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
Torch
North Africa and the Allied Path to Victory
World War II had many superlatives, but none like Operation Torch—a series of simultaneous amphibious landings, audacious commando and paratroop assaults, and the Atlantic’s biggest naval battle, fought across a two thousand mile span of coastline in French North Africa. The risk was enormous, the scale breathtaking, the preparations rushed, the training inadequate, and the ramifications profound.
Torch was the ...
Torch was the ...
Available Formats: Softcover
British Fiji Class Cruisers and their Derivatives
The Fiji-class, often called the “Colony” class, cruisers were a class of eleven light cruisers of the Royal Navy that saw extensive service throughout World War II. They were an attempt to incorporate the characteristics of the preceding “Town” class within the reduced 8,000-ton limit agreed under the 1936 London Treaty. In general layout, Colony class resembled the earlier ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Project Coldfeet
Secret Mission to a Soviet Ice Station
Based on station logs, after-action reports, and interviews with many of the participants, this one-of-a-kind account provides fascinating back-ground on the personnel, special equipment, mysterious CIA aircraft, and Soviet and U.S. drift stations.
Available Formats: Softcover
The Bridge at Dong Ha
This is the true story of the legendary Vietnam War hero John Ripley, who braved intense enemy fire to destroy a strategic bridge and stall a major North Vietnamese invasion into the South in April 1972. Told by a fellow Marine, the account lays bare Ripley's innermost thoughts as he rigged 500 pounds of explosives by hand-walking the beams beneath ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Burning of Washington
The British Invasion of 1814
With all the immediacy of an eyewitness account, Anthony Pitch tells the dramatic story of the British invasion of Washington in the summer of 1814, an episode many call a defining moment in the coming-of-age of the United States. The British torched the Capitol, the White House, and many other public buildings, setting off an inferno that illuminated the countryside ...
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
Burning of Washington
The British Invasion of 1814
With all the immediacy of an eyewitness account, Anthony Pitch tells the dramatic story of the British invasion of Washington in the summer of 1814, an episode many call a defining moment in the coming-of-age of the United States. The British torched the Capitol, the White House, and many other public buildings, setting off an inferno that illuminated the countryside ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Struggle for the Middle Sea
"The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940-1945"
Available for sale only in the U.S. and Canada. Exceptions made for USNI Members.
The Mediterranean is the maritime crossroads where Europe, Asia, and Africa meet. More major naval actions were fought there than in the Atlantic or Pacific yet remarkably little has been written about the subject. Th is fresh study of the Mediterranean’s naval war analyzes the actions ...
Available Formats: Softcover
U.S. Navy Against Axis
"Surface Combat, 1941-1945"
The U.S. Navy against the Axis tells the story of the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet in World War II with an emphasis on ship-to-ship combat. The book refutes the widely-held notion that the attack on Pearl Harbor rendered battleships obsolete and that aviation and submarines dominated the Pacific War. It demonstrates how the surface fleet played a decisive role at ...
Available Formats: Softcover