhr dams. The operation, code named Operation Servant, was given top security classification, to the point where the subject was excluded from the minutes of the meetings of the Chiefs of Staff of the air and naval forces. The author reveals the dilemmas and conflicting priorities existing to the highest levels, setting out in detail the technicalities of developing the 'bouncing bomb'. He also writes first hand about the tactical problems of getting to and from the target; and the tensions and strains endured by the Mosquito crews themselves, as they took the war to the German U-Boats within the sight and safety of their bases.

REVIEWS

"A nicely compiled and presented title that puts the Mosquito into a new perspective and how its crews rose to the missions even when the mission seemed elusive."Cybermodeler.com, 04/2010

This book tells the story of an incredibly capable naval aircraft, based primarily on the words of those who flew and maintained it. Beginning with the Lynx's entry into service in 1976, it goes on to discuss its remarkable performance in the Falklands War. Here it was used in both its primary roles of anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, as well as several others for which it had never been designed, such as Airborne Early Warning and anti-Exocet missile counter measures. The Lynx has been continuously employed in the Gulf from 1980 until the present day. What is not generally known is the fact that these aircraft were responsible for effectively destroying the Iraqi navy, sinking over fifteen warships in a matter of a weeks. All related operational details are included here. Also included are accounts of operations conducted around the world, including anti-drug interdiction, Arctic deployments, Search and Rescue, hurricane relief, as well as a few notable mishaps. Also described is the development of the aircraft from the Mark 2 to the current Mark 8 (SRU), bringing the narrative fully up to date.Although only a snapshot, the stories narrated here offer the reader a real understanding of the capabilities of an aircraft with a truly remarkable history of service.

Naval warfare is the unsung hero of ancient Greek military history, often overshadowed by the more glorified land battles. Owen Rees looks to redress the balance, giving naval battles their due attention. This book presents a selection of thirteen naval battles that span a defining century in ancient Greek history, from the Ionian Revolt and Persian Invasion to the rise of external naval powers in the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Carthaginians. Each battle is set in context. The background, wider military campaigns, and the opposing forces are discussed, followed by a narrative and analysis of the fighting. Finally, the aftermath of the battles are dealt with, looking at the strategic implications of the outcome for both the victor and the defeated. The battle narratives are supported by maps and tactical diagrams, showing the deployment of the fleets and the wider geographical factors involved in battle. Written in an accessible tone, this book successfully shows that Greek naval warfare did not start and end at the battle of Salamis.

In the 1870s, to supplement their early steam engines, French warships were still rigged for sail. In the 1970s the Marine Nationale's ships at sea included aircraft carriers operating supersonic jets, and intercontinental ballistic missile submarines propelled by nuclear engines. Within this one hundred years, the Marine has played important roles in the acquisition of Asian and African colonial empires; until 1900 the lead role in a naval 'Cold War' against Great Britain; in 1904-1920 preparation, largely Mediterranean-based for, and participation in a Paris agenda in the First World War; a spectacular modernisation unfortunately incomplete in the inter-war years; division, tragic self-destruction and a rebirth in the Second World War; important roles in the two major decolonisation campaigns of Indochina and Algeria; and finally in the retention of major world power status with power-projection roles in the late 20th century, requiring a navy with both nuclear age and traditional amphibious operational capabilities. The enormous costs involved were to lead to reductions and a new naval relationship with Great Britain at the end of the 20th Century. These successive radical changes were set against political dispute, turmoil and in the years 1940 to 1942, violent division. Political leaders from the 19th Century imperialists to the Fifth Republic sought a lead role for France or if not, sufficient naval power to effectively influence allies and world affairs. Domestic economic difficulties more than once led to unwise 'navy on the cheap' policies and construction programmes. The major post-1789 rift in French society appears occasionally among crews on board ships, in docks and builders yards, and in 1919-1920 open munities in ships at sea. In this work the author has tried to weave together these very varied strands into a history of a navy whose nation's priorities have more often been land frontier defence, the navy undervalued with a justifiable pride in its achievements poorly recognised. A study of the history of the Marine is also useful and important contribution to wider studies of French national history over thirteen tumultuous decades.

The destroyers of the Akizuki "Autumn Moon" class were very different from the standard fleet type of Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers inaugurated with the Fubuki class. They were designed for the protection of the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier task forces, and in order to achieve this they carried a particularly powerful antiaircraft armament and had an extremely long radius of action. However, only 12 out of a planned number of 39 entered service, and they arrived too late to play a crucial role in the decisive carrier battles of World War II. Despite this, their history is of particular interest since the Akizuki class foreshadowed the postwar fleet escort. This is the history of their design and construction, and it relies heavily on Japanese source material and includes numerous photos and drawings.

Admiral Lord Nelson's diamond Chelengk is one of the most famous and iconic jewels in British history. Presented to Nelson by the Sultan Selim III of Turkey after the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the jewel had thirteen diamond rays to represent the French ships captured or destroyed at the action. A central diamond star on the jewel was powered by clockwork to rotate in wear. Nelson wore the Chelengk on his hat like a turban jewel, sparking a fashion craze for similar jewels in England. The jewel became his trademark to be endlessly copied in portraits and busts to this day. After Trafalgar, the Chelengk was inherited by Nelson's family and worn at the Court of Queen Victoria. Sold at auction in 1895 it eventually found its way to the newly opened National Maritime Museum in Greenwich where it was a star exhibit. In 1951 the jewel was stolen in a daring raid by an infamous cat-burglar and lost forever. For the first time, Martyn Downer tells the extraordinary true story of the Chelengk: from its gift to Nelson by the Sultan of Turkey to its tragic post-war theft, charting the jewel's journey through history and forging sparkling new and intimate portraits of Nelson, of his friends and rivals, and of the woman he loved.

The fast and formidably-armed battlescruisers of Great Britain and Germany that were developed before and during the First World War are, in this new book, compared and contrasted in a way, and at a level of detail that has never been attempted before. The authors begin by looking at the relationship and rivalry between Great Britain and Germany and at how foreign policy, strategic and tactical considerations, economic, industrial and technological developments, and naval policies led to the instigation of the battlecruiser programmes in both countries. Chapters are then devoted to the development of the type in each country, at their design and construction, protection, propulsion plants, weapons, fire control, and communication systems, focussing particularly on the innovative aspects of the designs and on their strengths and weaknesses. These ships eventually clashed in the North Sea at Dogger Bank, in January 1915, and while neither side suffered losses, the differences in their design and handling were apparent, differences that would be more starkly highlighted a year later at Jutland when three British ships were destroyed.These actions, and others they took part in, are described and assessed by the authors who then conclude by analysing their strengths and limitations. This is a major new work for naval enthusiasts everywhere.

An extraordinary story of survival and alliance during World War II: the icy journey of four Allied ships crossing the Arctic to deliver much needed supplies to the Soviet war effort. On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic split from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole. They were seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the many risks of their chosen route, the four vessels had a better chance of reaching their destination than the rest of the remains of convoy PQ-17. The convoy had started as a fleet of thirty-five cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel--the only help Roosevelt and Churchill had extended to Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance against Germany. At the most dangerous point of the voyage, the ships had received a startling order to scatter and had quickly become easy prey for the Nazis. The crews of the four ships focused on their mission. U.S. Navy Ensign Howard Carraway, aboard the SS Troubadour, was a farm boy from South Carolina and one of the many Americans for whom the convoy was a first taste of war; from the Royal Navy Reserve, Lt. Leo Gradwell was given command of the HMT Ayrshire, a British fishing trawler that had been converted into an antisubmarine vessel. The twenty-four-hour Arctic daylight in midsummer gave them no respite from bombers or submarines, and they all feared the giant German battleship Tirpitz, nicknamed the "Big Bad Wolf." Icebergs were as dangerous as Nazis as the remnants of convoy PQ-17 tried to slip through the Arctic to deliver their cargo in one of the most dramatic escapes of World War II. At Archangel they found a traumatized, starving city, and a disturbing preview of the Cold War ahead.

Winner of the Longman's History Today Book of the Year Award and the inaugural Westminster Medal for Military Literature More than a century had gone by since the Battle of Trafalgar. Generation after generation of British naval captains had been dreaming ever since of a 'new' Trafalgar - a cataclysmic encounter which would decisively change a war's outcome. At last, in the summer of 1916, they thought their moment had come... Andrew Gordon's extraordinary, gripping book brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of the British navy in the years leading up to Jutland and gives a superb account of the battle itself and its bitterly acrimonious aftermath.

A wargaming ruleset for epic pre-WW1 battles in the sky. It's the dawn of the 20th Century and the Great Powers turn to war. Since the development of the air screw, leading to the creation of flying warships, the navies of the world have comprised an ever-growing number of these aerial ironclads. So fire up the turbines, ready the aether drives, and take to the air in Castles in the Sky: A Wargame of Flying Battleships. Featuring all the rules required to fight battles with fleets of flying behemoths. Assemble your fleet from 8 nationalities and fight through a variety of scenarios. With a full campaign system, Castles in the Sky contains everything adventurous aeronautical admirals need to find victory in the skies.

Possessing insufficient minesweepers to protect U.S. harbors and bays as the threat of war in Europe spread, in the winter of 1939-40 the Navy began purchasing fishing vessels and modifying them to combat mines. One of them, Condor (AMc-14), first sighted the Japanese Type-A midget submarine that destroyer Ward (DD-139) sank on December 7, 1941 with the first shots fired by American forces during World War II. She would be one of six coastal minesweepers to receive a battle star. From boat- and shipyards across America came the largest production run of any World War II warship, 561 scrappy little 136-foot wooden-hulled vessels characterized by Arnold Lott in Most Dangerous Sea as "belligerent-looking yachts wearing grey paint." Although their designers envisioned that they would operate primarily in the vicinity of yards or bases, the YMSs (too numerous to be given names) would see action in every theater of war, earning almost 700 battle stars, twenty-one Presidential Unit Citations, and fifteen Navy Unit Commendations. YMSs were present in the North African campaign, in Sicily, at Anzio, Salerno, and elsewhere in Italy, and swept ahead of invasion forces at Normandy and in Southern France. In the Pacific, they operated in the Marshall Islands, New Guinea, Solomons, Treasury Island, Gilbert Islands, New Britain, Admiralty Islands, Guam, Palau, Leyte, Luzon, Manila Bay, Iwo Jima, Southern Philippines, Okinawa, and Borneo. Following the war, they cleared mines from the East China Sea, Yangtze River approaches, and throughout Japanese waters, and their activities gave rise to the proud slogan of the mine force: "Where the Fleet Goes, We've Been." During the Korean War, a mere sixteen auxiliary motor minesweepers (former YMSs) performed the bulk of mine clearance, often while inside the range of enemy coastal artillery, necessary for larger naval vessels to close the coast to support operations ashore. Garnering collectively 124 battle stars, seven Presidential Unit Citations, and seven Navy Unit Commendations, the men aboard these ships were then, and remain to date, the most highly decorated crews of minesweepers in the history of the U.S. Navy.

In 1942, the massive Japanese naval base and airfield at Rabaul was a fortress standing in the Allies' path to Tokyo. It was impossible to seize Rabaul, or starve the 100,000-strong garrison out. Instead the US began an innovative, hard-fought two-year air campaign to draw its teeth, and allow them to bypass the island completely.

The struggle decided more than the fate of Rabaul. If successful, the Allies would demonstrate a new form of warfare, where air power, with a judicious use of naval and land forces, would eliminate the need to occupy a ground objective in order to control it. As it turned out, the Siege of Rabaul proved to be more just than a successful demonstration of air power - it provided the roadmap for the rest of World War II in the Pacific.

The warships of the World War II era German Navy are among the most popular subject in naval history with an almost uncountable number of books devoted to them. However, for a concise but authoritative summary of the design history and careers of the major surface ships it is difficult to beat a series of six volumes written by Gerhard Koop and illustrated by Klaus-Peter Schmolke. Each contains an account of the development of a particular class, a detailed description of the ships, with full technical details, and an outline of their service, heavily illustrated with plans, battle maps and a substantial collection of photographs. These have been out of print for ten years or more and are now much sought after by enthusiasts and collectors, so this new modestly priced reprint of the series will be widely welcomed. The first volume, appropriately, is devoted to the Kriesmarine's largest and most powerful units, the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz, whose careers stand in stark contrast to each other - one with a glorious but short life, while the other was to spend a hunted existence in Norwegian fjords, all the time posing a threat to Allied sea communications, while attacked by everything from midget submarines to heavy bombers.

While fighting on land continues to hold center stage, recently much more attention has been focused on the Civil War at sea. And for good reason. Naval operations decided the outcome of the war as the North exploited its significant naval and maritime advantage to turn the war on land in its favor. In A Short History of the Civil War at Sea, Spencer C. Tucker, eminent naval and military historian and endowed chair at the Virginia Military Institute, provides a concise and lively overview of the "blue water" Civil War, or fighting on the seas and attacks directed from the sea. This volume covers the drama of significant naval battles, like the first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads, the Union capture of New Orleans, fierce action in the Charleston Harbor, and the Battle of Mobile Bay. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea also discusses important themes, like the technological revolution in naval warfare; the impact of naval operations on U.S. and Confederate foreign relations; the Confederate use of torpedoes, submarines, and commerce raiders; and the Union's successful strategy of blockade. The struggle at sea might not have been as bloody as the fighting on land, but it was every bit as interesting and included a colorful cast of characters, like David G. Farragut, the North's highest ranking and most accomplished naval officer, and Confederate naval officer, commerce raider, and "Rebel Seadog" Raphael Semmes. And the advances of naval technology during the Civil War are fascinating-from the use of new Dahlgren guns to the design and redesign of the ironclads to the extensive use of mines and the development of submarines. Prof. Tucker covers it all in this new book, and his knowledge and skills as a storyteller shine. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea will entertain and inform students, scholars, and Civil War enthusiasts.

The Royal Marines were originally formed under the auspices of the Royal Navy to guard its sailing ships from harm. They are proud of their history and origins but the Navy heritage is fading. John Parker's new book charts how the units have moved away from their nautical beginnings to develop, over time, into the most versatile force in the British military, containing one of their most elite brigades. The Royal Marines Commandos have over the past few years developed into the premier fighting organisation on land, sea and air. They are trained to the highest degree in a diverse range of skills and officer quality is generally recognised as of the highest order. This history deals with events associated with the Royal Marines and subsequently in their commando role, starring in major conflicts in which the UK became embroiled, including Italy, Malaysia, the Borneo confrontation with Indonesia, and more recently Afghanistan.

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).

Foreword by Admiral Lord West of Spithead Few people, even in the Navy, are even aware of this dreadful incident [the loss of submarine HMS Truculent in the Thames] and certainly not the details of human error that led to this huge loss of life. The account is gripping, and explains the strange title of the book. ... John Johnson-Allen has put Fred Henley's personal accounts in the context of world-changing events, and in particular provides a wonderful snapshot of the Royal Navy of that era. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This compelling story is the result of many hours spent recording the memories of Fred Henley. His life at sea is at the centre of his being and his own words are at the heart of the book. At the age of 14 Fred worked on a Thames sailing barge, then after his training at HMS Ganges, he joined his first ship which took him from the icy Arctic Ocean to the heat of West Africa where the Bismarck and her support ships were hunted. His experiences included visiting Archangel, sailing on Arctic convoys, capturing German supply ships, the failed attack on Oran, landings in Piraeus, Salonika and the French Riviera and operating with special forces in the Greek Islands. There is inevitably some humour when Fred recounts his encounters with girls. The book then explores the tragic loss of his last submarine, HMS Truculent. In the cold January waters of the Thames Estuary, within sight of Southend, over 60 men were lost in a major disaster, just five years after the end of the war. The voices of the survivors are heard telling how they stood in complete blackness in a sunken submarine, waiting for the water to come in so that they could escape to the surface, only for all but a few to drift away and die in the darkness. The story concludes with happier times with Fred visiting ports in the Mediterranean during peacetime as a married man.

One of the great spectacles of modern naval history is the Imperial Japanese Navy's instrumental role in Japan's rise from an isolationist feudal kingdom to a potent military empire stridently confronting, in 1941, the world's most powerful nation. Years of painstaking research and analysis of previously untapped Japanese-language resources have produced this remarkable study of the navy's dizzying development, tactical triumphs, and humiliating defeat. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and attention to detail, this important new history explores the foreign and indigenous influences on the navy's thinking about naval warfare and how to plan for it. Focusing primarily on the much-neglected period between the world wars, two widely esteemed historians persuasively explain how the Japanese failed to prepare properly for the war in the Pacific despite an arguable advantage in capability. Maintaining the highest literary standards and supplemented by a dazzling array of charts, diagrams, drawings, and photographs, this landmark work provides much important information not available in any other English-language source. Consciously avoiding the Eurocentric bias of conventional military scholarship, David Evans and Mark Peattie make a unique contribution to naval historiography that will be prized by serious historians and casual readers alike and that promises to spark debate within the academic community.

In the vast literature of the Second World War there has never been a naval atlas showing graphically the complexities of the war at sea, a war which spread across every ocean. This new book will fill the gap.With more than 200 beautifully-designed maps and charts, the atlas sets out to visualise the great campaigns and major battles as well as the smaller operations, amphibious landings, convoys, sieges, skirmishes and sinkings. While whole sections are given over to the Pacific war, the battle of the Atlantic and the campaigns in the Mediterranean, smaller but crucial events such as the landings at Dieppe receive in-depth treatment. The maps depict the dynamics of campaigns and battles but also include extensive information on the opposing forces, their ships and equipment and the strategic significance of events. General thematic maps, for instance, on ship losses, aerial strengths or convoy routes, give the reader an understanding of the many contributing factors that shaped the tactics and strategies of the Allied and Axis forces.No other work has attempted such an ambitious coverage of the war at sea in this period and it is destined to become a definitive reference work for naval enthusiasts and historians as well as general readers fascinated by the naval war that extended from the coldest arctic seas to the tropical islands of the Pacific.

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.

At Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919, there occurred an event unique in naval history. The German High Seas Fleet, one of the most formidable ever built was deliberately sent to the bottom of the sea at the British Grand Fleet's principal anchorage at Orkney by its own officers and men.The Grand Scuttle became a folk legend in both Germany and Britain. However, few people are aware that Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter became the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper; that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it; that the sinking produced the last casualties and the last prisoners of the war; and that fragments of the Kaiser's fleet are probably on the moon.This is the remarkable story of the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. It contains previously unused German archive material, eye-witness accounts and the recollections of survivors, as well as many contemporary photos which capture the awesome spectacle of the finest ships of the time being deliberately sunk by their own crew.