Entering service between 1937 and 1939, the ten British “Town” class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy when World War II began. Built in response to large 6-inch gunned cruisers in the U.S. and Japanese navies and primarily designed for the defense of trade, they saw arduous service in a wide range of ...
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British Town Class Cruisers
"Southampton and Belfast Classes: Design, Development and Performance"
Available Formats: Hardcover
Congo
"The Miserable Expeditions and Dreadful Death of Lt. Emory Taunt, USN"
Lauded for his ability to tell compelling, true adventure stories, award-winning author Andrew C.A. Jampoler has turned his attention this time to a young American naval officer on a mission up the Congo River in May 1885. Lt. Emory Taunt was ordered to explore as much of the river as possible and report on opportunities for Americans in the potentially ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Embassy to the Eastern Courts
"America's Secret First Pivot Toward Asia, 1832-37"
Some two centuries ago, during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, New England’s merchants and traders found themselves frozen out of their traditional markets in Europe and the Caribbean. Desperate for new business for their idled ships and crews, they asked President Andrew Jackson to explore opportunities for them on the other side of the globe. Prompted by the secretary of ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Rules of Game
Jutland and British Naval Command
Foreword by Admiral Sir John Woodward. When published in hardcover in 1997, this book was praised for providing an engrossing education not only in naval strategy and tactics but in Victorian social attitudes and the influence of character on history. In juxtaposing an operational with a cultural theme, the author comes closer than any historian yet to explaining what was ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Cruiser Birmingham
Detailed in the Original Builders' Plans
The technical details of British warships were recorded in a set of plans produced by the builders on completion of every ship. Known as the “as fitted” general arrangements, these drawings documented the exact appearance and fitting of the ship as it entered service.
Today these plans form part of the incomparable collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Black Night off Finisterre
The Tragic Tale of an Early British Ironclad
HMS Captain was the first sea-going turret warship built to provide all-round firepower. This definitive account of the loss of the Captain details the decade-long public controversy in parliament and the press that led to the building of the ship in unprecedented circumstances. The lengthy controversy involved a disagreement between the Captain's designer and inventor of the turntable turret ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
First Team and Guadalcanal Campaign
Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942
From huddled command conferences to cramped cockpits, John Lundstrom guides readers through the maelstrom of air combat at Guadalcanal in this impressively researched sequel to his earlier study. Picking up the story after Midway, the author presents a scrupulously accurate account of what happened, describing in rich detail the actual planes and pilots pitted in the ferocious battles that helped ...
Available Formats: Softcover
First Team
Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
Hailed as one of the finest examples of aviation research, this comprehensive 1984 study presents a detailed and scrupulously accurate operational history of carrier-based air warfare. From the earliest operations in the Pacific through the decisive Battle of Midway, it offers a narrative account of how ace fighter pilots like Jimmy Thach and Butch O'Hare and their skilled VF squadron ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral
"Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal"
This is the first paperback edition of the revisionist work about Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who won his battles at sea but lost the war of public opinion. A surface warrior, Fletcher led the carrier forces in the Pacific that won against all odds at Coral Sea, Midway, and the Eastern Solomon’s. Despite these successes, during the post-war Fletcher had ...
Available Formats: Softcover
The Power and Glory
Royal Navy Fleet Reviews from Earliest Times to 2005
The Power and the Glory tells the story of royal fleet reviews from the fifteenth century to the 2005 International Fleet Review, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, which was the final exhibition of that pomp and ceremony that had been an essential if irregular expression of naval strength for more than 500 years. Whether to impress or deter a ...
Available Formats: Hardcover