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 ...
Foreword by Richard Holbrooke
Five American and three Vietnamese participants in the early days of U.S. involvement in southeast Asia compellingly argue that the failure of American policy in Vietnam was not inevitable. The common theme of their individual essays suggests that the war in Vietnam might have had a much different—and far less tragic—outcome if U.S. policy makers had ...
Written by British Poet Laureate John Masefield in 1905, this lyrical tribute to sailors in the Age of Sail captures the grim reality of life at sea. In the clear, muscular English that made him famous, Masefield breathes life into the misery and barbarity that served as a foundation for naval glory. He brilliantly tells the story of the ships ...
“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 ...