Author: Matthew Wright
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 1526784041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
This book tells the story of HMS New Zealand, a battlecruiser paid for by the government of New Zealand at the height of its pro-Imperial ‘jingo’ era in 1909, when Britain’s ally Japan was perceived as a threat in Australasia and the Pacific. Born of the collision between New Zealand’s patriotic dreams and European politics, the tale of HMS New Zealand is further wrapped in the turbulent power-plays at the Admiralty in the years leading up to the First World War. The ship went on to have a distinguished First World War career, when she was present in all three major naval battles – Heligoland, Dogger Bank and Jutland – in the North Sea. The book ‘busts’ many of the myths associated with the ship and her construction, including the intent of the gift, New Zealand’s ability to pay, deployment, and the story behind the piupiu (skirt) and tiki (pendant) that, the crew believed, bestowed special protection upon the vessel. All is inter-woven with the human and social context to create a ‘biography’ of the ship as an expression of human endeavour, in significantly more detail than any of the summaries available in prior accounts. Extensively illustrated, this is a book with appeal to a wide audience, from naval enthusiasts and historians to the general reader with a wider interest in the story of Empire. The use of archival material available only in New Zealand, including the Ship’s Book, adds a dimension and novelty not previously included in histories of this great battlecruiser.
Author: Filson Young
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Battle cruisers
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
Author: John Muir
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 1399017217
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
This memoir is perhaps one of the most immediate and vivid recollections of life in a Royal Navy battlecruiser to come out of the First World War. John Muir, a surgeon, was the senior medical officer aboard HMS Tiger from her commissioning in October 1914 until his departure in the autumn of 1916 when she was then undergoing repairs at Rosyth to the damage incurred at the battle of Jutland in June that year. Vivid, authoritative, empathetic and beautifully written, this memoir takes the reader right to the center of the action in the first years of the War. The book begins with a stirring account of a night in the wild North Sea with Tiger, head to wind in a gale, steaming at a reduced speed of 10 knots, her purpose to intimidate the German fleet ‘by the mere terror of our presence’. The scene set, Muir’s narrative then describes his experiences from the early days of mobilization, when he was the Senior Medical Officer of the barracks at Chatham, to his arrival aboard Tiger on the Clyde, her commissioning and the drilling of fifteen hundred officers and ratings as she put out to sea for the first time. In the first months of her career she was involved in intercepting the German raid on Scarborough before fighting the battlecruisers Derfflinger, Moltke, and Seydlitz at Dogger Bank. In May 1916 she found herself in line just astern of the doomed Queen Mary at Jutland. Muir had a ringside seat at these critical and decisive clashes and brings remarkable perception and clarity in the telling of his experiences. But more than a narrative of events, his story is also one about the officers and men who were his comrades in those years; about their qualities, their anxieties and the emotional dimension of their experiences. His insights are those of a man trained to understand the human heart, and they bring vividly to life a generation of men who fought at sea more than one hundred years ago. This is a spellbinding and gripping memoir, brought to a new audience in a handsome collectors’ edition for the first time since its publication in 1936.
Author: Denis Fairfax
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780478348040
Category : Battle cruisers
Languages : en
Pages : 53
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Book Description
Author: Ian Johnston
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783469366
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
“Outstanding . . . anyone with an interest in the major ships of the grand Fleet or shipbuilding on the Clyde will want to own it.”—Warship 2012 Between 1906 and 1920, the Clydebank shipyard of John Brown & Sons built five battlecruisers, each one bigger than the last, culminating in the mighty Hood, the largest warship of her day. If Tiger is regarded as a modification of the Lion class design, this represents every step in the evolution of these charismatic, and controversial, ships. Like most shipyards of the time, Clydebank employed professional photographers to record the whole process of construction, using large-plate cameras that produced pictures of stunning clarity and detail; but unlike most shipyard photography, Clydebank’s collection has survived, although very few of the images have ever been published. For this book, some two hundred of the most telling of these were carefully selected, and scanned to the highest standards, depicting in unprecedented detail every aspect of the building and fitting out of Inflexible, Australia, Tiger, Repulse and Hood. Probably more has been written about battlecruisers than any other warship type, and as modelmaking subjects they have a devoted following, so any new book has to make a real contribution. This pictorial collection, with its lengthy and informative captions, and an authoritative introduction by Ian Johnston, offers ship modelers and enthusiasts a wealth of visual information simply unobtainable elsewhere. “A superb book combining some useful text on the ships and their construction with an amazing collection of pictures.”—History of War
Author: Stephen S. Roberts
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 1526745348
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1400
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Book Description
“This outstanding book will be essential for future studies of naval policy in the period between la Gloire and the Great War.” —The Naval Review This book is the first comprehensive listing in English of more than 1400 warships that were added to the official French navy fleet list between 1 January 1859 and World War I. It includes everything from the largest battleships to a small armoured gunboat that looked like a floating egg. Reflecting the main phases of naval policy, the ships are listed in three separate parts to keep contemporary designs together and then by ship type and class. For each class the book provides a design history explaining why the ships were built, substantial technical characteristics for the ships as completed and after major reconstructions, and selected career milestones including the ultimate fate of each ship. Following the earlier volumes written jointly with Rif Winfield, French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786 and French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861, this trilogy now provides a complete picture of the development of French warships over a period of almost three centuries. “As a technical reference on the French ships of 1859 to 1914, this book is a must for the serious naval architecture student, modeler, or enthusiast. So much solid information is packed in this book, arranged logically, clearly and with so many illustrations, I cannot see where another volume on this subject can compete. Highly recommended!” —Nautical Research Journal “Superlatives abound in describing this book, arguably the finest naval ‘shiplist’ ever created.” —Warship International
Author: Christopher Buckey
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682475824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
Genesis of the Grand Fleet: The Admiralty, Germany, and the Home Fleet, 1896-1914 tells the story of the prewar predecessor to the Royal Navy's war-winning Grand Fleet: the Home Fleet. Established in early 1907 by First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher, the Home Fleet combined an active core of powerful armored warships with a unification of the various reserve divisions of warships previously under the control of the three Royal Navy home port commands. Fisher boasted that the new Home Fleet would be able to counter the growing German Hochseeflotte. While these boasts were accurate, they were not the sole motivation behind the Home Fleet's establishment. The Liberal Party's landslide victory in the 1906 General Election made fiscal economy on the part of the Admiralty even more important than before, and this significantly influenced the Home Fleet's creation. Subsequently the Home Fleet suffered a sustained campaign of criticism by the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, Lord Charles Beresford. This campaign ruined many careers including Beresford's and resulted in the assimilation of the Channel Fleet into the Home Fleet in 1909. From 1910 onward the Home Fleet steadily evolved and became the most important single command in the Royal Navy, and the Home Fleet's successive commanders-in-chief had influence on strategic policy rivaled only by the Board of Admiralty. The last prewar commander of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir George Callaghan achieved this influence by impressing the civilian head of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. A driven reformer, Churchill's influence was almost as important as Fisher's. Against this backdrop of political drama, Genesis of the Grand Fleet: The Admiralty, Germany, and the Home Fleet, 1896-1914 explains how Britain maintained its maritime preeminence in the early twentieth century. As Christopher Buckey describes, the fleet sustained Britain and her allies' path to victory in World War I.
Author: John Roberts
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473882370
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
“A valuable stand-alone text . . . Contains large amounts of data on all of the vessels officially classified as battlecruisers in the Royal Navy.” —International Journal of Maritime History The brainchild of Admiral Sir John Fisher, battlecruisers combined heavy guns and high speed in the largest hulls of their era. Conceived as super-cruisers to hunt down and destroy commerce raiders, their size and gun-power led to their inclusion in the battlefleet as a fast squadron of capital ships. This book traces in detail the development of Fisher’s original idea into first battlecruiser Invincible of 1908, through to the Splendid Cats of the Lion class, and culminating in HMS Hood in 1920, the largest warship in the world for the next twenty years. The origins of the unusual light battlecruisers of the Courageous type are also covered. “The author is still the foremost authority on battleships from Dreadnought and, although now retired, he continues to research the subject. This new edition of the definitive book on battlecruisers has been updated with the latest findings from his research. An outstanding review of the subject.” —Firetrench “It is good to see this book back in print with this improved edition.” —Warship, “Naval Books of the Year”
Author: Norman Friedman
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1591142547
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Norman Friedman brings a new perspective to an ever-popular subject in The British Battleship: 1906Ð1946. With a unique ability to frame technologies within the context of politics, economics, and strategy, he offers unique insight into the development of the Royal Navy capital ships. With plans of the important classes commissioned from John Roberts and A D Baker III and a color section featuring the original Admiralty draughts, this book offers something to even the most knowledgeable enthusiast.
Author: John Harper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510708596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Two high-ranking officers defied the British Admiralty to tell the tale of World War I’s first naval battle against Germany. The Royal Navy had ruled the sea unchallenged for one hundred years since Nelson triumphed at Trafalgar. Yet when the Grand Fleet faced the German High Seas Fleet across the grey waters of the North Sea near Jutland, the British battleships and cruisers were battered into a draw, losing far more men and ships than the enemy. The Grand Fleet far outnumbered and outgunned the German fleet, so something clearly had gone wrong. The public waited for the official histories of the battle to be released to learn the truth, but month after month went by with the Admiralty promising, but failing, to publish an account of Jutland. Questions were raised in Parliament (twenty-two times), yet still no official report was produced, due to objections from Admiral Beatty. This led to Admiral Bacon producing his own account of the battle, called The Jutland Scandal, in 1925. Two years later the man instructed to write the official report, Rear-Admiral Harper, decided to publish his account independently, under the title The Truth about Jutland. Together, these two books lay bare the facts about Jutland and reveal the failings of senior officers and the distortions of the early historians. Produced as one volume for the first time, this book tells the truth about the scandal that developed following the largest battle ever fought at sea. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
