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.

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.

Patrol Wing Ten was the only U.S. Navy aviation unit to fight the Japanese in the early weeks of World War II, and the daring exploits of its PBY scout-plane pilots offer a dramatic tale of heroism, duty, and controversy. Poorly equipped and dead tired from flying back-to-back patrols with no fighter cover, the men lost sixty-six percent of their aircraft in just eight weeks as they took on an enemy that outnumbered them nearly 1,000 to one. This forceful narrative places the reader right in the midst of their courageous battle. Dwight Messimer's aggressive research on the topic has resulted in a work that provides moving details to their desperate but valiant acts against the seemingly invincible Japanese juggernaut that swept across the southwest Pacific at the opening of the war.
By Christmas Day in 1941, Patrol Wing Ten was forced to split into two groups, one fighting an air and sea campaign in Java, the other fighting as infantry on Bataan and Corregidor. Moving back and forth between the two groups, Messimer skillfully interweaves their experiences with the major events of the overall war. He uses material from the fifty survivors he managed to track down and deftly captures their ability to maintain a sense of humor in the face of overwhelming danger. The more than one hundred personal and official documents uncovered during years of research reveal new information relating to technical points about the planes, facts verified by the PBY crews that do not agree with popularly accepted ideas. To those who believe the wing accomplished nothing--and this group includes many pilots--Messimer argues that while attempts to bomb the Japanese fleet proved futile because the PBYs were unsuitable for such a task, the wing's rescue and evacuation missions saved many lives. The airdales themselves were not so lucky. When Corregidor fell, nearly half of them were captured and many died in captivity.

Maritime issues are particularly important for Asian countries, where there is a high reliance on shipping routes for international trade, many difficult disputes over maritime boundaries, and the prospect of increasing tensions where maritime power might play a significant role. This book uses contributions by 17 experts to build a comprehensive survey of the maritime issues affecting Asia. It discusses the issues overall, goes on to examine the issues from the perspective of each of 14 key countries, and concludes by assessing the prospects for resolving common problems in order to preserve good order at sea.

Germany in the Great War Illustrated - Mobilisation and the Western Advance is the first volume of a projected six-part series that details, graphically, the Central Powers - Germany and Austro-Hungary - fighting to the west during the concluding months of 1914. This superbly illustrated and highly researched book covers the schema of a 'quick victory' on the WestFront (Western Front). From preparatory build-up, to mobilisation and to subsequent annexation and occupation, (90 per cent of northern France and the Kingdom of Belgium), this title manifest the 'German' perspective - a pictorial digest. Evincing German offense against the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), French and Belgium armies at the Battle of Mons, heralding the mass exodus of British troops from region, the siege of Antwerp and the breakthrough toward Paris. Each successive chapter includes a short, introductory narrative, documenting holistically events and is accompanied by a wealth of fully captioned and rarely before seen photographs: over 500 images.

Opened in 1873, in buildings constructed by Charles II to house retired sailors, the Royal Naval College was founded with the aim of providing officers with 'the highest possible scientific instruction in all branches of study bearing upon their profession'. For more than 125 years it taught officers ranging in rank from Sub Lieutenants to Vice Admiral, providing the technical instruction that equipped a corps of naval architects to build some of the most advanced warships in the world and in later years, trained the Royal Navy's nuclear engineers. Despite the College's undoubted contribution, towards both the education of Royal Navy personnel, and technical research more broadly, this is the first book to address the history of the institution from its Victorian roots to its closure in the aftermath of the Cold War. Taking a chronological approach, the book traces the history of the College from its establishment in 1873, a period during which technical training for a steam-powered navy was increasingly vital. It then shows how, during the First World War, academic staff at the College made a vital contribution to the development of naval weapons systems, and its medical school initiated a vaccine production programme that later produced major improvements in the public health of the nation. During the Second World War, damaged by enemy action that set London's docklands ablaze, the College provided the first taste of naval life for more than 27,000 men and women called from civilian life to serve on shore and at sea. Later chapters conclude with an exploration of the College's post-war role, focusing particularly on the establishment in 1959 of the Department of Nuclear Science and Technology (DNST) which ran a nuclear reactor on site until the College was closed in 1998. Both as a history of the Royal Naval College itself, and as an exploration of the Navy's attitude toward research and education, this book provides a fascinating insight into what is arguably one of Britain's most significant educational establishments.

The Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813 is considered by many to be the most important naval confrontation of the War of 1812. Made famous by the American fleet commander Oliver Hazard Perry's comment, ""We have met the enemy and they are ours,"" the battle marked the U.S. Navy's first successful fleet action and was one of the rare occasions when the Royal Navy surrendered an entire squadron. This book draws on British, Canadian, and American documents to offer a totally impartial analysis of all sides of the struggle to control the lake. New diagrams of the battle are included that reflect the authors' modification of traditional positions of various vessels. The book also evaluates the strategic background and tactical conduct of the British and the Americans and the command leadership exercised by Perry and his British opponent, Commander Robert H. Barclay. Not since James Fenimore Cooper's 1843 book on the subject has the battle been examined in such detail, and not since Alfred Thayer Mahan's 1905 study of the war has there been such a significant reinterpretation of the engagement. First published in hardcover in 1997, the book is the winner of the North American Society for Oceanic History's John Lyman Book Award.

On December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lay paralysed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a crack team of U.S. Navy salvage divers headed by Edward C. Raymer were hurriedly flown to Oahu from the mainland. The divers had been given a Herculean task; to rescue the sailors and Marines trapped below, and resurrect the pride of the Pacific fleet. Now for the first time, the chief diver of the Pearl Harbor salvage operations, Cmdr. Edward C. Raymer, USN (Ret.), tells the whole story, in the only book available that describes the raising and salvage operations of sunken battleships following the December 7th attack. Once Raymer and his crew of divers entered the interiors of the sunken shipwrecks, attempting untested and potentially deadly diving techniques, they experienced a world of total blackness, unable to see even the faceplates of their helmets. By memorising the ships’blueprints and using their sense of touch, the divers groped their way hundreds of feet inside the sunken vessels to make repairs and salvage vital war material. The divers learned how to cope with such unseen dangers as falling objects, sharks, the eerie presence of floating human bodies, and the constant threat of Japanese attacks from above. Though many of these divers were killed or seriously injured during the wartime salvage operations, on the whole they had great success performing what seemed to be impossible jobs. Among their credits, Raymer’s crew raised the sunken battleships West Virginia, Nevada, and California.

In addition to port security, ship inspection and safety, law enforcement, and search and rescue, the U.S. Coast Guard assumes an important role in national defense at home and abroad. To that end, the Coast Guard has carried out separate and coordinated missions with other armed forces from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and polar region. This chronicle of the Coast Guard's contributions to national defense examines participation in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. Among the topics explored are defense threats, drug trafficking, and border security, as well as Coast Guard personnel, training, leadership, and assets. This thorough consideration reveals the Coast Guard's commitment to its heritage and its motto: Semper Paratus (Always Ready).

The Office of Ordnance has been ill-served by previous accounts of its role in arming the Royal Navy during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Cole offers an in-depth examination of its organizational structure and demonstrates how the department responded to the pressures of war over an extended period of time.

A complete illustrated study of the German Kriegsmarine throughout World War II. Hamstrung at first by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, during the 1930s, the German Navy underwent a programme of rearmament in defiance of the restrictions, building modern warships under limitations which forced technological innovation. Submarines were strictly prohibited by the treaty, and yet, following years of covert development, they became one of the Kriegsmarine's most deadly weapons. Blooded in the Spanish Civil War, the surface ships of the Kriegsmarine went on to play a crucial role in the opening salvoes of World War II during the invasions of Poland and Norway, although serious losses here set back plans for the invasion of Britain, and by the end of the war, only a handful of surface vessels remained to be divided up among the Allies. From the beginning of the war, but especially after the fall of France, the dreaded and extraordinarily successful U-boats stalked the Atlantic, threatening vital British shipping convoys and choking off the lifeline of munitions and supply from the US. Once Italy and Japan entered the war, German naval operations expanded to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. This highly illustrated volume is a comprehensive study of the German Navy throughout the war, from pocket battleships to torpedo boats.

As the U.S. Navy enters the twenty-first century, many of the ships, aircraft, weapons, and tactics it employed so successfully during the Cold War will no longer be cost-effective or even effective. Future battlefields will shift the locus of naval action from the high seas into littoral waters, demanding sustained operations in relatively narrow, shallow waters. Naval forces in the twenty-first century must not only meet the traditional requirements of command of the sea--ships, planes, troops, and bases--carrying out forward presence, crisis response, strategic deterrence, and sealift. They must now put these together to obtain the four key operational capabilities of littoral warfare: command, control, intelligence and surveillance, and communication; battlespace dominance; power projection; and force sustainment. The core of the new U.S. strategic concept is power projection, and it envisions naval forces directly leading Army and Air Force elements to influence events ashore, most probably in the Third World. And this navy must be cost effective.

In 1925, Lewis R Freeman became a correspondent for the United States Navy Fleet, living and working among them. Traveling all around the Pacific Ocean, Freeman observed both the environment and his fellow travelers. Separated into three sections, Stories of the Ships is a collection of narratives about this time in Freeman's life, depicting firsthand experiences and retelling the accounts and tales of the men that served in the Navy around this time. The first section, titled, Stories of the Ships introduces Freeman's background as a correspondent and discusses the temperament of the sailors. This section also includes the tale of an old ship that sailed through most of the seven seas-the Cornwall. The next section, Life in the Fleet chronicles Freeman's day-to-day adventures, explaining his routines, responsibilities, and revealing his conversations with the crew members and captains. With nine chapters, this section contains the most stories and is the largest section of the book. Finally, the last section before the endnotes, America Arrives, examines the relationship between America and other countries such as France and Britain through the conversations and attitudes of the sailors from those other countries. Freeman recounts several discussions where he was referred to being unlike other Americans. With these three sections and the endnotes, Stories of the Ships provides a thorough account of the many years Lewis R. Freeman spent as a correspondent. Through the depiction of real-life conversations and experiences collected around the globe, Stories of the Ships by Lewis R. Freeman is a fascinating narrative that gives modern day audiences an intimate and authentic perspective on nautical life. With the focus on the United States Navy Fleet, Freeman provides privileged information on the innerworkings of the U.S Navy during the 20th century. This edition of Stories of the Ships by Lewis R. Freeman features a striking new cover design and is printed in a modern and readable font. With these accommodations, Stories of the Ships is restored to modern standards, while preserving the original mastery of Lewis R. Freeman.

This volume examines the rise and fall of sea powers, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. The chapters analyse what seapower means, and has meant, and its role, both historic and contemporary, in the rise and fall of great powers. The book focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, where the expansion of sea-based economies, together with burgeoning naval power are claimed by many to be in the process of transforming the world's future economic and security relationships. The book asks: to what extent is the notion of Asia Rising' reflected by and dependent on its developing seapower ? How seriously should we take the Chinese challenge to the Western maritime ascendancy of the past several hundred years, and what might be the consequences of this? To seek insight into contemporary and future developments from previous experience, several chapters will explore historical antecedents, not least the manner in which Britain coped with the transition of its maritime ascendancy into other hands. This book will be of much interest to students of naval power, Asian politics, strategic studies, war and conflict studies, IR and security studies.

HMS Cavalier is a 'C'-Class destroyer, one of 96 War Emergency Programme destroyers that were ordered between 1940 and 1942. She saw action on convoy duty off Russia, and later, in 1945, was sent to the Far East where she provided naval gunfire support during the battle of Surabaya. She continued with the British Pacific Fleet until May 1946. Now designated as a war memorial to the 142 RN destroyers and 11,000 men lost during WWII, she is on display at Chatham Historic Dockyard. As is the case for many museum ships there is a surprising shortage of informative and well illustrated guides, for reference during a visit or for research by enthusiasts - ship modellers, naval buffs, historians or students. This book, in the Seaforth Historic Ship series, redresses the gap. Containing more than 200 specially commissioned photographs, the book takes the reader on a superbly illustrated tour of the ship, from bow to stern and deck by deck. Significant parts of the vessel - for example, the gun turrets and engine rooms - are given detailed coverage both in words and pictures, so that the reader has at hand the most complete visual record and explanation of the ship that exists.In addition, the importance of the ship, both in her own time and now as a museum vessel, is explained. No other book offers such superb visual impact nor brings the ship so vividly to life.

HMS Dreadnought (1906) is closely associated with the age of empire, the Anglo-German antagonism and the naval arms race before the First World War. Yet it was also linked with a range of other contexts - political and cultural, national and international - that were central to the Edwardian period. The chapters in this volume investigate these contexts and their intersection in this symbolically charged icon of the Edwardian age. In reassessing the most famous warship of the period, this collection not only considers the strategic and operational impact of this 'all big gun' battleship, but also explores the many meanings Dreadnought had in politics and culture, including national and imperial sentiment, gender relations and concepts of masculinity, public spectacle and images of technology, and ideas about modernity and decline. The volume brings together historians from different backgrounds, working on naval and technological history, politics and international relations, as well as culture and gender. This diverse approach to the subject ensures that the book offers a timely revision of the Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age.'

This memoir is an intimate and often irreverent account of one man's coming of age during World War II. Born a North Carolina farmboy, Jones served as a naval sonarman aboard a wooden submarine chaser operating from Africa and Sicily during the Allied invasions at Anzio and Southern France. He also served as sonarman and yeoman on two fleet mine sweepers in the Okinawa, Formosa and China operations. This memoir is drawn not only from memory, but from the author's surviving diaries from the conflicts, daily logs of the three ships upon which he served, and the secret reports of military commanders and other official records.

Navigating the Seven Seas is an account of the leadership experiences two high-achieving African-Americans in the U.S. Navy. This father and son duo both achieved leadership ranks in the service of their country by following certain precepts than can applied for success in any profession, both military and civilian.
Melvin G. Williams, Sr. served in the U.S. Navy for 27 years (1951-1978) and reached the highest enlisted leadership rank of Master Chief, with final Navy leadership assignment as a Command Master Chief. His son, Melvin G. Williams, Jr., served 32 years (1978-2010) and reached the rank of Vice Admiral with final Navy leadership assignment as a Fleet Commander). As two African Americans who served the nation for nearly 60 consecutive years across two generations, they hope to provide readers with their perspectives on leadership.
Their book describes how they navigated up through the ranks of the U.S. Navy to positions of greater responsibility by employing their "Seven Cs" of leadership: Character, Competence, Courage, Commitment, Caring, Communicating, and Community.
Their book addresses the questions regarding who a leader is, what a leader does, why and how a leader performs? Although the context of their experiences is with the U.S. Navy, their message is that the seven Leadership Cs are germane to all readers, regardless of occupation or leadership situation (civilian, military, public and private industry, etc.), and regardless of the reader's background, culture, or gender.
The authors contend that leadership is an art and a science and that leadership can be learned, practiced, and refined and that there is no stereotypical type cast mold for leaders. They argue that if they as members of a minority can rise to leadership roles in the U.S. Navy by following these key principles to navigate across the rough seas of life, then anyone can employ these rules to rise to increased leadership responsibility in any profession or career.

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.