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 – ‘Combat at Close Quarters: An illustrated history of the US Navy in the Vietnam War’ by Eric Grove
The Vietnam War is not normally seen as a maritime conflict. Yet it was in many ways. Not only was much of the air campaign against North Vietnam and the Communists in the south launched from aircraft carriers but there were huge efforts devoted to maritime interdiction operations, shore bombardment and a riverine campaign that […] Read More
Filed under: Location | Period | Post WW2 | Twentieth Century | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘The US Navy: A concise history’ by Johan Francke
In this concise history, Craig L. Symonds describes, among other issues, the role played by political decisions and political debate in the formation of the US Navy and, similarly, the influence of technological innovation. For the supporters of maritime policy, the importance of the navy was a matter of projecting state power and self-confidence. Others […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | American Revolution | Post WW2 | American Civil War | Eighteenth Century | Nineteenth Century | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Navies
Book Review – ‘Blue Versus Purple: The US Naval War College, the Soviet Union, and the new enemy in the Pacific, 1946’ by Jonathan P. Klug
Most surveys of the Second World War mention pre-war planning efforts, especially the US planning efforts involving Orange, the American code name for Imperial Japan. While the various incarnations of War Plan Orange were important, the processes of planning and conducting war games were arguably even more important. For over 40 years US Naval War […] Read More
Filed under: WW2 | Post WW2 | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘British Box Business: A history of OCL’ by René Taudal Poulsen
In the 1950s container shipping was pioneered by US and Australian companies in their domestic trades, and by the mid-1960s it diffused internationally. In order to ensure survival, European shipping lines with strongholds in most liner trades were forced to respond quickly. They became second movers in the process of innovation. British Box Business focuses on […] Read More
Filed under: Post WW2 | Other (Twentieth C)
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review – ‘Naval Warfare: A global history’ by Eric Grove
I have to admit to have been putting off reading and reviewing this book; I am grateful to the reviews editor for his forbearance. The reason is that I know, like and admire Professor Jeremy Black of Exeter University, one of the most prolific serious historical authors in the world with more than a hundred […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | WW2 | Post WW2 | Nineteenth Century
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Naval Aviation | Navies | Submarines
Book Review – ‘RMS ‘Queen Mary’: The final voyage’ by David Bowen
This book was published on the fiftieth anniversary of the retirement of the famous Cunard passenger liner Queen Mary. This ship was launched by Cunard to keep pace with fierce foreign competition on the transatlantic run, and started life in 1930 on the stocks at the Clydebank yard of John Brown and was known then prosaically […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Post WW2 | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Ocean Liners & Passenger Craft
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