Naval History

America's Few delves into the history of US Marine Corps aviation in World War II, following the feats of the Corps’ top-scoring aces in the skies over Guadalcanal. Marine Corps aviation began in 1915, functioning as a self-contained expeditionary force. During the interwar period, the support of USMC amphibious operations became a key element of Marine aviation doctrine, and the small force gradually grew. But in December 1941 came the rude awakening. Within hours of Pearl Harbor, heroic Marine aviators were battling the Japanese over Wake Island.

It is 1801, and President Thomas Jefferson has assembled a deep-water navy to fight the growing threat of piracy, as American civilians are regularly kidnapped by Islamist brigands and held for ransom, enslaved, or killed, all at their captors' whim. The Berber States of North Africa, especially Tripoli, claimed their faith gave them the right to pillage anyone who did not submit to their religion.

Seventy years ago, more than 6000 Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a 50-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy.

In 1939 off the New England coast, the submarine USS Squalus accidentally sinks to the bottom of the sea during a training exercise, killing half her crew. Coming to the rescue is the USS Sculpin, in many ways the Squalus’s twin. As their oxygen supply dwindles, the remaining crew aboard the Squalus are saved in a time-consuming, white-knuckle operation. Eventually the sunken submarine is raised, repaired, and returned to duty, with a new name: the Sailfish.

Admittedly small and vulnerable, PT boats were, nevertheless, fast - the fastest craft on the water during World War II - and Dick Keresey's account of these tough little fighters throws new light on their contributions to the war effort. As captain of PT 105, the author was in the same battle as John F. Kennedy when Kennedy's PT 109 was rammed and sunk. The famous incident, Keresey says, has often been described inaccurately and the PT boat depicted as unreliable and ineffective.

On Easter morning, 1972, Marine captain John Ripley braved intense enemy fire to blow up a bridge during the North Vietnamese "Easter Offensive." Ripley became a legend within the Marine Corps for his daring act of heroism. His story is described here by fellow Marine John Grider Miller. Miller lays bare Ripley's innermost thoughts during the 3 hours it took to place and set the fuses while some 30,000 enemy troops and 200 tanks prepared to cross just yards away. Such a compelling act of raw courage and personal resolve is rarely encountered.

On a daring nighttime raid in September 2009, a team of Navy SEALs grabbed the notorious terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed, the villainous "Butcher of Fallujah," the mastermind behind the 2004 murder and mutilation off our American contractors. In this no-holds-barred account, bestselling author Patrick Robinson reveals for the first time the entire story, from the night the SEALs stormed the al-Qaeda desert stronghold to the accusations and legaltwists and turns that followed to the cut-and-thrust drama in the court room where the fate of three American heroes hung in the balance.

No one is to be trusted and Donland is to use every trick available to him to succeed. The forces arrayed against him are powerful as well as influential. He must deceive and evade those who attempt to stop him from reaching a wreck on an island in the Indian Ocean. The Admiralty and The Honorable East India Company give him the authority to command any vessel he boards. He uses that authority no matter the objections of the captains of the merchantmen or the naval ships he boards. Having journey from the Mediterranean, across Egyptian deserts then marooned on an island, he finds himself ...

Sub Tales 3 is the third entry in the "Sub Tales" series written by authors and brothers Charles and Frank Hood. The Hoods have established a niche in the storytelling of exploits both famous and obscure in the captivating history of the US Submarine Force. Sub Tales 3 comprises 18 original lengthy stories that cover a wide variety of topics, historical figures, and eras. From tales of heroism and courage under duress to more lighthearted discussions about the Silent Service, Sub Tales 3 is crammed full of interesting details that are sure to please the submarine veteran or enthusiast.

Gallipoli: the mere name summons the story of this well-known campaign of the First World War. And the story of Gallipoli, where in August 1915 the Allied forces made their last valiant effort against the Turks, is one of infamous might-have-beens. If only the Allies had held out a little longer, pushed a little harder, had better luck, Gallipoli might have been the decisive triumph that knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War.

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.

The best way for today's sailors to learn about a battle is from those who fought it. The Battle of Midway, commemorated annually in the US Navy, warrants close attention. This Naval Institute guide includes some of the most vibrant and informed accounts by individuals who fought on both sides of the June 1942 battle. The anthology pulls together memoirs, articles, excerpts from other Naval Institute books, and relevant government documents to help listeners understand what happened and explain why the battle was so significant to the naval service.

The U.S. experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, but rather in the period from 1942 to 1943, in the frigid North Atlantic and American coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Nearly seven decades after the event, the Battle of the Atlantic still stands as the longest-running and most lethal clash of arms in naval history.

Donald Macintyre’s U-Boat Killer is a unique account of the Battle of the Atlantic from the perspective of a British destroyer captain who fought through this brutal campaign. Few other books transport the listener to the deck of a convoy escort in the cold, stormy seas of the Atlantic Ocean and bring to life the terrifying conflict between the Royal Navy and the U-boats.

Surigao Strait in the Philippine Islands was the scene of a major battleship duel during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Because the battle was fought at night and had few survivors on the Japanese side, the events of that naval engagement have been passed down in garbled accounts. Anthony P. Tully pulls together all of the existing documentary material, including newly discovered accounts and a careful analysis of U.S. Navy action reports, to create a new and more detailed description of the action.

On a late September day in 480 BC, Greek warships faced an invading Persian armada in the narrow Salamis Straits in the most important naval battle of the ancient world. Overwhelmingly outnumbered by the enemy, the Greeks triumphed through a combination of strategy and deception. More than two millennia after it occurred, the clash between the Greeks and Persians at Salamis remains one of the most tactically brilliant battles ever fought.

A gifted storyteller, Kernan gives a candid account of his experiences during World War II, providing shrewd observations about the culture and ideology of an important era in naval history.

Whilst the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet, restricted for much of the period after 1919 by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was relatively small in comparison to the Royal Navy, it did possess a number of highly potent battleships and other capital vessels that could - and did - pose a major threat to British interests in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Amongst the most powerful were the two battleships - the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.

In October 1941, the British Admiralty based a surface strike force in Malta to attack Axis sea lanes between Italy and Africa. Aided by Ultra intelligence, submarines, and bombers based in Malta, this force dominated the Central Mediterranean. From the end of October through the middle of December 1941, less than a third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel finally compelled the Afrika Korps to retreat 400 miles. Then, in the space of 30 hours, this all changed.

In the early hours of February 25, 1968, a Russian submarine armed with three nuclear ballistic missiles set sail from its base in Siberia on a routine combat patrol to Hawaii. Then it vanished. As the Soviet navy searched in vain for the lost vessel, a small, highly classified American operation using sophisticated deep-sea spy equipment found it - wrecked on the sea floor at a depth of 16,800 feet, far beyond the capabilities of any salvage that existed.