“This Is No Drill” is a detailed combat narrative of the 7 December 1941 Japanese attack on NAS Pearl Harbor—then one of two naval air stations on the island of O‘ahu. Since the station served as a base for long-range patrol aircraft, the Japanese aimed to put NAS Pearl Harbor out of action to prevent U.S. planes from searching for ...
In 1844 the USS Yorktown sailed from New York, as part of the U.S. Navy's newly established African Squadron, to interdict slave ships leaving the African coast. Aboard the sloop of war, Master's Mate John C. Lawrence, an educated New Yorker in his early twenties, kept a private journal describing what happened during the extraordinary two-year voyage and his reactions ...
Every aspect of the common sailor's life in the Union navy—from recruiting, clothing, training, shipboard routine, entertainment, and wages to diet, health, and combat experience—is addressed in this study, the first to examine the subject in rich detail. The wealth of new facts it provides allows the reader to take a fresh look at nineteenth-century social history, including issues like ...