FLIGHT, CAMERA, ACTION! The History of U.S. Naval Aviation Photography and Photo-Reconnaissance


Book Description

The first U.S. Navy aerial photographs were taken in 1913 in support of fleet exercises off Guantanamo, Cuba. Following WWI, a Navy Photographic expedition went north, making the first aerial mapping photos of the Alaskan territory. WWII found Navy shuttermen in the Pacific theatre, performing pre- and post-attack reconnaissance, along with "hitting the beach" to record the war as it unfolded. Shortly after, Navy photographic units were in the Pacific to record early atomic bomb tests. The Navy's aerial photo reconnaissance mission, both at the front end with the weaponless aircrews and the output of thousands of images and photo interpretation, continued to develop through the mid-20th century. The last aerial photo plane in the Navy's inventory was retired after flying to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum Annex at Dulles International Airport in Fairfax County, Virginia. The 74 year odyssey of Navy and Marine Corps aerial reconnaissance photography was finished.




Amelia Earhart's Faustian Bargain


Book Description

About the Book On July 09, 2017, the History Channel aired a television documentary called Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence, which attracted a world-wide audience of 4.3 million views. The highlight of the History Channel’s Earhart documentary was a photograph discovered by retired federal agent Les Kinney in the National Archives stamped with official Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) markings. In the photo, a ship can be seen towing a barge with an airplane on the back and on a nearby dock are several people, of which two of them resemble Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. For the truth seeker who is interested in understanding the “whole story” behind Earhart’s round-the-world flight, who earnestly desires to know who really sponsored and funded the flight; why the Electra was modified the way it was; why the plane crashed in Hawaii; why an identical plane of the same model was in Miami, the same week Earhart departed on her trip; what Earhart really did during the week she was in Bandoeng; why Earhart’s radio messages were crafted the way they were; and what really prevented Earhart and Noonan from completing the flight are all questions that are answered in this work (and more), with evidence to back them. About the Author The author’s work also devotes one entire chapter to a detailed forensic study and analysis of all that is captured in the Kinney-discovered dock photo and as a result, can once and for all, time-stamp the date the photograph was taken. A work that reexamines the mountain of evidence that all along, has been staring the world in the face ever since Earhart and Noonan disappeared. A work that is crammed with informative photographs, charts, diagrams, maps and analyses from an author who is now retired and free from all former oaths and obligations formerly made to and given in, the service of “the devil.”




U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps Aircraft Damaged or Destroyed During the Vietnam War. Volume 1: Listed by Ship Attached and by Squadron


Book Description

This is a compilation of nearly 9,000 separate reports on damaged or destroyed US Navy and US Marine Corps fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft during the Vietnam War. Volume 1 includes a subset of the 2,550 aircraft - those attached to aircraft carriers and LPH's and those attached to the 187 squadrons involved in that war. This set completes the author's 6-volume set that includes the three volumes comprising US Navy and US Marine Corps Aircraft Lost During WWII (15,069 aircraft) and the single volume of US Navy and US Marine Corps Aircraft Lost During the Korean War.




The Submarine Has No Friends


Book Description

At last count, more than 80 U.S. submarines recorded some type of actual "friendly fire" incident in which they were involved during their WWII war patrols. From being attacked by Allied bombers, depth-charged by U.S. ships or fired upon by armed Allied merchant ships, submariners quickly came to understand the bitter truth of the maxim: 'The submarine has no friends.' While the majority of submarines and their crew escaped with little more than bruised egos or minor injuries, three submarines and their crews were lost to friendly fire. For the first time in book format, a serious and most comprehensive research effort has gone into capturing all such "friendly fire" incidents involving U.S. submarines during World War II. Compiled through relentless research by the co-authors, their stories of loss and survival by "other than the enemy" is presented within these pages.




VPNavy! USN, USMC, USCG and NATS Patrol Aircraft Lost or Damaged During World War II


Book Description

Thousands of hours of research have culminated in this First Edition of U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and Naval Air Transport Service patrol aircraft lost or damaged during World War II. Within these 600+ pages can be found more than 2,200 patrol aircraft across nearly 300 squadron designations; the majority of the aircraft complete with their stories of how they were lost or damaged or simply Struck Off Charge (SOC) and removed from the Navy's inventory. Of interest to the reader may be the alphabetical Index to the 7,600+ names of Officers, aircrewmen and others mentioned in the book.




VPNavy! USN, USMC, USCG and NATS Patrol Aircraft Lost or Damaged During World War II Ð Listed by Bureau Number


Book Description

Thousands of hours of research have culminated in this First Edition of U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and Naval Air Transport Service patrol aircraft lost or damaged during World War II. Within these pages can be found more than 2,200 patrol aircraft in Bureau Number (BuNo) sequence; the majority of the aircraft complete with their stories of how they were lost or damaged or simply Struck Off Charge (SOC) and removed from the NavyÍs inventory. Of interest to the reader may be the alphabetical Index to the 7,600+ names of Officers, aircrewmen and others mentioned in the book.




A Gathering of Extraordinary Individuals: Thomas Mack Wilhoite/Kenitra American High School, Morocco, 1956-1976


Book Description

We are a gathering of extraordinary individuals who met under extraordinary circumstances. Coming of age in a small high school in Morocco decades ago, we have something unique in common, and decades later it has somehow never left us. We are the Sultans of Thomas Mack Wilhoite/Kenitra American High School. Be it the first graduating class of three Seniors in 1956 to the last Class of 1976, our experiences as students were sharply tuned to our environment. We were not strangers in a strange land; we were welcomed by the Moroccan people as if we were visiting relatives. The sights, sounds, tastes and smells of Morocco were absorbed by hundreds of students no matter what span of years we were there. We can all relate, and laugh at, similar experiences of our teenage years growing up in and around Kenitra/Port Lyautey, Mehdia Beach, Rabat, and other nearby military bases. Within this book are the memories of those days as told by the former students and teachers of our school.




Continuity of Government: How the U.S. Government Functions After All Hell Breaks Loose


Book Description

The term "Continuity of Government," or COG, runs from the dubious "duck and cover" method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion to the more serious measures of continual government inventories of grain silos, the Strategic National Stockpile, the uncapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the dispersal of transportable bridges, water purification, mobile refineries, mobile de-contamination facilities, mobile general and special purpose disaster mortuary facilities. For anyone researching in the field of COG - from Civil Defense to Presidential succession to the various U.S.-based COG operations (Operations OPAL, ALERT, BUSTER, JANGLE. DESERT ROCK, UPSHOT, KEYHOLE, etc.), this book reflects two years of research by the author within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Of interest may be the first 100 pages on the history of COG and also the listing of thousands of COG-related titles that rest on the shelves in NARA for your additional scrutiny.




A Remote Sensing Survey to Locate the Remains of USS DORADO (SS-248) Off of Bahia de la Ascension, Quintana Roo, Mexico


Book Description

The Maritime Education and Research Society (MERS) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose aims and objectives are to research and to advance education and training in the techniques pertaining to the study of various maritime fields of endeavor for the benefit of the public. Such fields include the continuing assessment of ecological impacts on coral reefs around the world, the research of maritime events that have shaped history, underwater archeology, the training of individuals and groups in the above fields, and the publication of all such research for the continuing education of the public. Our first field study was called The Dorado Expedition and continues to this day. This is a research program to determine if a World War II US submarine was lost on the coral reef system off the Yucatan Peninsula as mentioned by Mexican locals in the 1970s.




On the Potomac River


Book Description

The Potomac River meanders in its 383-mile journey past natural settings of the forests, rocks and falls (Great Falls, Little Falls, Three Sisters Rocks, Mather Gorge), the convergence of other rivers into the Potomac (the Shenandoah River at Harpers Ferry, the Eastern Branch of the Potomac at Washington, D.C., now called Anacostia River) and the architecture of man-made points of interest (Mount Vernon, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Harper's Ferry, Fort Washington). Douglas Campbell (writer) and Thomas Sherman (artist) followed the entire length of the winding Potomac through its four distinct geographical areas: the Appalachian highlands of the westernmost portion of Maryland and the northern portion of West Virginia, Maryland's Cumberland Valley (called Shenandoah Valley in Virginia), the rolling Piedmont country beyond the Catocin mountains and the brackish Tidewater area where the waters become affected by the tidal pulls of the sun and moon.




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