This is a compendium of seven Naval Staff Histories which deals with operations by major German surface units as follows: the destruction of the pocket battleship Graf Spee, by three Royal Navy light cruisers off the River Plate; the hunt for the Bismark; the Battle of the North Cape when Scharnhorst was sunk by HMS Duke of York in a snowy, night action; the escape of the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst up the English Channel through British defences in the Channel Dash; the series of attacks on Tirpitz by aircraft carriers; long-range bombers and midget submarines in her Norwegian lair; and the predations of disguised merchant raiders such as the notorious Pinguin.

This volume deals with the first 15 months of the Mediterranean Campaign including the preparations for war and the entry of Italy into the war on 10th June 1940. The Royal Navy's attack on Oran on 3rd July resulted in the sinking of one French battleship and two others damaged with heavy loss of life while another one escaped to France. The attack, three days later on Mers-el-Kebir by carrier aircraft, damaged another French battleship in port. Also covered are the first battles against the Italian fleet at Calabria and Cape Spada which left one Italian battleship damaged and a heavy cruiser sunk. The account ends in August with the first Mediterranean convoy battle to run supplies from Gibraltar to Alexandria - Operation Hat.

This Naval Staff History, prepared by the Naval Historical Branch of the Naval Staff, covers the period immediately after World War II and the Royal Navy operations to prevent illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine, at that time under British Mandate from the United Nations. The Palestine Patrol, as it became known, illustrates clearly the problems facing navies conducting operations other than war, in particular those involving maritime embargo measures.

The Royal Navy's Revenge and other Episodes of the War at Sea: a collection of self-contained and fast-paced accounts of naval battles, previously published in national magazines and especially selected because they are fascinating, yet little known.

The naval war of 1939-1945 was a long and bitter struggle fought in every ocean, on, below and above the sea. It resonates with famous names like Midway, Bismarck, Guadalcanal, and the Battle of the Atlantic. This collection of articles previously published in national magazines including World War II, Tin Can Sailor, and Pacific War explores some less famous episodes in the naval war including naval actions fought in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, and the English Channel, between the naval forces of France, Thailand, Italy, Poland, Germany, Japan, and of course, the U.S. and Royal navies.

The Royal Navy's Revenge includes the title action, the last surface battle of the war between British destroyers and a former nemesis of the Royal Navy, the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro. The story of the U.S. Navy's first surface action against the Japanese, a victory won off the coast of Borneo by four World War I era destroyers is included. The book also contains self-contained and fast-paced accounts of naval actions fought between Italy and Germany, France and Great Britain, and the Battle of Koh-Chang, between France and Thailand. It also has an account of a mystery battle between German and American destroyers that has escaped the notice of historians until recently, the story of the defiant German flotilla that held out in the English Channel until the very end of the war and the little known naval campaign fought off the coast of Syria between Vichy France and naval forces from Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

These fascinating and well researched episodes by the respected naval historian Vincent P. O'Hara will entertain and educate even the most well-studied World War II enthusiast.

This is the official Naval Staff history of the Norway campaign, originally published internally in 1951. It covers the period from early April 1940 to the completion of operations in June. The operation involved most of the Royal Navy's ships in the Home theatre at the time.

This is fourth in mulit-volume series covering United States Navy patches from World War II to the present-each volume contains over 1000 patches in full color. This new volume covers: Activities, Bases, Centers, Commands, Communications, Cruises, Depots, Division, Facilities, Fields, Fleets, Flotillas, Forces, Groups, Medical, Missiles, Schools, Shipyards, Squadrons, Stations, Teams, Units, and Miscellaneous units. (See page 40 for previous volumes).

The fundamental issues of maritime strategy and naval power in the Mediterranean, when considered over the broad spectrum of past, present and future, clearly touch on the clash of civilizations. In terms of the millennial political situation, this includes issues of migration, the environment, geography, technology, economic power and rivalries in those fields. It also touches on the structure and interplay of international politics and international law, as well as the traditional calculation of naval strength and diplomatic manoeuvre. It is such broad and fundamental themes that are explored in this volume, the product of the third Naval War College-Yale conference on maritime and naval history.
The very name "Mediterranean," stresses context: the sea among lands. In terms of international security policy and strategy in this maritime region, this volume demonstrates that sea power has a variety of contexts. These contexts have changed over time, although many of the contemporary issues that observers emphasize today are themes that have a long history of their own. Many of these same present and future issues have supplied the context for past events in the Mediterranean, but their importance has sometimes gone unnoticed in maritime history, as the maritime side of affairs has sometimes gone unnoticed within the common discussion of other specialized themes. As several contributors to this volume have suggested, it may be our understanding and our interpretations that must be stretched to include both sides of these issues, if we are to understand fully the varied contexts and impacts of events at sea.

Any veteran of the United States Navy knows about "sea stories." If you served in the Navy, it is almost a 100% certainty that you've heard one (probably many more). And maybe even told "one or two" yourself. "Sea stories" and the tellers of them have all the finest attributes of oral historians that preserve the tradition and lore specific to their society. In the service (all branches) older more experienced personnel share much of their knowledge in just such a way. In their finest sense, the story carries with it a lesson learned-a small slice of experience and specific circumstance. Often leavened with humor, sometimes touching on the tragic-the cold hard facts of the risks involved. Stories connect with our own existence and adjust our thinking based on what we learn from what we hear. Good storytellers have a single intent--to touch the listener in some way. Hank McKinney does that. For those who have served you'll see bits of your own service in these stories. And I would be surprised if some of them don't bring a smile in remembrance. You will also sense the pang of separation from family, an unavoidable price paid by those who serve and their families. For those who haven't served--you'll learn much you didn't know. You'll find stories that cover the gamut of experience and responsibility, from midshipman to admiral, told in a refreshing conversational tone. Come onboard and spend some time with Hank McKinney. You'll come away with a better understanding and appreciation for the "Silent Service" and the men and women who serve. I guarantee you will learn things that you never knew about what was essentially a critical component of our front line defense during the Cold War. About the Author: Rear Admiral Henry C. (Hank) McKinney, USN (Retired) is a native of La Grange, Illinois. He graduated from Princeton University in 1959 with a degree in Engineering and a commission as an Ensign through the Naval ROTC program. He earned a Master of Science degree in Statistics from Stanford University. Originally serving in the surface Navy, he volunteered for nuclear submarine duty and served onboard both SSNs and SSBNs throughout his career including command tours and as Commander of the Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with two gold stars, the Defense Superior Service Medal, both the Legion of Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal with two gold stars and the Navy Achievement Medal. He is also a past President and Chief Executive Officer of the Navy Memorial Foundation. He now lives in Minnesota and along with his faithful golden retriever reports to his shore based commander, his wife Mary. Their son is commanding officer of USS Wyoming (SSBN 742) and their daughter is a Chemistry teacher in Maryland.

The relationship of the United States and Great Britain has been the subject of numerous studies with a particular emphasis on the idea of a "special relationship" based on traditional common ties of language, history, and political affinity. Although certainly special, Anglo-American cooperation arose from mutual necessity. Soybel examines the "special relationship" through a new lens--that of the most intimate of wartime collaborations, the naval intelligence relationship. Rather than looking at the uses of intelligence and espionage, Soybel explores how the cooperation was established and maintained, particularly through the creation of administrative bureaucracies, as well as how World War I and pre-war efforts helped pave the way towards wartime cooperation. The development of the wartime cooperation in naval intelligence between 1939 and 1943 highlights the best and worst of the alliance and shows both its advantages and its limitations. It demonstrates that the Anglo-American partnership during World War II was a necessary one, and its intimacy demanded by the exigencies of the total war then being fought. Its problems were the result of traditional conflicts based on economics, imperial concerns, and national interests. Its successes found their bases in individual partnerships formed during the war, not in the overall one given mythical status by men like Winston Churchill. While still giving credit to the unique alliance that has survived in the last fifty years, this study shows that the close ties were necessary, not special.

This first scholarly account of the Royal Navy in the Pacific War is a companion volume to Arthur Marder's Old Friends, New Enemies: Strategic Illusions, 1936-1941 (0-19-822604-7, OP). Picking up the story at the nadir of British naval fortunes - `everywhere weak and naked', in Churchill's phrase - it examines the Royal Navy's role in events from 1942 to the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Drawing on both British and Japanese sources and personal accounts by participants, the authors vividly retell the story of the collapse of Allied defences in the Dutch East Indies, culminating in the Battle of the Java Sea. They recount the attempts of the `fighting admiral', Sir James Somerville, to train his motley fleet of cast-offs into an efficient fighting force in spite of the reluctance of Churchill, who resisted the formation of a full-scale British Pacific Fleet until the 1945 assault on the Ryukyu Islands immediately south of Japan. Meticulously researched and fully referenced, this unique and absorbing account provides a controversial analysis of the key personalities who shaped events in these momentous years, and makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the Pacific War. This book also appears in the Oxford General Books catalogue for Autumn 1990.

Challenging the views of Benito Mussolini's Italian biographer, Renzo De Felice, this book argues that the Duce's aggressive war against the predominant Mediterranean powers, Britain and France, was the only means whereby Italy might secure access to the world's oceans. Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Mussolini actively pursued the Italo-German alliance which he believed would enable him to conquer a Fascist empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. By the eve of Italy's entry in the world war II, the Fascist administration had commissioned substantial new capital-ship programmes, and created a major surface and underwater fleet that seemed to post a serious challenge to the strategic position of Great Britain in the Mediterranean and Red Sea.
The study covers: the effects of Mussolini's pro-German policy on the policy-making and strategic planning of the Regia Marina; the major political, strategic and economic factors that shaped Italy's naval policy under Mussolini; the effectiveness of naval operational planning in the light of the various international crises that dominated the period before the war; and the part played by the Italian naval high command in Mussolini's quest for empire.

This work contends that nations embroiled in Continental wars have historically had poor maritime strategies. After an analysis of existing literature on this subject and a discussion of case studies, Rear Admiral Menon develops the argument that those navies that have been involved in such wars have made poor contributions to the overall political objectives. Government neglect, inadequate funding and structures that are more appropriate to purely maritime wars are symptomatic of a universal strategic dilemma that arises from inadequate strategic theory.

Menon argues that current technological trends are likely to lead to fleets re-exerting their lost superiority against land-based means of conducting warfare, so long as the navies involved rebuild their structures to speed up the battle, since faster battle is the current strategic trend. Littoral superiority then becomes a naval objective on which to construct joint warfare.

As lead ship of America's first "fast battleship" class, and the US Navy's newest battleship when America entered WWII, the construction of the USS North Carolina was not only a source of encouragement for a depression-wrought nation, but was also a source of pride among a fleet of aging battleships. Earning fifteen Battle Stars, the North Carolina is America's most-decorated battleship, having participated in most of the major campaigns in the Pacific during WWII. This volume documents not only the construction and wartime exploits of this historic vessel, but thoroughly explores the restored vessel, providing a great resource for the armchair historian, a keepsake for those who visit the museum ship, and a superb resource for the detailed model builder. Carefully researched photos, many of which have never before been published, are reproduced in remarkable clarity and put the reader on and beneath the decks of this historic warship. Part of the Legends of Warfare series.

In June 1941 the Ark Royal won one of Britain's most famous naval victories. The German destroyer, Bismarck, had been ravaging the British fleet in the Atlantic. Sailing through a ferocious storm the Ark Royal tracked the Bismarck. A dozen swordfish bombers took off from her deck and pounded shell after shell into the German battleship, sending her to the ocean floor. It was a signal victory that resonated around the world. Hitler, furious at the loss of the German fleet's flagship, demanded that the Ark Royal be destroyed at whatever cost. HMS Ark Royal is one of the Royal Navy's most iconic ships. When she was launched in 1938 she was one of the most sophisticated weapons at the disposal of British military command. The aircraft carrier was the latest, and soon to be one of the most feared, developments in naval warfare. In her first two years of operation the Ark Royal survived countless attacks, and was considered one of the luckiest ships in the Navy. But her air of invincibility was to prove wishful thinking. Within one month of sinking the Bismarck, the Ark Royal too was destroyed while sailing off the coast of Gibraltar. And there she has rested, one kilometre below the surface of the Mediterranean, until her wreck was discovered by Mike Rossiter in 2004. In gripping detail, and using the testimony of survivors of the sinking and men who lived, flew and fought on the Ark Royal, Mike Rossiter tells the remarkable story of the life and legend of this most iconic of ships. Also, and for the first time, he reveals the story of the quest to discover the wreck of this naval legend.

Despite the seemingly never-ending torrent of books about the American Civil War, relatively little has been written about the role of the United States Revenue Marine Service (now the U.S. Coast Guard) in the naval struggle against the Confederacy. The United States Revenue Cutters in the Civil War presents a ship-by-ship study of this neglected aspect of the war, from the decisions of individual cutter commanders as to which side they would take in the struggle to their ships key role in enforcing the Northern blockade of the South s coasts. The author, an expert on the early history of the Revenue Service, also tells the amazing story of the capture of the cutter Caleb Cushing by Confederates under the command of Lieutenant Charles W. Savez Read, CSN in the harbor of Portland, Maine, his daring escape, brief battle with Union ships, and the scuttling of the Cushing. This hard-to-find publication also documents the other combat actions, nautical mishaps, and ultimate fates of these unsung participants in the naval side of the Civil War.

Far Flung Lines shows how the British Empire used its maritime supremacy to construct and maintain a worldwide defence system that would protect its vital imperial interests. By combining a number of different historical threads - particularly imperial history, naval history and military history - Neilson and Kennedy rebut the idea that British defence policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was primarily concerned with maintaining the balance of power in Europe.

This exciting book was listed as #1 on The Advocate's (ital) bestseller list for December 1996! In The Masculine Marine, author Steven Zeeland records, for the first time ever, what active-duty Marines have to say about what it means to be a man, to be a Marine, and to desire other men. As the foremost surviving icon of traditional masculinity, Marines are often considered the opposite of "gay." Yet in contemporary gay culture, Marines are stereotyped as likely to play the passive role in sexual encounters with other men. By vividly illustrating some of the startling ways in which gay and Marine attributes can coincide, The Masculine Marine uncovers the wild sexual contradictions built into military hypermasculinity. From ordinary grunts to a major who flies a combat jet, Zeeland's Marine interviewees provide thoughtful and articulate insight into aspects of this rarely documented culture, including: homoerotic bonding among Marines how gay Marines reconcile their sexual identity with the ethos of "hard" Marine supermasculinity how some Marines eroticize the pain and humiliation of Marine Corps boot camp Marines in all-male pornography male attitudes toward women in the Marine Corps hazing and institutional violence These Marines talk candidly about what motivated them to join the United States'most elite fighting force, and they reveal how becoming Marines has shaped their sexual and gender identities. For the student of gay or military studies or anyone sexually intrigued by men in uniform, The Masculine Marine must reading. Visit Steven Zeeland at his home page: http://www.stevenzeeland.com

This unique and comprehensive account describes the interplay of internal and external factors in the emergence of the Austro-Hungarian Navy from a coastal defence force in 1904 to a respectable battle force capable of the joint operations with other Triple Alliance fleets in the Mediterranean by the eve of World War I. By 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Navy was the sixth largest navy in the world and the quality of its officers and men was widely recognised by most European naval observers at the time. The book describes the relationships between naval leaders, the heir to the throne Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the Parliament in shaping the dual Monarchy's naval policy. It also shows how the changes in foreign policy in Italy and underlying animosities between Rome and Vienna led to a naval race in the Adriatic that eventually bolstered Germany's naval position in respect to Great Britain in the North Sea.

On November 30, 1916, an apparently ordinary freighter left harbor in Kiel, Germany, and would not touch land again for another fifteen months. It was the beginning of an astounding 64,000-mile voyage that was to take the ship around the world, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in her wake. For this was no ordinary freighter--this was the "Wolf, "a disguised German warship.
In this gripping account of an audacious and lethal World War I expedition, Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen depict the "Wolf "'s assignment: to terrorize distant ports of the British Empire by laying minefields and sinking freighters, thus hastening Germany's goal of starving her enemy into submission. Yet to maintain secrecy, she could never pull into port or use her radio, and to comply with the rules of sea warfare, her captain fastidiously tried to avoid killing civilians aboard the merchant ships he attacked, taking their crews and passengers prisoner before sinking the vessels.
The "Wolf "thus became a huge floating prison, with more than 400 captives, including a number of women and children, from twenty-five different nations. Sexual affairs were kindled between the German crew and some female prisoners. A six-year-old American girl, captured while sailing across the Pacific with her parents, was adopted as a mascot by the Germans.
Forced to survive on food and fuel plundered from other ships, facing death from scurvy, and hunted by the combined navies of five Allied nations, the Germans and their prisoners came to share a common bond. The will to survive transcended enmities of race, class, and nationality.
It was to be one of the most daring clandestine naval missions of modern times. Under the command of Captain Karl Nerger, who conducted his deadly business with an admirable sense of chivalry, the "Wolf "traversed three of the world's major oceans and destroyed more than thirty Allied vessels.
We learn of the world through which the "Wolf "moved, with all its social divisions and xenophobia, its bravery and stoicism, its combination of old-world social mores and rapid technological change. The story of this epic voyage is a vivid real-life narrative and simultaneously a richly detailed picture of a world being profoundly transformed by war.

In Sailors and Sexual Identity, author Steven Zeeland talks with young male sailors--both gay- and straight-identified--about ways in which their social and sexual lives have been shaped by their Navy careers.Despite massive media attention to the issue, there remains a gross disparity between the public perception of "gays in the military" and the sexual realities of military life. The conversations in this book reveal how known "gay" and "straight" men can and do get along in the sexually tense confines of barracks and shipboard life once they discover that the imagined boundary between them is not, in fact, a hard line.The stories recounted here in vivid detail call into question the imagined boundaries between gay and straight, homosexual and homosocial, and suggest a secret Pentagon motivation for the gay ban: to protect homoerotic military rituals, buddy love, and covert military homosexuality from the taint of sexual suspicion.Zeeland's interviews explore many aspects of contemporary life in the Navy including: gay/straight friendship networks the sexual charge to the Navy/Marine Corps rivalry the reality behind sailors'reputations as sexual adventurers in port and at sea men's differing interpretations of homoerotic military rituals and initiations sex and gender stereotypes associated with military job specialities how sailors view being seen as sex objectsEveryone interested in the issue of gays in the military, along with a general gay readership, gay veterans, and gay men for whom sailors represent a sexual ideal, will find Sailors and Sexual Identity an informative and entertaining read.Visit Steven Zeeland at his home page: http://www.stevenzeeland.com

Finally, a thorough work on the swords worn by German naval officers and non-commissioned officers from 1806-1945. The authors, both experienced collectors, have extensively researched in archives and numerous public and private collections. Thus they can, among other things, correct statements about the legendary A'FA,rstenberg SwordsA, add new information on the various types, and also provide a list of the wearers of honorary swords from the days of the Imperial Navy, the Reichs- and Kriegsmarine. This impressive book includes more than 250 images showing the weapons and their wearers.