The Girls in Navy Blue


Book Description

A gripping and compelling dual timeline novel about three women who joined the Navy during WWI to become yeomanettes and the impact their choices have on one of their descendants in 1968. "The Girls in Navy Blue had me smiling from first page to last! When the US Navy admits women to the ranks during World War I, three intrepid yeomanettes answer the call: Blanche the dashing suffragette, Marjory the German immigrant, and Vivian the preacher's daughter on the run from the police. Friendship, duty, and the struggle of making their way in a man's world will bind the three together, and their secrets will resound through the next fifty years--until Blanche's great-niece, reeling from losses and desperate for home, will pick up the pieces. Alix Rickloff pens a lovely coming-of-age tale: brave women making waves in a war-torn world." - Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author 1918 - America is at war with Germany, and, for the first time in history, the US Navy has allowed women to join up alongside the men. Ten thousand of them rush to do their part. German-American Marjory Kunwald enlists in the Navy to prove her patriotism. Suffragette Blanche Lawrence to prove that women are the equal of men. And shy preacher’s daughter Viv Weston in a desperate attempt to hide from the police. Even as the US military pours into France and the war heats up, the three yeomanettes find friendship and sisterhood within the Navy. But all their plans for the future are thrown into chaos when Viv’s dark past finally catches up with her. 1968 - Newly divorced and reeling from a personal tragedy, Peggy Whitby unexpectedly inherits her estranged great-aunt Blanche’s beach cottage outside Norfolk Virginia. But her fragile peace is rattled when she begins to receive mysterious postcards dated from 1918 when Blanche served as a Navy yeomanette. Curious to learn more about her mysterious aunt and uncover the truth behind the cryptic messages, Peggy is drawn deeper into the lives of the three young Navy girls. But her digging uncovers more than she bargains for, and, as past and present collide, Peggy must decide if finding out about her aunt is worth the risk of losing herself.




The Blue Age


Book Description

Most of human history has seen what Teddy Roosevelt called "incessant warfare on the open oceans." This all changed after World War II, when the US Navy grew into a behemoth. America has by far the most powerful naval fleet in the world--it currently owns ten full-deck nuclear supercarriers equipped with long-range jets; the rest of the world, combined, has zero. The imperial dominance of the US Navy has brought half a century of peace and free trade to the world's waterways. But climate change and rising nationalism threaten to change that. Its dominance in this arena is so clear and overwhelming that other nations are not even trying to keep up. This, in turn, has enabled America to stand sentinel over crucial waterways like the Strait of Malacca, ensuring safe passage of goods with little interruption. But we are entering a new era. What will happen if we lack the political will to keep spending resources on improving trade between other nations? Will China's rising economic influence and regional aggression cause us to pull ships out of the South China Sea, or result in a conflict between our navies, however mismatched? And what will happen if new shipping lanes are opened near the Arctic Circle, or other places changed by global warming? Surveying both decades of naval history and a world of contemporary politics, this skillful blend of research and reportage makes a unique and urgent argument about the future of global trade.




Navy Blue


Book Description

In 1943 the United States is engaged in a global, life-and-death struggle with Germany, Japan, and Italy. Widespread fighting draws American men into the armed services, leaving a shortage in the countrys workforce. Women find themselves in roles normally reserved for males. WAVESWomen Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Servicesforms to integrate females into the Navy and to fill the workforce gap. Navy Blue follows four young recruits as they leave their civilian lives behind and struggle to adapt to the regimented life in the U.S. Navy. Honing her skills for management as a protge of an industrial genius, practical Lou Matteson finds herself the leader of a diverse crew of young women. Martha Jo Stuckey, the wild child of a poor ranching family, clowns her way through life. Her unfailing good humor makes the military bearable for her friends. Wealthy Eleanor LaFrance leads the privileged life even as she rebels against it. A loner by nature, Eleanor finds she needs friends to survive in an environment that demands teamwork. Shy, nave Katherine Anderson faces disappointment and betrayal by the men in her life. Her mates, providing encouragement and kindness, stand by her side. Together they form a solid sisterhood allowing them to thrive in a mans world. A tale of three unforgettable years in the lives of four young women, Navy Blue narrates the story of times when the world balanced between good and evil and speaks to the power of women and the endurance of the human spirit.




Darker Than Navy Blue: A Sailor's Memoir of Tragedy and Healing


Book Description

Nicole joins the Navy and excels through training and firefighting school. She even proves herself by qualifying into the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal. All she has to do is persuade her command to authorize a transfer into her dream job. But trapped aboard a ship and the target of sexual predators, Nicole must find a way to survive.




Navy Blue and Other Colors


Book Description

The book, in the main, grew out of my experience as one of the first of two African American women officers in the Navy. Before describing my application, acceptance, training, assignments and friendships in the service, I outline my life up to that cruicial point. Birth and early childhood were in Pennsylvania and New York. Following my discharge from the service, I relate adventures, largely growing out of that exposure. The last third of my story includes the happy experience of my second marriage, now in its forty-third year in stark contrast to the first, which endured here and in Paris, France for less than two months. The above was written in 1996. She died in 1998.




Navy Blue


Book Description

Navy Blue is a story about a seventeen year old boy from Ohio who traveled the globe experiencing things that he would have never seen from his rural community of Wapakoneta, Ohio. In the nineteen fifties there was a military draft underway that would provide this young man with mature friends and get him started on the road to life, and what would eventually become a military career. Not only would he “join the Navy and see the world”, he would also meet an interesting assortment of friends.




Progressives in Navy Blue


Book Description

Examines how intellectual and institutional developments transformed the US Navy from 1873 to 1898. These dates bracket a dynamic quarter-century during which Americans witnessed their navy transform from a modest imperial constabulary into a powerful mechanized force designed principally for national defense.




Blue & Gold and Black


Book Description

During the twentieth century, the U.S. Naval Academy evolved from a racist institution to one that ranked equal opportunity among its fundamental tenets. This transformation was not without its social cost, however, and black midshipmen bore the brunt of it. Blue & Gold and Black is the history of integration of African Americans into the Naval Academy. The book examines how civil rights advocates? demands for equal opportunity shaped the Naval Academy?s evolution. Author Robert J. Schneller Jr. analyzes how changes in the Academy?s policies and culture affected the lives of black midshipmen, as well as how black midshipmen effected change in the Academy?s policies and culture. Most institutional history is written from the top down, while most social history is written from the bottom up. Based on the documentary record as well as on the memories of hundreds of midshipmen and naval officers, Blue & Gold and Black includes both perspectives. By examining both the institution and the individual, a much more accurate picture emerges of how racial integration occurred at the Naval Academy. Schneller takes a biographical approach to social history. Through written correspondence, responses to questionnaires, memoirs, and oral histories, African American midshipmen recount their experiences in their own words. Rather than setting adrift their humanity and individuality in oceans of statistics, Schneller uses their first-hand recollections to provide insights into the Academy?s culture that cannot be gained from official records. Covering the Jim Crow era, the civil rights movement, and the empowerment of African Americans from the late 1960s through the end of the twentieth century, Blue & Gold and Black traces the transformation of an institution that produces men and women who lead not only the Navy, but also the nation.




The Blue Angels


Book Description

Since 1946, the world-famous US Navy Blue Angels flying-demonstration team has performed in airshows in the United States and around the world. This book details the origins of the team when created by the US Navy, as well as describing the different models of aircraft that the team has flown during its seventy-year history. The team's aircraft history goes from the propeller-driven F6F-5 Hellcat and F8F Bearcat, through the jet-powered F9F-8 Cougar, F11F-1 Tiger, F-4 Phantom, and A-4 Skyhawk, to the present-day F/A-18 Hornet, mirroring the development of US aircraft during this time. The book also presents graphic and photographic descriptions of some of the team's signature maneuvers that are performed during a Blue Angels airshow, in stunning imagery. Part of the Legends of Warfare series.