Naval

The period of relative peace enjoyed by the Roman Empire in its first two centuries ended with the Marcomannic Wars. The following centuries saw near-constant warfare, which brought new challenges for the Roman Navy. It was now not just patrolling the...

In the mid-eighteenth century, most of the Mediterranean coastline and its hinterlands were controlled by the Ottoman Empire, a vast Islamic power regarded by Christian Europe with awe and fear. By the end of the First World War, however, this great...

In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set out on a voyage to find the North-West Passage - the sea route linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The expedition was expected to complete its mission within three years and return home in triumph...

As the crow flies'', ''chunder'', ''cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'', ''three sheets to the wind'' - many terms like these are used in everyday English language conversation and writing. But how many landlubbers know that they derive...

At the outset of World War II, Scapa Flow was supposed to be the safe home base of the British Navy - nothing could penetrate the defences of this bastion. So how, in the dead of night, was Gunther Prien's U-47 able to slip through the line of protective...

From the very beginnings of torpedo craft, all naval powers have seen the occasional need for larger, more powerful or in other respects special designs that stand outside the contemporary norms for flotilla craft. The driving forces were often different...

Early on Sunday, 7 December 1941, Japanese carrier-borne aircraft launched a surprise attack against the US Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. It was a date that President Roosevelt declared will live in infamy . During the strike, Japanese planes...

On September 1, 1910, France became the last great naval power to lay down a dreadnought battleship, the Courbet. The ensuing Courbet and Bretagne-class dreadnoughts had a relatively quiet World War I, spending most of it at anchor off the entrance to...

A history and analysis of one of the most dramatic moments in both air power and naval history. With the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, no battleship was safe on the open ocean, and the aircraft took its crown as the most powerful maritime...

This is the story of an air campaign in which each bomb could dramatically influence the course of the war. In January 1942, the powerful German battleship Tirpitz sailed into her new base in a Norwegian fjord, within easy reach of the Arctic Convoys...

Applauded by the public and revered by the men who served under him, Adm. William F. Halsey was one of the leading American personalities of World War II. His reputation as a no-holds-barred fighter and his tough-guy expression earned him the nickname...

Fully illustrated, this book pits US Navy submarines against the aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the height of World War II. Before World War II the world's navies envisioned the submarine as a tool to hunt and kill cruisers and...

This guide book covers the present-day battlefield, and the actions that took place on and immediately behind the D-Day beaches, and Major and Mrs Holt's Pocket Guide to Normandy has been put together to take you around the area.This book, part of a new...

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was the US Navy's first battle-worthy, purpose-built aircraft carrier. Her crew, already accustomed to wartime conditions by maintaining Neutrality Patrols during 1941 in the Atlantic, quickly adapted to the Pacific Theater, having...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780316492065Author Simon ParkinFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Back Bay BooksPublisher Back Bay BooksWeight(grams) 295gDimensions(mm) 208mm * 137mm *...

As the possibility of war loomed in the 1930s, the British Admiralty looked to update their fleet of destroyers to compete with the new ships being built by Germany and Japan, resulting in the commissioning of the powerful Tribal-class. These were...

In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781800552630Author Peter GrettonFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Sapere BooksPublisher Sapere BooksWeight(grams) 345gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 14mm

Diver is an honest, moving and sometimes hilarious account of a hair-raisingly exciting career, both in the Royal Navy and in commercial deep-sea diving-training the most unlikely of raw recruits ... handling unexploded bombs while under air attack .....

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781838094317Author Derek NuddFormat PaperbackPage Count 404Imprint Cottage Grove EditionsPublisher Cottage Grove EditionsWeight(grams) 467gDimensions(mm)...

For over a decade this annual has provided an authoritative summary of all that has happened in the naval world in the previous twelve months, combining regional surveys with one-off major articles on noteworthy new ships and other important developments...

John Lambert was a renowned naval draughtsman, whose plans were highly valued for their accuracy and detail by modelmakers and enthusiasts. By the time of his death in 2016 he had produced over 850 sheets of drawings, many of which have never been...

This new account explores the most notorious pirates in history and how their rise and fall can be traced back to a single pirate haven, Nassau. Angus Konstam, one of the world's leading pirate experts, has brought his 30 years of research to create...

With over 260 images, this is a highly illustrated history of the ships and operations of the Royal Navy during the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II. During the 70 years spanned by the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Navy changed...

A gripping chronicle of the personal and political rivalries from the birth of Queen Victoria to the unification of Germany during the decades leading up to WW1 from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie 2018 marks the centenary of the end of the First...

The most eloquent and personal story of a young man at war since Geoffrey Wellum's FIRST LIGHTUntil a winter evening in 1998 Nathaniel was just another history student on a comfortable career trajectory of high school to college to white collar job. Then...

Motor Gun Boats were the Spitfires of the Seas of the Royal Navy. Bristling with small-calibre guns and machine guns, they served in a variety of roles during the War. In the early war period they battled against German E-boats in the English Channel,...

Now a major television documentary (Channel 4, 2021)The epic mission to destroy Hitler's flagship.'Bismarck was now loose in the Atlantic ... we had to find and sink her.'May, 1941. The most powerful battleship the world has ever seen, the German Navy's...

In 1938, the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, acting under the requirements issued by the Kaigun Koku Hombu for a Navy Experimental 13-Shi Carrier Borne specification for a dive-bomber to replace the venerable 'Val' aboard carriers. The resulting...

Out of print for many years, this is a brand new edition of the definitive companion to the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series of novels, written by the author himself. What was daily life in Nelson's navy really like,...

The war years 1939 - 1945 were the most perilous in the long history of the British Merchant Navy. The figures speak for themselves. With 2,535 ships sunk and 36,749 merchant seamen lost, the proportional casualty rate was higher than any branch of the...

Tony Chapman was born in Southampton in 1924. Aged 16 he watched with horror as the historic High Street of Southampton burnt to the ground in a firestorm caused by a heavy German bombing raid on the night of 30 November 1940. He vowed to join up and...

The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 were the largest amphibious military operation ever mounted. During the late Spring and early summer of 1944 the roads and ports of southern England were thronged with the troops, vehicles and ships of the invasion force...

An illustrated history of how Japan devised and launched a new kind of air campaign in late 1944 - the suicidal assaults of the kamikaze units against the approaching Allied fleets. As summer changed to autumn in 1944, Japan was losing the war. Still...

Superbly illustrated with original artwork throughout, this book explores the ironclad warships that fought the little-known battles of South America's War of the Pacific. In the late 19th century, a war erupted between Chile and Peru, the catalyst...

Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune, (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds has...

Originally published in 1909 to 'interest and educate the public mind in the men who constitute the first line of our defensive forces', this series of beautiful illustrations and quaint descriptions explains the jobs behind the uniforms. From the...

A history of the Soviet Navy's cruisers, from the opening shots of the October Revolution through to the combat they saw during World War II. The Soviet Navy of World War II boasted a cruiser fleet that was among the most eclectic to see service. In...

The BBC TV Tie-in to Dan Snow's Timewatch series exploring the navy's rise over four centuries.The year 1588 marked a turning point in our national story. Victory over the Spanish Armada transformed us into a seafaring nation and it sparked a myth that...

The submarine was one of the most revolutionary weapons of World War I, inciting both terror and fascination for militaries and civilians alike. During the war, after U-boats sank the Lusitania and began daring attacks on shipping vessels off the East...