Military Vehicles

On May 19, 1942, during World War II, a German submarine, a U-boat, in the Gulf of Mexico stalked its prey 50 miles from New Orleans. The submarine set its sights on the freighter Heredia. Most onboard were merchant seamen, but there were also civilians, including the Downs family: Ray and Ina and their two children. Fast asleep in their berths, the Downs family had no idea that two torpedoes were heading their way. When the ship exploded, chaos ensued - and each family member had to find their own path to survival.

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and hallucinations.

During the Revolutionary War, 14-year-old Nathan Wade joins forces with his older cousin, the inventor David Bushnell, to secretly build the first submarine used in naval warfare.

After his father is killed fighting for the Union, 13-year-old Tom Carroll takes a job at a Brooklyn ironworks to support his family. He quickly learns that they are building an iron-clad, "unsinkable" ship to be called the Monitor to finally sink the Confederates' "unsinkable" ship, the Merrimac.

For more than 100 years, a submarine lay buried beneath the ocean floor near Charleston, South Carolina. This Civil War stealth weapon, the H.L. Hunley, made history in 1864 as the first submarine ever to sink an enemy ship. But something went wrong during that daring mission. The Hunley never returned to port.

Do you know which year most historians agree saw the very first tank partake in battle? Which country first used the combined might of tanks and air power? What percentage of Germany’s Afrika Korps tanks had been destroyed by the end of the campaign? And which tank was nicknamed Queen of the Desert? In this fascinating audiobook, Charles King talks us through more than 100 amazing facts about tanks, including chapters about their history, the Second World War, tank design and plenty more.

During World War I, British and American ships were painted with bold colors and crazy patterns from bow to stern. Why would anyone put such eye-catching designs on ships? Desperate to protect ships from German torpedo attacks, British lieutenant-commander Norman Wilkinson proposed what became known as dazzle. These stunning patterns and colors were meant to confuse the enemy about a ship's speed and direction. By the end of the war, more than 4,000 ships had been painted with these mesmerizing designs.