Chatham's Military Heritage


Book Description

Explore Chatham's military heritage, from Roman times to the present day, in this illustrated guide.




The Late Lord


Book Description

John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham is one of the most enigmatic and overlooked figures of early nineteenth century British history. The elder brother of Pitt the Younger, he has long been consigned to history as 'the late Lord Chatham', the lazy commander-in-chief of the 1809 Walcheren expedition, whose inactivity and incompetence turned what should have been an easy victory into a disaster. Chatham's poor reputation obscures a fascinating and complex man. During a twenty-year career at the heart of government, he served in several important cabinet posts such as First Lord of the Admiralty and Master-General of the Ordnance. Yet despite his closeness to the Prime Minister and friendship with the Royal Family, political rivalries and private tragedy hampered his ascendance. Paradoxically for a man of widely admired diplomatic skills, his downfall owed as much to his personal insecurities and penchant for making enemies as it did to military failure. Using a variety of manuscript sources to tease Chatham from the records, this biography peels away the myths and places him for the first time in proper familial, political, and military context. It breathes life into a much-maligned member of one of Britain's greatest political dynasties, revealing a deeply flawed man trapped in the shadow of his illustrious relatives.




Chatham Dockyard


Book Description

Founded in 1570, Chatham Dockyard quickly became one of the most important naval yards for the repair and building of warships, maintaining a pre-eminent position for the next 400 years. Located on the River Medway, in all, the yard was responsible for the construction of over 500 warships, these ranging from simple naval pinnaces through to first-rates that fought at Trafalgar, and concluding with the hunter-killer submarines of the nuclear age. In this detailed new history of the yard from experienced local and maritime author Philip MacDougall, particular attention is given to the final two hundred years of the yard’s history, the artisans and labourers who worked there and the changing methods used in the construction of some of the finest warships to enter naval service. Coinciding with the dockyard’s seeking status as a World Heritage site, this fascinating history places Chatham firmly in its overall historical context.




The Royal Engineers at Chatham 1750-2012


Book Description

The dockyards at Chatham, on the River Medway in Kent, is a site of international military significance. This is the story of the defences that protected the dockyard and the key route to London, from substantial lines of earthen ramparts and ditches to major citadels and innovative forts.




Chatham in the Great War


Book Description

Discover a coastal English town’s vital role in WWI with this local history covering Royal Navy actions and the pursuit of escaped German prisoners. Home to one of the Royal Navy’s three major dockyards, Chatham played a very important part in Britain’s Great War effort. Only six weeks into the war, residents took a major blow as three vessels from the Chatham Division—HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue—were sunk by a German submarine. Two months later, the battleship HMS Bulwark exploded and sunk whilst at anchor off of Sheerness on the Kent coast. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however. Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, visited Chatham early in the conflict. Two German prisoners of war, Lieutenant Otto Thelen and Lieutenant Hans Keilback, escaped from Donnington Hall in Leicestershire—only to be re-captured in Chatham four days later. By the end of the war, Chatham and the men who were stationed there had truly played their part in ensuring a historic Allied victory. This volume vividly captures the town’s service, sacrifice, and legacy.




Fields of Battle


Book Description

Terrain has a profound effect upon the strategy and tactics of any military engagement and has consequently played an important role in determining history. In addition, the landscapes of battle, and the geology which underlies them, has helped shape the cultural iconography of battle certainly within the 20th century. In the last few years this has become a fertile topic of scientific and historical exploration and has given rise to a number of conferences and books. The current volume stems from the international Terrain in Military History conference held in association with the Imperial War Museum, London and the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, at the University of Greenwich in January 2000. This conference brought together historians, geologists, military enthusiasts and terrain analysts from military, academic and amateur backgrounds with the aim of exploring the application of modem tools of landscape visualisation to understanding historical battlefields. This theme was the subject of a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/345/E) awarded to the University of Greenwich and administered by us in 1998, which aimed to use the tools of modem landscape visualisation in understanding the influence of terrain in the First World War. This volume forms part of the output from this grant and is part of our wider exploration of the role of terrain in military history. Many individuals contributed to the organisation of the original conference and to the production of this volume.




Chatham


Book Description

Picking up where Chatham in the Jazz Age left off, this exciting new book by Debra Lawless explores the history of Chatham, from the beginning of the Second World War to the end of the 1960s. Meet a brave group of people who rationed their food and mourned the loss of their sons, including Robert Scott Brown, the only soldier from Cape Cod killed at Pearl Harbor. As the military took over the Chatham Light and local radio station WCC, wartime security became so tight that Chatham's fishermen were photographed and fingerprinted. Experience the transition into the 1950s, when even as tourism boomed, Cape residents feared polio and called for zoning to ban hot dog stands. Finally, hang out with hippies as Chatham's sons were sent to another war, in Vietnam, and the nation geared up to begin its war on drugs.




Rules for Rebels


Book Description

Ever wonder why militant groups behave as they do? For instance, why did Al Qaeda attack the World Trade Center whereas the African National Congress tried to avoid civilian bloodshed? Why does Islamic State brag over social media about its gory attacks, while Hezbollah denies responsibility or even apologizes for its carnage? This book shows that militant group behaviour depends on the tactical intelligence of the leaders. The author has extensively studied the political plights of hundreds of militant groups throughout world history and reveals that successful militant leaders have followed three rules. These rules are based on original insights from the fields of political science, psychology, criminology, economics, management, marketing, communication, and sociology. It turns out thereâs a science to victory in militant history. But even rebels must follow rules.




Chatham Historic Dockyard


Book Description

Nowhere in the world is it possible to see such an intact naval dockyard for the building and maintenance of the ships of the sailing navy as at Chatham. This book, edited by Neil Cossons, Jonathan Coad, Andrew Lambert, Paul Hudson and Paul Jardine - all experts in their fields - brings together their combined knowledge to tell the dockyard's history, from Elizabethan origins to fleet base and shipbuilding yard, from sail to steel to submarines. They set out the extraordinary scale of the legacy and the challenges of the future once the yard closed in the 1980s. This is a story of the creation of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and the management of an outstanding historic asset for the benefit of the public. Profusely illustrated, it is the first authoritative account of how Chatham's dockyard was saved for the nation and managed for nearly forty years to exemplary standards.




A Short Narrative of the Late Campaign of the British Army Under the Orders of the Earl of Chatham (1810)


Book Description

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.