Naval Forces

The story begins in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland....

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent....

Borneo: The Last Campaign tells the story of Operation OBOE, the massive, three-pronged assault on the vast Japanese-held island of Borneo in 1945. It was one of the largest amphibious invasions of the entire war, and a virtually all-Australian operation.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A terrific book … It really is one of the most enjoyable histories I’ve read in many a year’ JAMES HOLLAND ‘Riveting … A brilliant account’ DAILY MAIL THE FIRST AUTHORISED HISTORY OF THE SBS. Britain’s SBS – or Special Boat Service – was the...

The British Admiralty's telegram arrived at Navy Office in Melbourne, the order to go to all-out war. It was coldly succinct: TOTAL GERMANY . The war at sea had begun. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the...

In August of 1588, a Spanish fleet of 130 ships departed from La Coruña under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia....

On 27 October 1942, four "Long Lance" torpedoes fired by the Japanese destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo exploded in the hull of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet....

In 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the...

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway....

Hunt the Bismarck tells the story of Operation Rheinübung, the Atlantic sortie of the Nazi Germany's largest battleship in May 1941....

What defended the US after the attack on Pearl Harbor, defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and is an essential tool in the fight against terror? Aircraft carriers....

Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason. Australian...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The exhilarating true story of the U.S. Navy’s improbable victory at the Battle of Samar—“a dire survival-at-sea saga” (Denver Post) from the acclaimed author of Neptune’s Inferno “A critically acclaimed, blow-by-blow look at a small American force...

So Others May Live: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death is the award-winning untold story of the US Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers....

From America's preeminent naval historian, the first full-length portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the Pacific in World War Two....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The extraordinary true story of the World War II air, land, and sea campaign that brought the U.S. Navy to the apex of its strength and marked the rise of the United States as a global superpower, from the acclaimed author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can...

Donald Macintyre’s U-Boat Killer is a unique account of the Battle of the Atlantic from the perspective of a British destroyer captain who fought through this brutal campaign.

Outgunned and outmanned on the Pacific Ocean, a small American fleet defied the odds and turned the tide of World War II....

i>No Banners, No Bugles is the riveting story of how Ellsberg the miracle worker tackled his greatest mission yet....

No espionage missions have been kept more secret than those involving American submarines. Now, Blind Man's Bluff shows for the first time how the Navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. It unveils how the...

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 extraordinary story of how the British Royal Navy allowed one nation to rise to a level of power unprecedented in history....

Mastering the Art of Command is a detailed examination of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's leadership during WWII. It describes how he used his talents to guide the Pacific Fleet, win crucial victories against the forces of Imperial Japan, and then seize the initiative in the Pacific....

As he explodes many accepted pirate myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier....

For over three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France....