[PDF] Decision At Sea eBook

Author : Craig L. Symonds
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 585 pages
File Size : 23,18 MB
Release : 2006-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 0199754888

GET BOOK

From thunderous broadsides traded between wooden sailing ships on Lake Erie, to the carrier battles of World War II, to the devastating high-tech action in the Persian Gulf, here is a gripping history of five key battles that defined the evolution of naval warfare--and the course of the American nation. Acclaimed military historian Craig Symonds offers spellbinding narratives of crucial engagements, showing how each battle reveals the transformation of technology and weaponry from one war to the next; how these in turn transformed naval combat; and how each event marked a milestone in American history. - Oliver Hazard Perry's heroic victory at Lake Erie, one of the last great battles of the Age of Sail, which secured the Northwestern frontier for the United States - The brutal Civil War duel between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia, which sounded the death knell for wooden-hulled warships and doomed the Confederacy's hope of besting the Union navy - Commodore Dewey's stunning triumph at Manila Bay in 1898, where the U.S. displayed its "new navy" of steel-hulled ships firing explosive shells and wrested an empire from a fading European power - The hairsbreadth American victory at Midway, where aircraft carriers launched planes against enemies 200 miles away--and where the tide of World War II turned in the space of a few furious minutes - Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf, where computers, ship-fired missiles, and "smart bombs" not only changed the nature of warfare at sea, but also marked a new era, and a new responsibility, for the United States. Symonds records these encounters in detail so vivid that readers can hear the wind in the rigging and feel the pounding of the guns. Yet he places every battle in a wide perspective, revealing their significance to America's development as it grew from a new Republic on the edge of a threatening frontier to a global superpower. Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives--and the fate of nations--hanging in the balance.

Author : Eric Hammel
Publisher : Daniel Hammel
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 17,57 MB
Release : 2020-12-23
Category : History
ISBN :

GET BOOK

GUADALCANAL DECISION AT SEA The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal November 13–15,1942 BY ERIC HAMMEL Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13–15, 1942, a crucial step toward America’s victory over the Japanese during World War II. The three‑day air and naval action incorporated America’s most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which Ameri­can battleships directly confronted and mor­tally wounded an enemy battleship. This American victory decided the future course of the naval war in the Pacific, indeed of the entire Pacific War. Eric Hammel has brilliantly blended the detailed historical records with personal accounts of many of the officers and enlisted men involved, creating an engrossing nar­rative of the strategy and struggle as seen by both sides. He has also included major new insights into crucial details of the battles, including a riveting account of the American forces’ failure to effectively use their radar advantage. Originally published in 1988 as the concluding volume in Eric Hammel’s series of three independent books focusing on the Guadalcanal campaign and exploring all the elements that made it a turning point of the war in the Pacific, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea lives up to the high standards and expectations that have marked this author’s many historical books and articles. Praise for Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea and Eric Hammel “Hammel’s description of surface tactics, naval gunnery, and what happens when the order to abandon ship is given is vivid and memorable.” —Publishers Weekly “[Hammel’s] detailed and fast-paced chronicle includes a number of incidents and anecdotes not found in the more prosaic official histories.” —Sea Power “Meticulously well-researched and scholarly, but still readable. Author Hammel presents an interesting account of the three-phase battle with frequently gripping ship-by-ship, plane-by-plane, blow-by-blow narratives laden with many human-interest vignettes from both sides.” —The Hook “[Hammel] mixes action with his history, the result being a highly readable story difficult to put down.” —Riversie Press-Enterprise “Hammel’s painstaking reconstruction affords not only a wealth of strategic and tactical detail but also a full measure of critical judgements. . . . a kaleidoscopic but invariably intelligible accounts of key actions . . .” —Kirkus Reviews “Hammel does not write dry history. His battle sequences are masterfully portrayed.” —Library Journal

Author : Tom Chaffin
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 489 pages
File Size : 34,33 MB
Release : 2007-04-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0374707006

GET BOOK

Assembled from hundreds of original documents, including intimate shipboard journals kept by Shenandoah officers, Sea of Gray is a masterful narrative of men at sea The sleek, 222-foot, black auxiliary steamer Sea King left London on October 8, 1864, ostensibly bound for Bombay. The subterfuge was ended off the shores of Madeira, where the ship was outfitted for war. The newly christened CSS Shenandoah then commenced the last, most quixotic sea story of the Civil War: the 58,000-mile, around-the-world cruise of the Confederacy's second most successful commerce raider. Before its voyage was over, thirty-two Union merchant and whaling ships and their cargoes would be destroyed. But it was only after ship and crew embarked on the last leg of their journey that the excursion took its most fearful turn. Four months after the Civil War was over, the Shenandoah's Captain Waddell finally learned he was, and had been, fighting without cause or state. In the eyes of the world, he had gone from being an enemy combatant to being a pirate—a hangable offense. Now fearing capture and mutiny, with supplies quickly dwindling, Waddell elected to camouflage the ship, circumnavigate the globe, and attempt to surrender on English soil. "A superb account of how the Confederate raider Shenandoah brought the American Civil War to the farthest reaches of the world." -- Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Mayflower and Sea of Glory

Author : John Banville
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 37,38 MB
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 030742930X

GET BOOK

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “extraordinary meditation on mortality, grief, death, childhood and memory" (USA Today) about a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside to grieve the loss of his wife. In this luminous novel, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel—among the finest we have had from this masterful writer.

Author : Steve Vernon
Publisher : Nimbus Pub Limited
Page : 159 pages
File Size : 40,79 MB
Release : 2011-04
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781551097770

GET BOOK

The tiny fishing community of Deeper Harbour is in deep trouble-and so is fourteen-year-old Roland MacTavish. Roland's mom wants to move with him to Ottawa, away from his father, his weird friend Dulsie, and his even weirder grandfather, Angus. So Roland does what any sane teenager would do: he invents a sea monster. Unfortunately, the scheme quickly spins out of Roland's control, and he has to go to greater and greater lengths to keep up the illusion. And then Roland must deal with a situation far more terrifying than any sea monster.As moving as it is irresistibly funny, Steve Vernon's portrait of Roland and Deeper Harbour is perfect for anyone who's ever been stuck badly enough to do something awesomely, brilliantly, heroically stupid.

Author : Admiral James Stavridis, USN
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 24,82 MB
Release : 2018-06-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0735220611

GET BOOK

From one of the most admired admirals of his generation—and the only admiral to serve as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO—comes a remarkable voyage through all of the world’s most important bodies of water, providing the story of naval power as a driver of human history and a crucial element in our current geopolitical path. From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world’s oceans from the admiral’s chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destiny of nations, and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today, and will shape the world we live in tomorrow. Not least, Sea Power is marvelous naval history, giving us fresh insight into great naval engagements from the battles of Salamis and Lepanto through to Trafalgar, the Battle of the Atlantic, and submarine conflicts of the Cold War. It is also a keen-eyed reckoning with the likely sites of our next major naval conflicts, particularly the Arctic Ocean, Eastern Mediterranean, and the South China Sea. Finally, Sea Power steps back to take a holistic view of the plagues to our oceans that are best seen that way, from piracy to pollution. When most of us look at a globe, we focus on the shape of the of the seven continents. Admiral Stavridis sees the shapes of the seven seas. After reading Sea Power, you will too. Not since Alfred Thayer Mahan’s legendary The Influence of Sea Power upon History have we had such a powerful reckoning with this vital subject.

Author : Jonathan Franklin
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 50,26 MB
Release : 2015-11-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1501116290

GET BOOK

The miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history. For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to health, this is an epic tale of survival. Print run 75,000.

Author : Eric Hammel
Publisher :
Page : 460 pages
File Size : 41,7 MB
Release : 2020-12-15
Category :
ISBN :

GET BOOK

GUADALCANALDecision at SeaThe Naval Battle of GuadalcanalNovember 13-15,1942Eric HammelGuadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13-15, 1942, a crucial step toward America's victory over the Japanese during World War II. The three-day air and naval action incorporated America's most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which American battleships directly confronted and mortally wounded an enemy battleship. This American victory decided the future course of the naval war in the Pacific, indeed of the entire Pacific War. Hammel has brilliantly blended the detailed historical records with personal accounts of many of the officers and enlisted men involved, creating an engrossing narrative of the strategy and struggle as seen by both sides. He has also included major new insights into crucial details of the battles, including a riveting account of the American forces' failure to effectively use their radar advantage. Originally published in 1988 as the concluding volume in Eric Hammel's series of three independent books focusing on the Guadalcanal campaign and exploring all the elements that made it a turning point of the war in the Pacific, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea lives up to the high standards and expectations that have marked this author's many historical books and articles. Praise for Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea and Eric Hammel - "Hammel's description of surface tactics, naval gunnery, and what happens when the order to abandon ship is given is vivid and memorable." -Publishers Weekly"[Hammel's] detailed and fast-paced chronicle includes a number of incidents and anecdotes not found in the more prosaic official histories." -Sea Power "Meticulously well-researched and scholarly, but still readable. Author Hammel presents an interesting account of the three-phase battle with frequently gripping ship-by-ship, plane-by-plane, blow-by-blow narratives laden with many human-interest vignettes from both sides." -The Hook"[Hammel] mixes action with his history, the result being a highly readable story difficult to put down." -Riverside Press-Enterprise"Hammel's painstaking reconstruction affords not only a wealth of strategic and tactical detail but also a full measure of critical judgements. . . . a kaleidoscopic but invariably intelligible accounts of key actions . . ." -Kirkus Reviews "Hammel does not write dry history. His battle sequences are masterfully portrayed ----Library Journal