Written by two World War II veterans who later became well-known war correspondents, this biography records the inspiring life of one of America's great naval heroes. Popularly referred to as "31-Knot" Burke, Admiral Arleigh Burke fought savage battles at sea and won every decoration a grateful nation could bestow, yet his service to his country was not in combat alone. This book is at once a stirring testament to Burke's World War II record as a combat leader and to his talents as a diplomat at the armistice table in Korea and as a politician in Washington. It details his legendary victories with DESRON 23 in the Pacific and his development of high-speed night tactics for destroyers that resulted in what many call the perfect naval engagement at the Battle of Cape St. George. Burke's most enduring contributions occurred during his unprecedented three terms as chief of naval operations when he directed the Navy's technical development during its revolutionary change from steam and gunpowder to nuclear concepts in ships, weaponry, strategy, and tactics. Published soon after Burke's retirement from the Navy in 1961, the book has remained a standard reference for four decades.

The strategy of the British and French prior to World War II was to preserve the status quo after the disaster of World War I. Donald Stoker's book examines British and French involvement from 1919 to 1939 in the creation and development of the naval forces of Poland, Finland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This is an in-depth scholarly study of a subject that should appeal to students of international history, strategy, international relations and naval history in general.

Great Britain's economic blockade of Germany in World War I was one of the key elements to the victory of the Entente. Though Britain had been the leading exponent of blockades for two centuries, the World War I blockade was not effective at the outbreak of hostilities. Pre-war changes had led to the Admiralty supplanting the Royal Navy's leadership role in favour of direction from the civilian branch of government on the basis of international law. The struggle between the primacy of international law and military expediency lasted for nearly two years, as the British tried to reconcile their pre-war stance as champion of neutral rights with measures necessary for a successful blockade. Not until 1916 did the operation have the potential to be a decisive factor in the defeat of Germany, when pressure from France, the Royal Navy, Parliament, British popular opinion, and the Admiralty forced the British government to abandon its defence of neutral rights over the interests of the state. The arrival of the United States as an ally in April 1917 initiated the final evolution of the blockade. The Entente and the United States tightened the blockade with crushing effect on Germany, and by November 1918, it was evidently one of the chief factors behind the victory. This knowledge reinforced the decision to retain the blockade in the months following the armistice in order to force favourable terms from Germany. In both the war and in the peace, the economic blockade performed a critical role in World War I.

On 3 July 1940, soon after the collapse of the French front and France's request for an armistice, a reluctant Royal Navy commander opened fire on the French Navy squadron at Mers-el-Kebir. Some 1,300 French sailors lost their lives. The late David Brown's detailed account finally conveys an objective understanding of the course of events that led up to this tragedy. This new book makes extensive use of primary sources such as correspondence, reports and signals traffic, from the British Cabinet to the admirals, the commanders-in-chief and the liaison officers. It shows how the driving force behind this extraordinary event was the British government's determination that the French Fleet would never fall into the hands of the Axis powers. A combination of mistrust, dissembling, poor communications and outright enmity over the preceding month had catastrophic results, both for the individuals concerned and for the future of Franco-British naval relations.

This is the first general selection from the substantial body of surviving documents about Elizabeth's navy. It is a companion to The Navy of Edward VI and Mary I (Vol.157 in the NRS Series), where the apparatus serving both volumes was printed, and it complements the other NRS volumes that deal specifically with the Spanish Armada. This collection concentrates (though not exclusively so) on the early years of Elizabeth's reign when there was no formal war. From 1558-1585 the navy was involved in a number of small-scale campaigns, pursuit of pirates and occasional shows of force. The documents selected emphasize the financial and administrative processes that supported these operations, such as mustering, victualing, demobilisation, and ship maintenance and repair. The fleet varied in size from about 30 to 45 ships during the period and a vast amount of maintenance and repair was required. The main component of the volume is the massively detailed Navy Treasurer's account for 1562-3 which is followed by and collated with the corresponding Exchequer Account. The documents illustrate just how efficiently the dockyards functioned. They were one of the great early Elizabethan achievements.

This book examines the nature and character of naval expeditionary warfare, in particular in peripheral campaigns, and the contribution of such campaigns to the achievement of strategic victory. Naval powers, which can lack the massive ground forces to win in the main theatre, often choose a secondary theatre accessible to them by sea and difficult for their enemies to reach by land, giving the sea power and its expeditionary forces the advantage. The technical term for these theatres is 'peripheral operations.' The subject of peripheral campaigns in naval expeditionary warfare is central to the British, the US, and the Australian way of war in the past and in the future. All three are reluctant to engage large land forces because of the high human and economic costs. Instead, they rely as much as possible on sea and air power, and the latter is most often in the form of carrier-based aviation. In order to exert pressure on their enemies, they have often opened additional theaters in on-going, regional, and civil wars. This book contains thirteen case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia whose collected case studies examine the most important peripheral operations of the last two centuries. This book will be of much interest to students of naval warfare, military history, strategic studies and security studies.

With particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region, this book examines the rise and fall of sea powers. In the Asia-Pacific region there has been significant expansion of sea-based economies together with burgeoning naval power. Many claim that these processes will transform the world's future economic and security relationships. The book addresses the question of to what extent the notion of 'Asia rising' is reflected by and dependent on its developing sea power. A central theme is the Chinese challenge to long-term Western maritime ascendency and what might be the consequences of this. In order to situate current and future developments this book includes chapters which analyse what sea power means and has meant, as well as its role, both historic and contemporary, in the rise and fall of great powers. This book will be of much interest to students of naval power, Asian politics, strategic studies, war and conflict studies, IR and security studies.

Following the disastrous Java Sea campaign, the Allies went on the offensive in the Pacific in a desperate attempt to halt the Japanese forces that were rampaging across the region. With the conquest of Australia a very real possibility, the stakes were high. Their target: the Japanese-held Soloman Islands, in particular the southern island of Guadalcanal.

Hamstrung by arcane pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, whose ingenuity and creativity thus far had fostered the creation of its Pacific empire. Starting with the amphibious assault on Savo Island, the campaign turned into an attritional struggle where the evenly matched foes sought to grind out a victory.

Following on from his hugely successful book Rising Sun, Falling Skies, Jeffrey R. Cox tells the gripping story of the first Allied offensive of the Pacific War, as they sought to prevent Japan from cutting off Australia and regaining dominance in the Pacific.

Recounted with his usual level of meticulous historical research, Rod weaves an easily readable account of the build-up to and implementation of Operation Desecrate 1 - the raid undertaken to destroy Japanese ships and aircraft in the lagoons of Palau. He uses his intimate knowledge of shipwrecks to reveal in glorious detail each of the 20 major Japanese WWII shipwrecks lying at the bottom of the Palauan lagoons today. On 30th March, 1944 Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters made an Initial fighter sweep of the lagoon to destroy Japanese air cover. Simultaneously Grumman Avenger torpedo-bombers dropped mines and successive group strikes of torpedo bombers and dive-bombers sank the shipping and destroyed the airfields. Palau was neutralised as a Japanese naval and air base in a repeat of the same Task Force 58 raid, Operation Hailstone, on Truk Lagoon 1,000 miles to the east just six weeks earlier. A number of long-lost wrecks have recently been relocated including a Japanese freighter filled with depth charges and Army helmets. This was found in 1989 but remained unidentified until now - after painstaking research Rod reveals her identify for the first time in the book. Each wreck is covered in detail and is supported by underwater photography and by fabulous illustrations by renowned artist Rob Ward. The shipwrecks of Palau are now revealed.

Far China Station was the first work to put nineteenth century American naval and diplomatic affairs in the Far East into clear perspective. Johnson examines the origins of the East India Squadron, defines its import role in the implementation of foreign policy and describes the dangers routinely faced by the squadron's ships and sailors. Great and gallant ships move through the pages from the famous Olympia and the majestic Columbus to the plodding Palos. Naval heroes and the not-so-great, angry mobs, Japanese rebels, leaky boilers, imperious officials and infirm admirals are set against a background of uncertain anchorages, storms at sea, and the ravages of disease in the last years of the Old Navy.

The United States Navy has evolved in the last century and a half from humble and often frustrating beginnings during and after the Revolutionary War to become the strongest navy in the world with responsibilities that span the globe. The story of the Navy from its birth through the Civil War and other 19th century conflicts through its victories of World War I and World War II and down to the current efforts in the Middle East to maintain the peace not only for the United States but also for other nations as the world's primary peace-keeper has been one of responding to the call of duty, as captured by its unofficial motto Non sibi sed patriae ("Not self but country"). No other nation's navy past or present can match its successes and history. The second edition of Historical Dictionary of the United States Navy covers U.S. Naval developments, personnel, and engagements from the colonial times to the present day. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries on people, places, events and other terminology of the Navy. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the United States Navy.

During World War II, the U.S. Navy swiftly expanded to include an array of vessels, from smaller yachts and fishing boats bought early in the war for patrol work to fast, modern commercial ships built to haul troops and supplies. After the Allied victory, this diverse fleet became unnecessary and the Navy sold many of its vessels. This comprehensive catalog documents the Navy ships and boats sold after the war and registered under the American flag for commercial or recreational purposes. Focusing on those vessels with names or clearly identifiable hull numbers and crew accommodations, it chronicles each craft's prewar ownership, wartime history, and postwar fate. The product of painstaking detective work in a wide-range of primary sources, this meticulous directory highlights an unexplored but illuminating aspect of U.S. maritime history.

This biography completes a trilogy on the three Navy fighter pilots--Jimmie Thach, Butch O'Hare, and Jimmy Flatley--who developed sweeping changes in aerial combat tactics during World War II. While O'Hare and Flatley were instrumental in making the "weave" a success, Thach was its theoretical innovator, and his use of the tactic in combat at Midway documented its practical application. This portrait of the famous pilot provides a memorable account of how Thach, convinced that his Wildcat was no match for Japan's formidable Zero, found a way to give his squadron a fighting chance. Using matchsticks on his kitchen table, he devised a solution that came to be called the Thach Weave. But as Steve Ewing is quick to point out, this was not Thach's sole contribution to the Navy. Throughout his forty-year career, Thach provided answers to multiple challenges facing the Navy, and his ideas were implemented service wide.
A highly decorated ace, Thach was an early test pilot, a creative task force operations officer in the last year of World War II, and an outstanding carrier commander in the Korean War. During the Cold War, he contributed to advances in antisubmarine warfare. This biography shows him to be a charismatic leader interested in everyone around him, regardless of rank or status. His dry sense of humor and constant smile attracted people from all walks of life, and he was a popular figure in Hollywood. Thach remains a hero among naval aviators, his most famous combat tactic still used by today's pilots.

Exploring British naval policy during the first two governments of Harold Wilson (1964-70), this book analyses how the Navy Department of the Ministry of Defence and the Navy's professional leadership dealt with six years of defence reviews, retrenchment and strategic re-orientation. This period witnessed a dramatic blow to the service's self image and self confidence as a result of the cancellation of the large CVA-01 aircraft carrier, and a gradual process of realignment, reorientation and adaptation to the changed political environment, resulting in a recovery of self-confidence, a new strategy and the approval in principle of a class of small aircraft carriers. Taking advantage of the recently released official records, the study highlights for the first time just how in practice Mountbatten managed to dominate the Chiefs of Staff machinery, and how his power was undermined and diminished. It also demonstrates that, contrary to widespread historical opinion, Denis Healey was not necessarily set against carrier air power from his arrival in office and was willing to consider the procurement of a medium carrier for the navy. Furthermore, the work highlights the importance of the Mediterranean in the rehabilitation and renewal of self-confidence by the navy in the late 1960s. Although focusing primarily on policy and strategic matters, the book incorporates wider historical consideration, reviewing other factors that influenced policy-making such as foreign policy, financial resources, materiel, manpower and recruitment, in addition to the administrative machinery and the cultural environment of the time. In so doing, Dr Hampshire offers a vivid insight into the interactions of government and military at a critical juncture in the changing nature of Britain's global role.

The British Pacific Fleet was formed in October 1944 and dispatched to fight alongside the USN in the Central Pacific under Admiral Nimitz. Deploying previously unpublished documents, this book reveals how relations between the UK and US forces developed from a starting point of barely repressed suspicion, to one where both navies came to understand each other and eventually find a remarkable bond. Born out of a shared experience of Kamikaze attacks, extended operations against bitterly hostile shores, the pooling of knowledge and experience, the two navies underpinned the diplomatic moves in both Washington and London. The book carries the legacy of this experience through to the next Anglo-American participation in war, Korea. It illustrates and explains how and why certain lessons were incorporated into the composition, behaviour and structure of the post-war Navy. It demonstrates the significance of what was learned from the USN by the RN and by USN from the RN. As well as examining the background to the largest fleet the Royal Navy ever put to sea, the book also charts its effects on Anglo-American relations, multinational operations, alliance building, and the ways naval forces are shaped by and in turn shape politics. It addresses a period of rapid technological development that witnessed profound changes in the international system, and which raised fundamental questions of what navies were for and how should they operate and organize themselves. In so doing the study illustrates how the experience of a few long months at the end of the war in the Pacific would cast a long shadow over these issues in the very different circumstances of the post-war world.

Naval Warfare 1919-45 is a comprehensive history of the war at sea from the end of the Great War to the end of World War Two. Showing the bewildering nature and complexity of the war facing those charged with fighting it around the world, this book ranges far and wide: sweeping across all naval theatres and those powers performing major, as well as minor, roles within them. Armed with the latest material from an extensive set of sources, Malcolm H. Murfett has written an absorbing as well as a comprehensive reference work. He demonstrates that superior equipment and the best intelligence, ominous power and systematic planning, vast finance and suitable training are often simply not enough in themselves to guarantee the successful outcome of a particular encounter at sea. Sometimes the narrow difference between victory and defeat hinges on those infinite variables: the individual's performance under acute pressure and sheer luck. Naval Warfare 1919-45 is an analytical and interpretive study which is an accessible and fascinating read both for students and for interested members of the general public.

This book, first published in 1982, brings together for the first time accounts of the fates of some of those extinct monsters of the seas - the battleships. It catalogues the sinkings of major ships from the Italian Re d'Italia in 1866 to the end of the battleship era and the rise of the carriers in World War II. The result is a valuable contribution to naval history as navies moved from the age of sail to the present day.

The navies of China, India and to a lesser extent Japan are expanding rapidly at present. This has the potential to alter the US-dominated naval balance in Asia-Pacific but it also raises a question: are the region's powers involved in a naval arms race? Naval development is and always has been a crucial indicator of economic and political development. It shows the emergence of a significant shift in strategic weight from West to East. But within the Asia-Pacific Region, alongside growing economic and institutional integration, there are geo-political tensions that threaten the regions stability and peace. The balance between the two determines the form that naval development in that region is taking. Some aspects of this suggest the beginnings of a naval arms race that would have profound consequences for the region and the world.

he U.S. Navy's patrol of the Yangtze River began in 1854 when the USS Susquehanna was sent to China to safeguard increasing American commerce in the region. As Kemp Tolley explains in this entertaining history of the patrol in which he was to later serve, the presence of gunboats along the river greatly benefited the integrity of the shoreline factories. Tolley was a young naval officer in the 1930s when assigned gunboat duty, first in the Mindanao, then in the Tutuila, and finally the Wake in August 1941. His colorful description of life as a river rat is filled with anecdotes about the resourceful and high-spirited sailors who manned the old riverboats in that distant land.
In the process of telling their story he covers a century of Chinese history, replete with warlords and mandarins, bandits and kidnappers, missionaries and mercenaries, riots and revolution. He presents a knowledgeable summary of the political situation in China up to World War II, including the bombing of the Panay, the siege of Shanghai, and the Nanking incident. Far more than a routine account of naval operations on the great Yangtze, this book is an unforgettable reading experience that has attracted readers since 1971 when it was first published in hardcover.

This is a study of the impact of inter-war naval arms control policy-making on the domestic politics of Japan, especially the areas of civil-military, inter-military (Army/Navy) and especially intra-military (Navy) relations and on the professional and political career of one leading naval figure, Admiral Kato Kanji (1873-1939). In this re-appraisal of Kato's career, the author challenges the conventional and negative interpretation of both Kato's role in the naval politics and factions within the Imperial Navy, utilizing Kato's involvement in the domestic political debate as a focal device for studying two key areas of Japanese civil-military relations: civilian control and the phenomenon of massive, overt naval intervention in domestic politics.

The Indian Navy has gradually emerged as an indispensable tool of Indian diplomacy in recent years, making it imperative for Indian policy-makers and naval thinkers to think anew the role of the nation's naval forces in Indian strategy. There is a long tradition in India of viewing the maritime dimension of security as central to the nation's strategic priorities. With India's economic rise, India is trying to bring that focus back, making its navy integral to national grand strategy. This volume is the first full-length examination of the myriad issues that have emerged out of the recent rise of Indian naval power.

A sharp analysis of Greek naval history in the 1910s, a time when the importance of its geographic position and its navy increased greatly. It explains the causes of these developments and their consequences for Greek national aims, the Mediterranean naval situation and the Balkan balance of power. Within this context, it also examines the competition between Britain, France, and Germany for Greek naval procurements and influence, Greek-Turkish naval tensions and the responses of the great powers. This volume also provides an in-depth analysis of the naval strategy, programme, education and organization of the Greek state and of the extent to which these were influenced by its own Naval Staff, British naval missions, and native and foreign politicians. It details the difficulties and rewards in the relationship of this rising naval power with Britain and other great naval powers of the time. This book will be of immense interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in naval history and strategy.

The bestselling complete history of the British Navy - our national story through a different prism. The story of our navy is nothing less than the story of Britain, our culture and our empire. Much more than a parade of admirals and their battles, this is the story of how an insignificant island nation conquered the world's oceans to become its greatest trading empire. Yet, as Ben Wilson shows, there was nothing inevitable about this rise to maritime domination, nor was it ever an easy path. EMPIRE OF THE DEEP: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH NAVY also reveals how our naval history has shaped us in more subtle and surprising ways - our language, culture, politics and national character all owe a great debt to this conquest of the seas. This is a gripping, fresh take on our national story.

This book is a comparative study of the evolution of the German navy in the second half of the nineteenth century. It examines the development of strategy, especially commerce-raiding, in comparison to what other navies were doing in this era of rapid technological change. It is not an insular history, merely listing ship rosters or specific events; it is a history of the German navy in relation to its potential foes. It is also a look at a new military institution involved in an inter-service rivalry for funds, technology and manpower with the prestigious and well-established army.