Naval History

This memoir adventure takes the listener through a twenty year career in naval aviation that included flying attack jets from aircraft carriers, flight instructing, Naval Test Pilot School, experimental and operational flight test, engineering management for F/A-18 aircraft, initial flight test of the Super Hornet aircraft and overseas aircraft maintenance after 11 September 2001. NASA was the start of David's career while working with astronauts and engineers.

Holding the Line chronicles the carrier war in Korea from the first day of the war to the last, focusing on frontline combat while also describing the technical development of aircraft and shipboard operations and how these all affected the broader strategic situation on the Korean Peninsula.

In November 1972, the Coast Guard Cutter Jarvis ran aground during a violent storm in Alaska, puncturing its hull, with a temporary patch applied to stop the flooding. The following day, enroute back to Honolulu, another, more vicious, storm struck; Jarvis now struggled with over 13 feet of water in their engine room and no power. The nearest ship that volunteered to assist was scheduled to arrive 30 minutes after the Jarvis officers estimated the ship would be destroyed on the rocky coastline. This is the true story of the heroic efforts by the crew that saved the ship.

For nearly 200 years huge wooden warships called “ships of the line” dominated war at sea and were thus instrumental in the European struggle for power and the spread of imperialism. Foremost among the great naval powers were Great Britain and France, whose advanced economies could support large numbers of these expensive ships. This book, the first joint history of these great navies, offers a uniquely impartial and comprehensive picture of the two forces - their shipbuilding programs, naval campaigns, and battles, and their wartime strategies and diplomacy.

David R. Leick uses first-hand accounts from archives such as the Naval History and Heritage Command to examine the campaigns, aircraft, tactics, command decisions, and life aboard ship during the American Pacific campaign against Japan from early 1943 until Princeton’s tragic demise in October 1944. The book focusses closely on the crew and airmen of the Princeton, as well as describing in detail the toll that prolonged combat operations took on the frontline sailor.

Warship Builders is the first scholarly study of the US naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe. A colossal endeavor that absorbed billions and employed virtual armies of skilled workers, naval construction mobilized the nation's leading industrial enterprises in the shipbuilding, engineering, and steel industries to deliver warships whose technical complexity dwarfed that of any other weapons platform.

Sunday, December 7, 1941, dawned clear and bright over the Pacific....

But for the Dauntless dive-bomber crews of the USS Enterprise returning to their home base on Oahu, it was a morning from hell. Flying directly into the Japanese ambush at Pearl Harbor, they lost a third of their squadron and witnessed the heart of America's Navy broken and smoldering on the oil-slicked waters below.

This compelling history examines the closing months of the vital campaign which ultimately determined the successful conclusion of the Pacific War for the Allies. But it had not been a smooth process. The campaign continued in fits and starts with both the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy making crucial errors. But as the pendulum of war swung, there was one distinct advantage to the Allies. This was the successful efforts by the United States Army Signals Intelligence Section and the Navy Communication Special Unit to monitor, intercept, decode and translate Japanese messages.

The SS City of Benares was born in the optimism of the interwar years. Launched in 1936 for the Ellerman Line, she embodied reliability, elegance, and the promise of safe passage between Britain and its empire. With her sleek twin funnels and polished interiors, she seemed destined to carry families, officials, and traders eastward in comfort. Yet within only four years, her name would be etched into the darkest chapter of Britain’s wartime history—not for her design or her service in peacetime, but for the lives of the children she carried on her final voyage.

Secrets of the Wolf Pack takes listeners deep beneath the surface to uncover the full story of Germany’s U-boat campaign: from its origins in the First World War, through its spectacular early triumphs, to its desperate innovations and ultimate defeat. Cyril Marlen offers an accessible yet detailed account of this hidden war, blending strategy, technology, and the gritty realities of life aboard an “iron coffin.”

On May 14-15, 1905, in the Tsushima Straits near Japan, an entire Russian fleet was annihilated, its ships sunk, scattered, or captured by the Japanese. In the deciding battle of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese lost only three destroyers but the Russians lost twenty-two ships and thousands of sailors. It was the first modern naval battle, employing all the new technology of destruction.

Hailed by INC. magazine as "America's toughest CEO coach", retired Navy SEAL Rob Roy teams with former national security correspondent Chris Lawson to pen this innovative guide on leadership. The Navy SEAL Art of War explores how battle-tested skills employed by SEAL teams can translate to the boardroom, helping leaders of all stripes thrive when the pressure is on.

The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no less than 22 navies fighting on five oceans - to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history.

When Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the US and NATO were losing the Cold War. The USSR had superiority in conventional weapons and manpower in Europe and had embarked on a massive program to gain naval preeminence. But Reagan already had a plan to end the Cold War without armed conflict.

For centuries, ships' commanders kept journals that recorded their missions. These included voyages of discovery to unknown lands, engagements in war and sea and general trade. Many of their logs, diaries and letters were lodged at The National Archives and give a vivid picture of the situations that they encountered. Entries range from Captain James Cook's notes of his discovery of the South Pacific and Australia, to logs of the great naval battles, such as Waterloo and Trafalgar.

The incredible true story of the most spectacular aircraft-carrier battle in history - World War II's Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Here is the true account of those great and terrible days - by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.

At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America's best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time, the S.S. United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when "made in America" meant the best.

In a sweeping account, Atlantic Wars explores how warfare shaped the experiences of the peoples living in the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean between the late Middle Ages and the Age of Revolution.

In 1916, a nondescript freighter left Germany carrying 465 submarine mines, 16 torpedoes, eight cannons, 1,400 shells, a seaplane, and 346 men who believed they were embarking on a suicide mission. That ship became known to Allied forces as the Wolf, and by the time it returned to Germany more than a year later, it was home to more than 800 men, women, and children from 25 different nations, including its own crew.

As the 100th anniversary of the fateful night approaches, Palmer follows up innumerable conflicting stories and theories that still, to this day, surround the doomed liner. Charles Herbert Lightoller, Palmer’s great uncle, was the highest-ranking surviving officer from the disaster. It was only after the great man’s death in 1952 that his sister, Gertrude, Palmer’s eccentric grandmother, began to hint to her young grandson of the contradictory accounts of both her brother’s supposed heroism and his suspect testimonies at the investigations into the sinking.