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
Airpower Reborn
The Strategic Concepts of John Warden and John Boyd
Airpower Reborn offers a conceptual approach to warfare that emphasizes airpower’s unique capability to achieve strategic effects. Six world-leading theorists argue that a viable strategy must transcend the purely military sphere, view the adversary as a multi-dimensional system, and pursue systemic paralysis and strategic effects rather than military destruction or attrition. The book is divided into three parts. The first ...
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
Proudly We Served
The Men of the USS Mason
Few Americans know the history-changing story of the men of the USS Mason, the only African-American sailors to take a World War II warship into combat. At a time when most blacks in the Navy were relegated to stewards or laborers, the crew of the USS Mason escorted six convoys across the perilous North Atlantic, helped to win the ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Joshua Barney
Hero of the Revolution and 1812
Little has been published about the life of Baltimore’s Commodore Joshua Barney, a man who earned a commission in the nascent Continental Navy, sailed as a privateer, and served as a commodore in both the French and American navies. Louis Norton’s biography scrutinizes Barney's colorful life and critically analyzes events that forged his character.
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
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
Torpedo Junction
"U-Boat War Off America's East Coast, 1942"
In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Airpower Applied
"U.S., NATO, and Israeli Combat Experience"
Airpower Applied reviews the evolution of airpower and its impact upon the history of warfare. Through a critical examination of twenty-nine case studies in which various U.S. coalitions and Israel played significant roles, this book offers perspectives on the political purpose, strategic meaning, and military importance of airpower. The authors demystify some of airpower’s strategic history by extracting the most ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana
The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History
The Sultana was a sidewheel Mississippi steamboat carrying almost two thousand recently-released Union prisoners-of-war back north at the end of the Civil War. At 2:00 a.m. on April 27, 1865, when the boat was seven miles above Memphis, her boilers exploded. Almost 1,200 people perished in the worst maritime disaster in United States history.
Gene Eric Salecker covers this disaster in detail and dispels the many myths that ...
Available Formats: Hardcover