A reappraisal of the late Victorian Navy, the so-called `Dark Ages', showing how the period was crucial to the emergence of new technology defined by steel and electricity. In purely naval terms, the period from 1889 to 1906 is often referred to (and indeed passed over) as the `pre-Dreadnought era', merely a prelude to the lead-up to the First World War, and thus of relatively little importance; it has therefore received little consideration from historians, a gap which this book remedies by reviewing the late Victorian Navy from a radically new perspective. It starts with the Great Near East crisis of 1878 and shows how itsaftermath in the Carnarvon Commission and its evidence produced a profound shift in strategic thinking, culminating in the Naval Defence Act of 1889; this evidence, from the ship owners, provides the definitive explanation of whythe Victorian Navy gave up on convoy as the primary means of trade protection in wartime, a fundamental question at the time. The book also overturns many assumptions about the era, especially the perception that the navy was weak, and clearly shows that the 1870s and early 1880s brought in crucial technological developments that made the Dreadnought possible.

An assessment of the work of the contractors who were commissioned by the Victualling Board to provision the fleet in this period. Provisioning the fleet, and the army overseas, during the French Wars of 1793-1815 was a major undertaking. This book explains how the Victualling Board in London handled this enormous task, focusing in particular on contractors -that is the merchants and brokers, who provided a vast range of commodities including flour and biscuit, salt beef and pork, as well as huge quantities of fresh water and coal, and every other item needed. It shows how these merchants could be large or small concerns, and provides detailed case studies of different kinds of contractors, including examples of contractors based both in Britain and in the navy's overseas bases. The book demonstrates how, overall, the contracting system represented the mobilisation of a substantial part of the British economy for war; how the performance of contracting was effective, with little or no corruption; and how the contractors took considerable financial risks and made only reasonable margins. It assesses the performance of the Victualling Board, arguing that this was good, and that the problem in the major area of weakness - accounting - was quickly addressed following a major crisis in 1808-09. It concludes that this was "an impressive performance" by the state, but that the overwhelming advantage was the resilience of the market, and that it was "upon the success of the contractors that the war at sea was won." For most of his career, ROGER KNIGHT was on the staff of the National Maritime Museum, leaving as Deputy Director in 2000. Since then he has taught at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich, where he is currently Visiting Professor of Naval History. MARTIN WILCOX completed a doctorate in maritime history at the University of Hull, and has been employed as postdoctoral research fellow at Greenwich Maritime Institute since 2006.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. The Royal Navy by John Leyland was first published in 1914. The book contains an account of the nature, character and development of the British Navy, revealing its roles in maintaining the security of the country and supporting the growth of the Empire.

Stalking the U-Boat is the first and only comprehensive study of U.S. naval aviation operations in Europe during WWI. The navy's experiences in this conflict laid the foundations for the later emergence of aviation as a crucial--sometimes dominant--element of fleet operations, yet those origins have been previously poorly understood and documented. Begun as antisubmarine operations, naval aviation posed enormous logistical, administrative, personnel, and operational problems. How the USN developed this capability--on foreign soil in the midst of desperate conflict--makes a fascinating tale sure to appeal to all military and naval historians.

The end of the Cold War has affected debates about maritime strategy, doctrine, operations and technology. What has emerged is an intellectual reconsideration of the theory and practice of maritime power. This volume focuses on the implications for western navies of shifts in strategic thinking, maritime doctrine, technology and naval roles.

Heirs to a storied past and glamorized as modern-day knights, the Marine Corps--the elite fighting force in America's military--in fact has not always been so highly regarded. As Jack Shulimson shows, only a century ago the Corps' identity and existence were much in question.

Although the Marines were formally established by Congress in 1798 and subsequently distinguished themselves fighting on the Barbary Coast, their essential mission and identity remained unclear throughout most of the nineteenth century. But amid the crosscurrents of industrialization, technological change, professionalization, and reform that emerged I Gilded Age America, the Corps underwent a gradual transformation that ultimately secured its significant and enduring military role.

In this enlightening study, Shulimson argues that the Marine Corps officers' inextricable ties to the Navy both hampered and aided their attempt to define their own special jurisdiction and professional identity. Often treated like a poor relation, the Marine officers frequently found themselves in direct competition with their counterparts in the Navy and at times the object of the latter's scorn. Shulimson reveals the processes, politics, and personalities that converged to create these tense and sometimes embattled relations, but he goes on to show how Marine officers (with the Navy's blessing) eventually transcended their second-class role.

A detailed and riveting account of the U.S. Navy's greatest mutiny and its wide-ranging cultural and historical impact The greatest controversy in the history of the U.S. Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the U.S. brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his co-conspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea. The repercussions of those acts brought headlines, scandal, a fistfight at a cabinet meeting, a court martial, ruined lives, lost reputations, and tales of a haunted ship "bound for the devil" and lost tragically at sea with many of its crew. The "Somers affair" led to the founding of the U.S. Naval Academy and it remains the Navy's only acknowledged mutiny in its history. The story also inspired Herman Melville's White-Jacket and Billy Budd. Others connected to the Somers included Commodore Perry, a relation and defender of the Somers' captain Mackenzie; James Fenimore Cooper, whose feud with the captain, dating back to the War of 1812, resurfaced in his reportage of the affair; and Raphael Semmes, the Somers' last caption who later served in the Confederate Navy. The Curse of the Somers is a thorough recreation of this classic tale, told with the help of recently uncovered evidence. Written by a maritime historian and archaeologist who helped identify the long-lost wreck and subsequently studied its sunken remains, this is a timeless tale of life and death at sea. James P. Delgado re-examines the circumstances, drawing from a rich historical record and from the investigation of the ship's sunken remains. What surfaces is an all-too-human tale that resonates and chills across the centuries.

"Few ships in American history have had as illustrious a history as the heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA-33), affectionately known by her crew as 'Sweet Pea.' With the destructionof most of the U.S. battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, cruisers such as Sweet Pea carried the biggest guns the Navy possessed for nearly a year after the start of World War II. Sweet Pea at War describes in harrowing detail how Portland and her sisters protected the precious carriers and held the line against overwhelming Japanese naval strength. Portland was instrumental in the dramatic American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the naval battle of Guadalcanal--conflicts that historians regard as turning points in the Pacific war. She rescued nearly three thousand sailors from sunken ships, some of them while she herself was badly damaged. Only a colossal hurricane ended her career, but she sailed home from that, too. Based on extensive research in official documents and interviews with members of the ship's crew, Sweet Pea at War recounts from launching to scrapping the history of USS Portland, demonstrating that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important ships in U.S. naval history.

John Charnock (1756 1807) was a professional naval biographer and historian. After completing his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, he joined the Navy as a volunteer and began to research historical and contemporary naval affairs. This six-volume work, first published between 1794 and 1798, contains biographies of over two thousand post-captains and admirals who served in the Navy between 1660 and 1793. Charnock researched this monumental project using collections of historical naval biographies made available by his friend Captain William Locker, lieutenant-governor of Greenwich Hospital. He also drew on his own experiences and his contacts among serving officers to provide valuable insights into contemporary events. However, his sometimes uncritical approach to sources means his work is best consulted together with other evidence. The biographies are arranged by year of first appointment, and alphabetically within each year. Volume 2 contains biographies of officers appointed between 1674 and 1692.

In modern naval warfare, offensive and defensive mine operations and the ships that perform them often take a back seat to the more glamorous carrier strike groups, strategic deterrence patrols and anti-submarine operations. Despite their relatively small size and numbers, minecraft have enormous strategic and tactical value. With more than 200 photos, this book details the histories and specifications of more than 2,200 vessels that have served as minelayers and minesweepers, from World War I to today. Rare examples include the U.S. Navy’s only purpose-built mine-laying submarines, and the remarkable 36-foot “mini minesweeper.”

Patrick O' Brian, C.S. Forester and Captain Marryat all based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Writing with gripping narrative skill and drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.

World War II sent the youth of the world across the globe in odd alliances against each other. Never before had a conflict been fought simultaneously in so many diverse landscapes on premises that often seemed unrelated. Never before had a conflict been fought in so many different ways - from rocket attacks on London to jungle fighting in Burma to armor strikes in Libya. It was only in time that these battles coalesced into one war. In The Second World Wars, esteemed military historian Victor Davis Hanson examines how and why this happened, focusing in detail on how the war was fought in the air, at sea, and on land-and thus where, when, and why the Allies won. Throughout, Hanson also situates World War II squarely within the history of war in the West over the past 2,500 years. In profound ways, World War II was unique: the most lethal event in human history, with 50 million dead, the vast majority of them civilians. But, as Hanson demonstrates, the war's origins were not entirely novel; it was reformulations of ancient ideas of racial and cultural superiority that fueled the global bloodbath.

Mariners made a major - but neglected - contribution to England's warfare in the middle ages. Here their role is examined anew, showing their importance. During the fourteenth century England was scarred by famine, plague and warfare. Through such disasters, however, emerged great feats of human endurance. Not only did the English population recover from starvation and disease butthousands of the kingdom's subjects went on to defeat the Scots and the French in several notable battles. Victories such as Halidon Hill, Neville's Cross, Crecy and Poitiers not only helped to recover the pride of the English chivalrous class but also secured the reputation of Edward III and the Black Prince. Yet what has been underemphasized in this historical narrative is the role played by men of more humble origins, none more so than the medievalmariner. This is unfortunate because during the fourteenth century the manpower and ships provided by the English merchant fleet underpinned every military expedition. The aim of this book is to address this gap. Its fresh approach to the sources allows the enormous contribution of the English merchant fleet to the wars conducted by Edward II and Edward III to be revealed; the author also explores the complex administrative process of raising a fleet andprovides career profiles for many mariners, examining the familial relationships that existed in port communities and the shipping resources of English ports. Craig L. Lambert is Research Assistant at the University ofHull.

Including extensive information only found in scattered sources or official documents and archives, this book provides detailed coverage of all organizational aspects of the Marine Corps units in World War II's Pacific Theater. It gives in-depth background information on the units' functions, evolution, designation practices, tactical organization of combat units, and extensive statistical and technical data including 21 maps. It covers atypical subjects such as Marines in China, and female and African American marines. Extensive additional data on weapons, U.S. Navy and Army backgrounds, Japanese Army and Navy backgrounds, code names, and comparative ranks of U.S. forces appear in the appendices. The book is a valuable one-stop resource for researchers, historians, military history enthusiasts, and war gamers.

As a complete reference source on the Marine Corps, the book provides an evolutionary study of the Marine Corps' wartime expansion and organization. It closely examines the prewar and wartime growth of the Marine Corps as well as its postwar reduction while providing complete background information on all ground and air units in the Pacific and their evolution. Information on each Marine Corps unit includes: dates in combat, location and code name of landing beaches, time of landing, island operation code names, date the island was declared secure, task organization for combat order of battle of the opposing Japanese units and their casualties, attached U.S. Army and U.S. Navy units, and much more. The book is the definitive source of organizational information.

A roadmap for US military innovation based on the Navy’s history of success through civilian-military collaborations The US military must continually adapt to evolving technologies, shifting adversaries, and a changing social environment for its personnel. In American Defense Reform, Dave Oliver and Anand Toprani use US naval history as a guide for leading successful change in the Pentagon. American Defense Reform provides a historical analysis of the Navy during four key periods of disruptive transformation: the 1940s Revolt of the Admirals, the McNamara Revolution in systems analysis, the fallout from the Vietnam War, and the end of the Cold War. The authors draw insights from historical documents, previously unpublished interviews from four-star admirals, and Oliver’s own experiences as a senior naval officer and defense industry executive. They show that Congress alone cannot effectively create change and reveal barriers to applying the experience of the private sector to the public sector Ultimately, Oliver and Toprani show that change can only come from a collaborative effort between civilians, the military, and industry, each making vital contributions. American Defense Reform provides insights and practical recommendations essential to reforming national defense to meet future demands.

A fascinating exploration of how between February 1 and March 10, 1942, three small US task forces launched several unexpected raids across the Japanese defensive perimeter in the Central and South Pacific.

After the devastating Japanese blows of December 1941, the Allies found themselves reeling with defeat everywhere in the Pacific. Although stripped of his battleships and outnumbered 10:3 in carriers, the US Navy commander-in-chief Admiral Ernest J. King decided to hit back at Japan’s rapidly expanding Pacific empire immediately, in an effort to keep the Japanese off-balance.

On February 1, 1942, Vice Admiral Bill Halsey led the US Pacific Fleet carriers on their first raid, using high-speed hit-and-run tactics to strike at the Japanese, at a time when most of the Japanese carrier fleet was in the Indian Ocean. Halsey’s aggressive commitment inspired its American participants to invent the mythical Haul Ass With Halsey" club. The last of the 1942 US carrier raids in March 1942 would form a defining moment in the Pacific War, prior to a new phase of high-seas battles between the opposing fleets.

This superbly illustrated book documents for the first time in a single volume this little-known but important World War II naval campaign. The fabulous illustrations, including maps and colour artworks, bring to life the US air and naval raids on the Japanese bases in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, Rabaul, Wake Island, Marcus Island, and Lae and Salamaua in northern New Guinea."

This thesis examines how the composition of the U.S. fleet, with specific focus on small combatants, affects the ability of the United States Navy to undertake homeland defense missions and provides suggestions to improve its core competency. Currently, the U.S. Navy relies on a shrinking group of aging Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates to conduct counterpiracy, counter-narcotics, counter maritime insurgency, and maritime engagement missions. The large warships that make up the rest of the fleet are able to undertake these missions, but their cost and capabilities make them better suited for other operations. This thesis examines the proposed Littoral Combat Ship but argues that it is not the ideal ship: it is too expensive, too vulnerable, and undermanned, and it has a modular concept that is too underdeveloped for practical naval operations. Instead, this thesis proposes that the U.S. Navy would be better served by procuring a traditional frigate or corvette to accomplish the variety of missions that fall under the umbrella of homeland defense. Such a traditional small combatant would provide the U.S. Navy with a warship capable of conducting traditional fleet operations as well as operating at the lower end of the spectrum of operations

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) revolutionized warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. This little-known naval aviation organization introduced and operationalized aircraft carrier strike, aerial anti-submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and the air defence of the British Isles more than 20 years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Traditionally marginalized in a literature dominated by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the RNAS and its innovative practitioners, nevertheless, shaped the fundamentals of air power and contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the First World War. The Development of British Naval Aviation utilizes archival documents and newly published research to resurrect the legacy of the RNAS and demonstrate its central role in Britain's war effort.

Ruthless Warfare (1998) demonstrates how close the First World War came to Australia. It has been argued that Australia was manipulated against its interests into action in WW1 by London - this unpublished collection of documents from the military division of the German Archives shows that this was not the case. The German Navy expected a major confrontation with the British Empire, both in the North Sea and further afield. German cruisers were expected to make a significant contribution in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific, pinning down British naval forces and thus undermining the British fleet's supremacy in the Atlantic. The damage and disruption to imperial trade would have had serious consequences for Australia, and these German plans also meant that a significant military intelligence system was active in the Antipodes.

This book explores the value of Corbett's seminal work Some Principles of Maritime Strategy over time in a changing context and with evolving technology. It has been over a century since Sir Julian Corbett published Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (1911), yet it is still regarded as a foundational text on maritime strategy. But the character of sea power is constantly evolving, so the continued relevance of this work must be regularly examined. Too often the debate is polarised between a focus on either Corbett's historical relevance to the early 20th-century Royal Navy or his relevance to strategy today. There is little attempt to bridge the gap and analyse Some Principles over time, changing circumstances, or differing national situations. This book bridges that gap, offering a practitioner's viewpoint to put the work to a practical test across the past century of conflict, and the evolution of thought and technology. It explores Corbett's original intent, his core ideas, the errors or omissions in his analysis and method, and where his ideas have been (or still can be) extrapolated, and aims to determine the extent to which Some Principles continues to merit its status as an enduring classic of strategy. The book concludes that despite never being originally intended as a general text, Some Principles nevertheless holds up surprisingly well in terms of both universal application and enduring relevance over time and changed circumstances. This book will be of much interest to students of maritime strategy, naval history, and International Relations, as well as naval practitioners.

This book, first published in 1986, argues that there is a special category of medium powers in the world - such as Britain, France, India, Brazil, Japan, China and others - which have sufficient military power to do something to protect their interests but which are not a match for the superpowers. It surveys the whole range of naval warfare - equipment, operations, organisation and deployment - and discusses how each item should be tailored by the recognition of the position of the medium power. It considers alliances, a key element for medium powers, and explores how these should be handled and what use they may be expected to fulfil. The book argues that the concept of medium power, here developed thoroughly for the first time, will be extremely useful to many countries in defining their strategic role in a purposeful way.

During World War I, American merchant ships were given oddly colored paint jobs to distort their profiles at sea. Dubbed "Razzle-Dazzle," these camouflage patterns were believed responsible for dramatic decreases in Allied shipping losses. This book examines the real (and more compelling) factors that made a difference in the survivability of merchant shipping: the various measures taken principally by the U.S. Navy, including the use of convoys and destroyer escorts, along with some innovative naval technologies. At the same time, advances in America's shipbuilding industry and the development of the nation's first major on-the-job training program enabled mass production of merchant ships at a record pace.

How did the British navy maintain authority among its potentially disorderly crews? And what order exactly did it wish to establish? Churchill once famously remarked that he would not join the navy because it was "all rum, sodomy and the lash". How far this was true of the navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars is the subject of this important new book. Summary punishments, courts martial, flogging and hanging were regularly made use of in this period to establish order in the navy. Based on extensive original research, including a detailed study of ships' captain's logs and muster tables, this book explores the concepts of order and disorder aboard ships and examines how order was preserved. It discusses the different sorts of disorder and why they occurred; argues that officers toosometimes pushed against the official order; and demonstrates that order was much more than the simple enforcement of the Articles of War. The book argues that the behaviours that were punished, how and to what degree reveal what the navy saw as most resistive or dangerous to its authority and the order it wanted established. In addition, it considers the role of patronage in shaping order, outlining how this was affected by Admiralty moves to centralise appointments, and shows that acts of disorder were plentiful, and increasing, in this period, and that the imbalance in court martial outcomes for sailors, marines and warrant officers, in comparison to commissioned officers, points to a flawed system of justice. Overall, the book provides an extremely nuanced picture of order and how it was preserved. Thomas Malcomson is a Professor in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at George Brown College, Toronto, Ontario. He completed his doctorate in history at York University, Toronto.