Where the Fleet Begins


Book Description

Traces the modern research and development center from its dual origin when David Taylor and George Melville brought science and technology to the emerging steam-driven steel fleet, through a full century of modernization and several reorganizations. Details the constant work to transform vision into reality, and to keep innovation flowing from cutting-edge science and technology into the Navy's ships and submarines.




The Fleet the Gods Forgot


Book Description

The dramatic tale of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in World War II received little attention prior to the publication of this book in 1982, when Winslow chronicled their short and tragic story of heroism and defeat.Greatly outnumbered by vastly superior forces, and saddled with defective equipment; a lack of supplies, reinforcements, and air cover; and, towards the end, an incompetent and bungled Allied combined command, the Asiatic fleet met the Japanese head-on. Within a matter of three months, however, the beleaguered ships were totally wiped out. Captain Walter Winslow, a naval aviator on board the USS Houston, flagship of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, was in a unique position to tell the riveting story. As an active participant in all the major battles the fleet engaged in, he had an intimate understanding of the calamities that befell it. In addition, he drew upon the his own extensive notes he kept from a POW camp while interviewing other American, British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners from the Allied fleet. Winslow also painstakingly tracked down war documents and battle reports from all the ships assigned to the fleet to paint a complete picture filled with graphic details of the fleet’s only victory at Balikpapan; the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea that broke the back of the combined Asiatic fleet; the ghastly spectacle at Sunda Strait where the Houston struggled to survive; the suspenseful episode in the submarine Perch trapped in the mud at the bottom of the sea; and the daring escape from Corregidor of eighteen crewmembers from the USS Quail who refused to surrender to the Japanese forces.




Fighting the Fleet


Book Description

Fighting the Fleet recognizes that fleets conduct four distinct but interlocking tasks at the operational level of war--striking, screening, scouting, and basing--and that successful operational art is achieved when they are brought to bear in a cohesive, competitive scheme. In explaining these elements and how they are conjoined for advantage, a central theme emerges: despite the utility and importance of jointness among the armed forces, the effective employment of naval power requires a specialized language and understanding of naval concepts that is often diluted or completely lost when too much jointness is introduced. Woven into the fabric of the book are the fundamental principles of three of the most important naval theorists of the twentieth century: Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske, Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie, and Captain Wayne Hughes. While Cares and Cowden advocate the reinvigoration of combat theory and the appropriate use of operations research, they avoid over-theorizing and have produced a practical guide that empowers fleet planners to wield naval power appropriately and effectively in meeting today's operational and tactical challenges.




Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet


Book Description

Drawing on previously untapped sources, naval historian James Reckner provides a complete picture of the fleet that thrust the United States into the ranks of great world naval powers. His fresh interpretations of the fleet's historic 1907-09 world cruise, which won him the 1989 Roosevelt Naval History Prize, allow today's readers to fully appreciate the significance of the famous fleet that set sail during Teddy Roosevelt's second term as president. Reckner recreates the colorful pageantry of the event--sixteen U.S. battleships on a fourteen-month voyage around the world--that drew thousands of sightseers at every port of call, but his main emphasis is on the cruise's long-range impact on the Navy. He shows how the cruise revealed the fleet's shortcomings and forced the naval establishment to acknowledge the faults and make concessions that eventually led to permanent benefits.







A Fleet History of the San Francisco Municipal Railway


Book Description

A Fleet History of the San Francisco Municipal Railway is a book that lists every transit vehicle that has been used in regular Muni service since 1912. The format includes a listing of key data for each vehicle, such as size, passenger capacity, manufacturer /cost and years of service, a short summary of the service history of the vehicle, and a photo (if available). All four modes are covered: rail (streetcar and LRV), bus, trolley bus and cable car, with one section covering each mode. Two additional sections include information on all Muni operations facilities, and a figures and graphics section. The figures and graphics section includes information on the four modes of transit, plus information on historical data in the areas of ridership, fares, farebox recovery, logo and agency structure and leadership. A short summary history section precedes the fleet history sections, and a photo credits table is included along with the blbilograpy. The completed document represents the first compilation of many of these pieces of information in almost 40 years. With over 200 pages and over 400 photographs, it is an excellent reference and history book both for experts and for people with a casus interest in the history of San Francisco Municipal Railway.




The Fleet at Flood Tide


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The extraordinary 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 Winner, Commodore John Barry Book Award, Navy League of the United States • Winner, John Lehman Distinguished Naval Historian Award, Naval Order of the United States With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war. With a close focus on high commanders, front-line combatants, and ordinary people, American and Japanese alike, Hornfischer tells the story of the climactic end of the Pacific War as has never been done before. Here are the epic seaborne invasions of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, the stunning aerial battles of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, the first large-scale use of Navy underwater demolition teams, the largest banzai attack of the war, and the daring combat operations large and small that made possible the strategic bombing offensive culminating in the atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the seas of the Central Pacific to the shores of Japan itself, The Fleet at Flood Tide is a stirring, authoritative, and cinematic portrayal of World War II’s world-changing finale. Illustrated with original maps and more than 120 dramatic photographs “Quite simply, popular and scholarly military history at its best.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture “The dean of World War II naval history . . . In his capable hands, the story races along like an intense thriller. . . . Narrative nonfiction at its finest—a book simply not to be missed.”—James M. Scott, Charleston Post and Courier “An impressively lucid account . . . admirable, fascinating.”—The Wall Street Journal “An extraordinary memorial to the courageous—and a cautionary note to a world that remains unstable and turbulent today.”—Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, author of Sea Power “A masterful, fresh account . . . ably expands on the prior offerings of such classic naval historians as Samuel Eliot Morison.”—The Dallas Morning News




Iron Fleet


Book Description

Iron Fleet focuses on the vital role played by the Great Lakes shipping industry during World War II. George J. Joachim examines how the industry met the unprecedented demand for the shipment of raw materials to meet production quotas during the war, when failure to do so would have had disastrous consequences for the nation's defense effort. Steel production was crucial to the American war effort, and the bulk shippers of the lakes supplied virtually all of the iron ore necessary to produce the steel. In describing the evolution of the Great Lakes shipping industry during World War II, Joachim also explores the use of Great Lakes shipyards for the production of salt water civilian and military vessels, the role of the Great Lakes passenger ships in providing vacation opportunities for war workers, and the extensive measures taken to to safeguard the Soo Locks and other potential targets from sabotage.




BP Tankers


Book Description

This massive new reference work is the first comprehensive, authoritative and detailed fleet history of one of the world's major international oil transportation companies. It is lavishly illustrated with over 500 photographs and supported by an army of documents relevant to specific tankers. The book begins with a brief group history and includes a chronology describing fleet developments from the early purchase of second-hand tonnage with the formation of the company. The first BP-owned oil tanker was the British Emperor, acquired in 1916, and the story continues to the rise of the giant behemoths of the 1990s and the new-builds at the start of this century. The book's core is the fleet list which includes specifications and histories of every ship owned by the British Tanker Company and BP Shipping, and all their associates. It includes subsidiary craft such as tugs, barges and support ships, and more than 1,000 vessels are examined in detail. There are photographs of every class of vessel along with plans showing stowage arrangements. This book is a marathon achievement and befits a company that has carried oil from every corner of the globe. It will prove to be an essential reference work for maritime researchers, professionals in oil companies and all the supporting industries, and ship enthusiasts around the world.




The Royal Navy's Home Fleet in World War 2


Book Description

This book marks the first comprehensive history of Britain's naval bulwark, the Home Fleet. It illuminates the vital role that fleet played in preserving Britain as a base of operations against Hitler. We see portrayed the hard days of blockade, patrol, and battle that encompassed the Home Fleet's war. And we see how that war was made harder by weaknesses at the Admiralty and by the damaging interference of the Minister of Defence - Winston Churchill.