John P. Holland, 1841-1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine

John P. Holland, 1841-1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine PDF Author: Richard Knowles Morris
Publisher: Annapolis, Md : United States Naval Institute
ISBN:
Category : Inventors
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description

John P. Holland, 1841-1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine

John P. Holland, 1841-1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine PDF Author: Richard Knowles Morris
Publisher: Annapolis, Md : United States Naval Institute
ISBN:
Category : Inventors
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description


Building American Submarines, 1914-1940

Building American Submarines, 1914-1940 PDF Author: Gary E. Weir
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description


Blackett's War

Blackett's War PDF Author: Stephen Budiansky
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307962636
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Washington Post Notable Book In March 1941, after a year of devastating U-boat attacks, the British War Cabinet turned to an intensely private, bohemian physicist named Patrick Blackett to turn the tide of the naval campaign. Though he is little remembered today, Blackett did as much as anyone to defeat Nazi Germany, by revolutionizing the Allied anti-submarine effort through the disciplined, systematic implementation of simple mathematics and probability theory. This is the story of how British and American civilian intellectuals helped change the nature of twentieth-century warfare, by convincing disbelieving military brass to trust the new field of operational research.

Sea Devils

Sea Devils PDF Author: John Swinfield
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750954795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sea Devils is a compelling account of pioneer submariners and their astonishing underwater contraptions. Some made perilous voyages. Others sank like stones. Craft were propelled by muscle-power or had steam engines with chimneys. Some had wheels to trundle along the seabed. Others were used as underwater aircraft carriers.Here John Swinfield traces the history of early submarines and the personalities who built and sailed them. From a plethora of madcap inventors emerged a bizarre machine that navies of the world reluctantly acquired but viewed with distaste. It matured into a weapon that would usurp the mighty battleship, which had for centuries enjoyed an unchallenged command of the oceans. In its long and perilous history the submarine became subject to fierce business, military and political shenanigans. It won eventual acceptance amidst the chaos and carnage of the First World War, in which pathfinder submariners achieved an extraordinarily high tally of five Victoria Crosses, Britain’s highest military decoration.Sea Devils brims with daring characters and their unflinching determination to make hazardous underwater voyages: an immensely readable, entertaining and authoritative chronicle of low cunning, high politics, wondrous heroism and appalling tragedy.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales PDF Author: Joseph Gibbs
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570036934
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dead men tell no tales, or so the pirate maxim goes. But when facing execution in 1831 for mutiny and murder, the previously enigmatic pirate Charles Gibbs recounted the infamous crimes of his harrowing life at sea in a self-aggrandizing series of confessions. Wildly popular reading among nineteenth-century audiences, such criminal confessions were peppered with the romanticized mythology that informs pirate lore to this day. Joseph Gibbs takes up the task of separating fact from fiction to explicate the true story of Charles Gibbs - an alias for James Jeffers (1798-1831) of Newport, Rhode Island - in an investigation that reveals a life as riveting as the legend it replaces.Jeffers was the child of a Revolutionary War privateer captain with his own history in the rough work. After a heroic career in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812, Jeffers eschewed military life and took to the privateer trade himself. As Charles Gibbs, pirate, he sailed from the ports of Charleston and New Orleans to wreak havoc in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Stripping away 170 years of embellishment, Joseph Gibbs maps the still-shockingly violent career of Charles Gibbs across the seas and, in the process, challenges and discredits much of his self-made mythology.Gibbs recounts Jeffers' well-documented role in the infamous mutiny and murders in 1830 aboard the brig Vineyard while the vessel was carrying a load of Mexican silver. The pirate was captured the following year and brought to New York. The case against Jeffers and accomplice Thomas Wansley culminated in a sensational trial, which led to their subsequent executions by hanging on Ellis Island.In addition to recounting the exploits of a ruthless cutthroat, The Confessions of Charles Gibbs tells the larger story of American piracy and privateering in the early nineteenth century and illustrates the role of American and European adventurers in the Latin American wars of liberation. Carefully researched, engagingly written, and enhanced by twenty illustrations, this is pirate history at its most credible and readable.

Guardian of Savannah

Guardian of Savannah PDF Author: Roger S. Durham
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643365479
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
The remarkable story of how an earthen fort defense shielded a Southern city from the ironclad monitors of the U.S. Navy Built out of sand and mud, Fort McAllister was designed to serve as the southern anchor of the coastal defenses of Savannah, Georgia. Hastily constructed near the beginning of the Civil War, the fort was situated on the Great Ogeechee River, twelve miles south of the Savannah River. During the war, Fort McAllister withstood devasting naval assaults and served well the aims of Confederate strategists. When the city fell to Union troops, it was General William T. Sherman's overland attack and not an assault from the sea that subdued Savannah. Roger S. Durham offers a comprehensive history of the Fort McAllister's construction and its use during the Civil War, as well as its post-war restoration. Durham intertwines historical narrative with first-person accounts and personal stories through the judicious use of primary sources. By letting the fort's Confederate defenders and Union attackers speak for themselves, Durham offers a compelling account of one of the most hotly contested sites in the naval struggle between Union and Confederate forces.

Playships of the World

Playships of the World PDF Author: Daniel V. Gallery
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570037221
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The diaries also recount the coming of age of a naval legend. Gallery describes grappling with shipboard difficulties and contemplates the various directions his career might lead. He also recalls romances with young women in ports across the globe and attempts to maintain his moral and religious principles in the face of temptations of lust and liquor abroad." "Throughout the episodes recorded here, Gallery's spirits and hopes are high, his friendships numerous, and his outlook both clear and unpretentious. Peppered with companionable wit and burgeoning literary talent, the diaries illustrate the humble beginnings of a fledgling officer who would become an inspirational figure in military lore."--BOOK JACKET.

Forty-niners 'round the Horn

Forty-niners 'round the Horn PDF Author: Charles R. Schultz
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570033292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book Here

Book Description
Drawing upon more than one hundred unpublished diaries, Schultz profiles the individuals who embarked on these journeys and demonstrates how markedly the gold rush voyages differed from general commercial trading and whaling ventures."--BOOK JACKET.

USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast

USS Constellation on the Dismal Coast PDF Author: C. Herbert Gilliland
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 161117290X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Get Book Here

Book Description
This seaman’s journal recounts a twenty-month voyage from Boston to the African coast to intercept slave-trading vessels as America approach the Civil War. Today the twenty-gun sloop USS Constellation is a floating museum in Baltimore Harbor; in 1859 it was an emblem of the global power of the American sailing navy. William E. Leonard served aboard the Constellation during a crucial and eventful period, chronicling it all in this remarkable journal. Sailing from Boston, the Constellation, flagship of the US African Squadron, was charged with the interception and capture of slave-trading vessels illegally en route from Africa to the Americas. During the Constellation’s deployment, the squadron captured a record number of these ships, liberating their human cargo and holding the captains and crews for criminal prosecution. At the same time, tensions at home and in the squadron increased as the American Civil War approached and erupted in April 1861. Leonard recorded not only historic events but also fascinating details about his daily life as one of the nearly four-hundred-member crew. He saw himself as not just a diarist, but a reporter, making special efforts to seek out and record information about individual crewmen, shipboard practices, recreation and daily routine—from deck swabbing and standing watch to courts martial and dramatic performances by the Constellation Dramatic Society.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power

Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of American Power PDF Author: William R. Nester
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498596762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
Theodore Roosevelt is an American icon, his face carved in granite alongside those of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln on Mt. Rushmore. He is the only American awarded both the Medal of Honor and Nobel Peace Prize. As president, he pushed through a stubborn Congress to breakup corporate monopolies strangling the economy, impose health standards on the food and drug industries, and conserve America’s natural heritage, including the Grand Canyon and Redwood forest. He was a brilliant diplomat who ended a war between Japan and Russia, and prevented a war between Germany and France. He engineered independence for the province of Panama from Columbia, then signed a treaty with the new country that entitled the United States to build, run, and defend a Panama canal. He crusaded for progressive reforms as a New York assemblyman, U.S. civil service commissioner, New York City police commissioner, and New York governor. He led scientific expeditions across East Africa’s savanna and Brazil’s rainforest. During the war with Spain, he raised a cavalry regiment and led his Rough Riders to a decisive victory at San Juan Heights. As a Dakota rancher during the frontier’s twilight, he squared off with outlaws and renegade Indians. He was a prolific writer, authoring 38 books and hundreds of essays. Roosevelt was among the most charismatic presidents. Yet, although most Americans adored him, most Wall Street moguls and political bosses hated him for his reforms. He was complex, simultaneously peacemaker and warmonger, progressive and conservative, Machiavellian and Kantian, avid hunter and nature lover. Roosevelt accomplished all that he did because he mastered the art of American power. His motto “speak softly and carry a big stick” exemplified how he asserted power to defend or enhance American interests. Time after time he bested such titans as J.P. Morgan or Kaiser Wilhelm at the game of power. Although he is the subject of dozens of books, this is the first to comprehensively explore just how Roosevelt understood, massed, and wielded power to pursue his vision for an America as the world’s most prosperous, just, and influential nation.