Archive Results For: Post WW2
Note: Eight Weeks in the Bristol Channel, 1947
The following account of the fortunes of the Braunton trading ketch Agnes in the brutal winter of 1947 complements the overview, published in The Mariner’s Mirror, of how the Bristol Channel coastwise trade worked through the 15 years that followed the end of the second world war.1 It was compiled by the then mate of […] Read More
Filed under: Post WW2
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines
Book Review-‘ The Modern Cruiser: The evolution of the ships that fought the Second World War’ by R. C. Stern,
he first and very positive thing one notices about this book is the sheer quality of the production. Sumptuous is perhaps too strong a description, but there is a good strong dust jacket which will not fray or tear with shelf wear; the pages are of strong durable near- photographic- quality paper, and the images […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Weapons
Book Review-‘ Silver State Dreadnought: The remarkable story of battleship ‘Nevada’’ by S. M. Younger
USS Nevada was one of the first of a new generation of American dreadnoughts. She and her half-sister Oklahoma pioneered ‘all or nothing’ protection and oil burning as designed. She had turbines, but the US Navy was still worried about potential range disadvantages of these power plants and thus made Oklahoma a reciprocating engined vessel, […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘British Town Class Cruisers: Design, development and performance, Southampton and Belfast classes’ by C. Waters
Between 1937 and 1939 the Royal Navy commissioned ten cruisers armed with a dozen 6-inch guns and named after British cities. Originally to be named after mythological beings and dubbed the Minotaur class, they then became the Southampton and ‘Improved Southampton’/Belfast classes but, especially after the loss of the name-ship, have regularly been dubbed the […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘Anatomy of the Ship: The battleship USS ‘Iowa’’ by S. Draminski
Commissioned in 1943, the United States Ship Iowa was the lead ship of a class of six that were destined to be the very last US battleships; indeed only four of the class were subsequently built. Formidably armed, well armoured and handsome, they were the fastest battleships ever built, with a maximum speed of 33 […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘Spoils of War: The fate of enemy fleets after the two World Wars’ by A. Dodson and S. Cant
This most interesting new publication by Aidan Dodson and Serena Cant has been aimed at filling a long-noted gap in the histories of the fleets of the defeated nations of the First and Second World Wars after hostilities had ceased, describing the ultimate fates of the surrendered vessels by destruction and accident. It serves as […] Read More
Book Review-‘Red Crew: Fighting the war on drugs with Reagan’s Coast Guard’ by J. Howe
In the early 1980s the Reagan administration was faced by a problem of border control on its south-eastern maritime frontier. Drug smuggling was causing serious concern as seizures rose dramatically in the late 1970s, indicating a rising trend in the traffic. People smuggling, particularly from Haiti, was also ringing alarm bells. In 1981 a permanent […] Read More
Filed under: Post WW2
Subjects include: Lifesaving & Coastguard
Book Review-‘Bloody Sixteen: The USS ‘Oriskany’ and the Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War’ by P. Fey
This book is a first-class addition to the historiography of the role played by naval aviation during the Vietnam War. Peter Fey has catalogued the operations of the USS Oriskany and Carrier Air Wing 16 in meticulous detail throughout their three tours between 1965 and 1968. Not only is the reader drawn into a gripping […] Read More
Filed under: Post WW2
Subjects include: Naval Aviation
Book Review-‘Seven at Santa Cruz’ by T. Edwards
A book with the subtitle ‘The Life of Fighter Ace Stanley ‘Swede’ Vejtasa’ might seem an odd one for The Mariner’s Mirror but nothing can be further from the truth. During the twentieth century, the air dimension of maritime operations grew to be of central importance. Understanding the aviation dimension has become key to researching […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Biography | Naval Aviation
Book Review-‘Anglo-Australian Naval Relations, 1945–1975:A more independent service’ by M. Gjessing
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) grew from the Royal Navy and even today this influence in the RAN’s culture is plain. Naval personnel are different, living and working in manners alien to their society and form a distinct subculture understood by few. Naval personnel are long-term, technically orientated personnel who live and fight isolated aboard […] Read More
Filed under: Post WW2
Subjects include: Navies