This history book tells the story of RMS Queen Elizabeth, the ship which, along with her running mate Queen Mary, successfully worked Cunard's transatlantic service for much of the twentieth century. She was launched in September 1938, the largest passenger liner built at the time and for many years after. Entering service as a troopship in the Second World War, she had a successful career before retiring in 1968, after which she was sold to a Hong Kong businessman with plans to convert her into a floating university. But it was not to be and she was capsized in a mysterious fire in the harbour in 1972, a bizarre and unbecoming end for one of Cunard's most faithful servants. Andrew Britton delves into his comprehensive maritime collection to present a wealth of unpublished photography and ephemera, aerial photography and even Queen Elizabeth's original purchase receipt, to cover every detail of this historic liner.

During a few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s Robert Longden took a remarkable set of photographs of the narrow boat community at Hawkesbury Stop - the main meeting point for those who worked the Midlands canals. The images are of a close community and represent its members in a very intimate way, at work, at play, in their domestic affairs, and as they lived on the paired and single colourful narrow boats. They illustrate the close relationship between all ages and types within the community, and the dramatic boat shapes and infrascape of this rural and industrial area. Sonia Rolt, who herself worked the canals during the period and knew the photographer, provides an introduction, which details how Robert Longden came to this passionate involvement. It also sets the photographs in the context of their time, the last period when the narrow boats could be said to play a serious part in transporting goods in quantity. Informative captions identify the scenes before you. Providing a rare insight into the community who worked the waterways when it was still a way of life for many, this book will appeal not only to canal enthusiasts, but to anyone interesting in Britain's social and industrial heritage.

In 1982, North Sea ferry MV Norland transported passengers and vehicles between Hull and Rotterdam. Requisitioned as a troop ship to take the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment to the Falklands, the 'volunteer' merchant navy crew were told they would only go as far as the Ascension Island and that they should think of it as an extended North Sea booze-cruise run. However, without notice Norland's role was changed and it became the first vessel to enter San Carlos Water, ending up a sitting duck in 'Bomb Alley' air raids while disembarking troops and carrying out resupply runs. Narrowly escaping sinking, the ship was used as a shelter for survivors and for collecting the Gurkhas from the QE2 in South Georgia, ready for disembarking in San Carlos Bay, before repatriating Argentine POWs. Long after the surrender, MV Norland provided a ferry service between the Falklands and Ascension Island. While many in the war served an average of 100 days, for the crew of the Norland it was ten months; indeed, they were considered the first in and the last out. This is a gripping account of non-combatant volunteers railroaded into serving in a war they hadn't signed up for.

The SS Portland was a solid and luxurious ship, and its loss in 1898 in a violent storm with some 200 people aboard was later remembered as "New England's Titanic." The Portland was one of New England's largest and most luxurious paddle steamers, and after nine years' solid performance, she had earned a reputation as a safe and dependable vessel. In November 1898, a perfect storm formed off the New England coast. Conditions would produce a blizzard with 100 miles per hour winds and 60-foot waves that pummeled the coast. At the time there was no radio communication between ships and shore, no sonar to navigate by, and no vastly sophisticated weather forecasting capacity. The luxurious SS Portland, a sidewheel steamer furnished with chandeliers, red velvet carpets and fine china, was carrying more than 200 passengers from Boston to Portland, Maine, over Thanksgiving weekend when it ran headlong into a monstrous, violent gale off Cade Cod. It was never seen again. All passengers and crew were lost at sea. More than half the crew on board were African Americans from Portland. Their deaths decimated the Maine African American community. Before the storm abated it became one of the worst ever recorded in New England waters. The storm, now known as "The Portland Gale," killed 400 people along the coast and sent more than 200 ships to the bottom, including the doomed Portland. To this day it is not known exactly how many passengers were aboard or even who many of them were. The only passenger list was aboard the vessel. As a result of this tragedy, ships would thereafter leave a passenger manifest ashore. The disaster has been blamed on the hubris of the captain of the Portland, Hollis Blanchard, who decided to leave the safety of Boston Harbor despite knowing that a severe storm was hurtling up the coast. Blanchard, a long-time mariner, had been passed over for a promotion for a younger captain. He decided he wanted to show the steamship company that they had made a mistake by getting the Portland safely into port ahead of the imminent storm. Author J. North Conway has created here a personal, visceral account of the sinking and the times and the people involved, with stories to bring readers onto the Portland that day: Here is Eben Heuston, the chief steward onboard the ill-fated ship. More than half of the crew of the ship were African Americans. Hueston was an African American who lived in the Portland community of Munjoy Hill and was a member of the Abyssinian Church. After the sinking of the Portland the African American community disappeared and the church closed. And Emily Cobb a nineteen year old singer from Portland's First Parish Church who was scheduled to give her first recital at the church on that Sunday. And Hope Thomas who came to Boston to shop for Christmas and because she decided to exchange some shoes she purchased missed taking the ill-fated Portland. Because of the lack of communications from Maine to Cape Cod, it was days before anyone was able to get word about the fate of the ship or survivors. Author J. North Conway has painstakingly recreated the events, using first-hand sources and testimonies to weave a dramatic, can't-put-it down narrative in the tradition of Erik Larson's Isaac's Storm and Walter Lord's enduring classic, A Night to Remember. He brings the tragedy to life with contemporaneous accounts the Coast Guard, from Boston newspapers such as the Globe, Herald, and Journal, and from The New York Times and the Brooklyn DailyEagle.

During the middle decade of the 16th century a new type of sailing vessel emerged, designed to carry the wealth of the Americas to Spain. This was the galleon, and over the next century these vessels would serve Spain well as treasure ships and warships, becoming a symbol of Spanish power and wealth during the period. The development and construction of the Spanish galleon are discussed in this book, and the ordnance and crewing needed to produce and maintain these stately vessels is covered. The author also examines the role of the galleon as a treasure ship, and describes how these ships were manned and fought in action.

In the post-war era, there was still a demand for ocean-going travel, not just on the glamorous large liners and mail ships, but also on much smaller ships. Many of these could be just as well appointed and comfortable and doubtless provided an intimacy that may have been missing from the larger and faster ships. If time was not a vital consideration, and money possibly was, then travel by cargo liner was an ideal option. The pictures presented here represent souvenirs of an era that air travel and the onset of the fast container ship have totally obliterated. Many of the photographs presented here were acquired between 1961 and 1965 from the major British and European shipping companies, some of whom responded particularly generously. Some Asian and American companies contributed as well. This material gives an insight into the use of postcards and photographs as a vital part of marketing, promotion and public relations in a world that was soon to disappear. Here, Mark Lee Inman collects some of the most interesting pictures and postcards of this era.

In May 1940, following the rapid advance of German troops through Holland, Belgium and France, the British Expeditionary Force and French army retreated to Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo was instigated in an attempt to rescue as many of them as possible. With the harbour at Dunkirk severely damaged, much of the evacuation would have to take place from the beaches; only small, shallow-draught boats could do this. After appealing to boatyards, yacht clubs and yachtsmen throughout the South East of England, the Admiralty managed to round up around 700 small craft which, along with 200 military vessels, were able to rescue an astonishing 338,226 troops over nine days. In 1965, forty-three vessels which had taken part in the evacuation commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary by crossing from Ramsgate to Dunkirk, and the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships was formed soon afterwards. More than fifty years on, over 120 Little Ships are still in commission and it is thought that hundreds of others may still survive. This is their story.

Concentrates on the Bute West, Bute East and Roath Docks, from their beginnings in the 1840s, through the boom years of the 1950s and '60s to the period of redevelopment and modernisation. This book includes 300 photographs and maps.

From river to harbor to ocean, tugboats are among the most ubiquitous but underappreciated craft afloat. Whether maneuvering ships out from between tight harbor finger piers, pushing rafts of forty barges up the Mississippi, towing enormous oil rigs, or just delivering huge piles of gravel to a river port near you, tugs exude a sense of genial strength guided by the wise experience of their crews. We can admire the precision of their coordination, the determination in their movements, the glow of signal lights at night, silently communicating their condition and intentions to vessels nearby. It is nearly impossible not to be intrigued and impressed by the way tugs work. In Tugboats Illustrated, Paul Farrell traces the evolution, design, and role of tugboats, ranging from the first steam-powered tug to today's hyper-specialized offshore workboats. Through extensive photographs, dynamic drawings, and enlightening diagrams, he explores the development of these hard-working boats, always shaped by the demands of their waterborne environment, by an ever-present element of danger, and by advancements in technology. Whether making impossible turns in small spaces, crashing through huge swells, pushing or pulling or prodding or coaxing or escorting, we come to understand not only what tugs do, but how physics and engineering allow them to do it. From the deck layout of a nineteenth-century sidewheel tug to the mechanics of barge towing-whether by humans, mules, steam or diesel engines-to the advantages of various types and configurations of propulsion systems, to the operation of an oil rig anchor-handling tug/supply vessel, Tugboats Illustrated is a comprehensive tribute to these beloved workhorses of the sea and their intrepid crews.

The Royal Mail has, for over 500 years, provided a crucial service in keeping people connected by land, sea and air. As the British Empire grew, so too did the need for a fleet of liners to service it, and in 1839 Queen Victoria granted the initial Royal Charter incorporating the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. After running into financial trouble, the company was reconstituted as Royal Mail Lines in 1930. With his superb collection of rare images, Bill Miller brings to life the ships that operated for the line in the twentieth century. Covering the turbulent period of the Second World War, as well as more peaceful and prosperous times, this collection of images illuminates the stories behind some of the great iconic liners. Some of the ships featured include RMS Asturias and RMS Alcantara, at the time the largest motor ships in the world, and the RMS Magdalena, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1949.

The Imperial Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation, having commissioned the world's first built-from-the-keel-up carrier, the 'Hosho'. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it experimented with its carriers, perfecting their design and construction. As result, by the time Japan entered World War 2 and attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, it possessed a fantastically effective naval aviation force. Carriers would roam the Pacific with near impunity, destroying their opponents at will. This book covers the design, development and operation of IJN aircraft carriers built prior to and during World War 2. Pearl Harbor, Midway and the first carrier vs carrier battle, the battle of the Coral Sea, are all discussed.

Winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Non-Fiction!

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents-including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon.

Although the answer appears obvious, there is far more to the sinking of the Titanic than is popularly understood. On 10 April 1912 Titanic - the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world - left Southampton on her maiden voyage. The only headlines she expected to make were on her triumphant arrival in New York. But just five days later, she was a wreck at the bottom of the North Atlantic, taking over 1500 lives with her. Why? The answer to this question is a set of circumstances and a chain of events that came together to seal her fate and that of so many of her passengers and crew. Nature of course played her part in the form of that gigantic iceberg as well as in other less obvious ways. Most of all though there was human error, complacency and an inability to think the unthinkable when designing or sailing the ship. Just one different action at any stage in the chain could have saved the life of Titanic or at least most, if not all, of those aboard her. The world still has much to learn from the loss of the Titanic. This book explains why the largest ship in the world was lost and just how the voyage of a lifetime turned into a nightmare.

On April 14, 1912, as one thousand men prepared to die, J. Bruce Ismay, the owner of the RMS Titanic, jumped into a lifeboat filled with women and children and rowed away to safety. He survived the ship's sinking--but his life and reputation would never recover.Examining Ismay through the lens of Joseph Conrad's prophetic novel Lord Jim--and using Ismay's letters to the beautiful Marion Thayer, a first-class passenger with whom he had fallen in love during the voyage--biographer Frances Wilson explores the shattered shipowner's desperate need to tell his story, to make sense of the horror of it all, and to find a way of living with the consciousness of his lost honor. For those who survived the Titanic, the world was never the same. But as Wilson superbly demonstrates, we all have our own Titanics, and we all need to find ways of surviving them.

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, then moves to an extensive photographic survey of either a high-quality model or a surviving example of the ship. Hints on building the model, and on modifying and improving the basic kit, are followed by a section on paint schemes and camouflage, featuring numerous colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings. The strengths and weaknesses of available kits of the ships are reviewed, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.The Yamato class battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy were the largest warships of the Second World War and the largest battleships ever constructed, displacing 78,800 tonnes. They also carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship - 18in guns. Neither Yamato nor her sistership Musashi made much impact on the War. Musashi was sunk during the battle of Leyte Gulf while Yamato, deployed in a deliberate suicide attack on Allied forces at the battle of Okinawa, was finally sunk by US carrier-based aircraft; Not 300 of her 3,330 crew survived.