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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Naval forces & warfare
An exciting and thoroughly well-written adventure from Steve
Turley.. When a U-boat is sunk off the coast of Corsica in 1943, it
takes with it a mysterious cargo which was being secretly
transported under SS guard. Mike Summers, a technical diving
expert, has his life thrown into chaos when he accidentally
discovers wreckage from the U-boat and crosses swords with a
notorious Corsican nationalist leader, resulting in the death of
his friend. The race to discover the motive for the killing takes a
deadly turn when Monica, a beautiful Swiss marine archaeologist, is
kidnapped by the gang. Mike knows they are both likely to die
unless he can use his superior knowledge of deep wreck diving to
save them both and bring the perpetrators to justice. Another
quality read from CheckPoint Press..
On 9 May 1912 the first airplane take-off from a ship was made from
the deck of the HMS Hibernia. In July 1918, seven Sopwith Camels
launched from the converted battlecruiser HMS Furious damaged the
German airbase at Tonder and destroyed two zeppelins. The age of
the carrier was born. In the interwar years the Lexington, Akagi
and Courageous-class carriers were developed, but it was only
during World War II that the aircraft carrier finally came into its
own. Fleet carriers carrying 30-40 aircraft allowed the Japanese
and US navies to project air power across the vast Pacific Ocean,
with the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor presaging a new kind of
warfare. With the sinking of hundreds of ships during World War II,
including the German battleship Bismarck in 1941, by the end of the
war carriers ruled the waves and the era of the battleship had
passed. Aircraft Carriers features 52 of the most significant flat
tops and amphibious assault ships built since the 1920s until the
present day, from the USS Yorktown, which survived direct hits
during the battle of Midway (1942), through the Falklands War
veteran HMS Invincible, to the mighty Nimitz class, the core of the
US Navy's carrier battle groups today. Also included are
significant amphibious assault ships, such as the USS Tarawa and
French Mistral. Each entry includes a brief description of the
ship's development and history, a colour profile view or cutaway,
key features and specifications. Packed with more than 200 artworks
and photographs, Aircraft Carriers is a colourful guide for the
naval warfare enthusiast.
The aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was preparing to launch
attacks into North Vietnam when one of its jets accidentally fired
a rocket into an aircraft occupied by pilot John McCain. A huge
fire ensued, and McCain barely escaped before a 1,000-pound bomb on
his plane exploded, causing a chain reaction with other bombs on
surrounding planes. The crew struggled for days to extinguish the
fires, but, in the end, the tragedy took the lives of 134 men. For
thirty-five years, the terrible loss of life has been blamed on the
sailors themselves, but this meticulously documented history shows
that they were truly the victims and heroes.
This epic story opens at the hour the Greatest Generation went
to war on December 7, 1941, and follows four U.S. Navy ships and
their crews in the Pacific until their day of reckoning three years
later with a far different enemy: a deadly typhoon. In December
1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the
Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of
Storms, placing the mighty U.S. Third Fleet in harm's way. Drawing
on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and
rescuer, as well as many families of lost sailors, transcripts and
other records from naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs, personal
letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson finds some of the story's
truest heroes exhibiting selflessness, courage, and even
defiance.
Fully illustrated in a striking landscape format, Ships contains
300 mercantile and military vessels arranged in chronological
order, from ancient times to the present day. Every type of vessel
from every part of the world is featured, from Phoenician war
galleys from 1500BC, through the graceful trading clippers of the
nineteenth century, to the sophisticated and heavily armed
submarines of the nuclear era. In these information-packed pages
you will find out about ancient galleys, Viking longships, medieval
cogs, galleasses, galleons, men-of-war sailing ships, coastal
gunboats, iron-clad steam boats, dreadnoughts, aircraft carriers
and nuclear submarines. Many well-known ships are included, such as
Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, the ill-fated passenger liner
Titanic, the infamous German World War II battlecruiser Bismarck
and many, many more. Each ship is illustrated with a colourful
artwork, while lively text offers a concise service history of the
ship and a specification box provides comprehensive technical data,
including displacement, dimensions, machinery, armament, speed and
complement.
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