Showing results for "William" in Naval Forces

Britain’s SBS - or Special Boat Service - was the world’s first maritime special operations unit. Founded in the dark days of 1940, it started as a small and inexperienced outfit that leaned heavily on volunteers’ raw courage and boyish enthusiasm. It would become one of the most effective fighting forces of the Second World War - and has served as a model for Special Forces ever since.

The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the ‘Green Hell’ of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands.

On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic separated from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole, seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the risks, they had a better chance of survival than the rest of Convoy PQ-17, a fleet of 35 cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel - the limited help Roosevelt and Churchill extended to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance.

The Ice Diaries tells the incredible true story of Captain William R. Anderson and his crew's harrowing top-secret mission aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Bristling with newly classified, never-before-published information, The Ice Diaries takes listeners on a dangerous journey beneath the vast, unexplored Arctic ice cap during the height of the Cold War.

The Sea War is a wonderful, accessible history rooted in the Second World War. As the Soviet Union played its role in the fracas, Ally convoys from the UK, the United States and Iceland fought to deliver essential supplies to Russia. In a clash of extreme elements and fierce Axis opposition, the effort demonstrated like no other the commitment from other nations to supporting the Soviet Union.

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer. However, Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. Across the oceans of the world, the pirate hunter, Kidd, pursued the pirate, Culliford. One man would hang in the harbor; the other would walk away with the treasure. The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a page-turner.

Book four of Sea Stories of a U.S. Marine relates a historic period in US Marine Corps Aviation, the first "off the shelf" procurement of a major weapons system from a foreign country and the introduction of the first operational V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff or landing) aircraft into the Untied States arsenal. The story is related through the eyes of our pilot and family from books one, two, and three. His writing style again puts the listener in the cockpit with him as he learns the intricacies of flying a V/STOL aircraft.

From the author of The Ghost Ships of Archangel, one of the last unheralded heroic stories of World War II: The U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the US Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community’s monumental contribution to that effort. Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery - but it sent an unusually large concentration of sea captains to fight in World War II.

In its voracious hunger to fill its decks and spars with the bodies of strong young sailors, the nineteenth century US Navy and the commercial maritime industry welcomed eccentrics, criminals, outcasts, and misfits into a community of the marginalized, one that held very different values and expectations than the towns and villages from which the young men fled, a community that offered a tentative refuge to men who were sexually attracted to other men. Benemann provides an in-depth examination of nineteenth century LGBTQ culture as it developed at sea and in America's port cities.

This nation's Cold War and Global War on Terror defense structures need an update. U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century provides such a framework for the changed world we live in, offering a roadmap that shows how the U.S. can field a war-winning fleet that can also compete aggressively in peacetime against dangerous competitors.

On July 4, 1861, the schooner S. J. Waring set sail from New York on a routine voyage to South America. Seventeen days later it limped back into New York's harbor with the ship's black cook and steward at the helm. While the story of that ill-fated voyage is one of the most harrowing tales of captivity and survival on the high seas, it has been tragically lost to history. Now reclaiming William Tillman as the American hero he deserves to be, historian Brian McGinty takes listeners on a courageous journey.

This story has been written in response to a demand for some account of the very generally misunderstood submarine campaign and, particularly, of the means by which it was defeated. While opinions may differ to a certain extent as to the influence exerted upon the campaign by the various forms of tactics, the means and weapons employed, and the general strategy adopted, I have given what I believe to be a consensus of the best-informed opinion upon these matters; I have taken advantage of all of the information now available to ensure accuracy in the account.

Bluejackets in the Blubber Room explores key events in US maritime history from the 1820s to the end of the Civil War through the biography of the sailing ship William Badger.