Archive Results For: WW1
Book Review-‘The United States Merchant Marine in WorldWar I: Ships, crews, shipbuilders and operators’ by G. H. Williams
This book aims to provide the first complete overview of the American Merchant Marine in the First World War. The author has drawn on contemporary newspapers, magazines, trade publications and official records to trace the history of how America responded as a neutral power in trading through a war zone and then the official response […] Read More
Filed under: WW1
Subjects include: Merchant Marines
Book Review-‘Mr Midshipman VC: The short accident-prone life of George Drewry, Gallipoli hero’ by Q. Falk
I must be getting old. It took two days for the penny to drop, before I ‘twigged’ the derivation of the title, connecting it to Marryat’s immortal midshipman. This is not an academic biography. Rather it is more like one of those boy’s books, by G.A. Henty or Percy F. Westerman, which encouraged all right-minded […] Read More
Filed under: WW1
Subjects include: Biography
Book Review-‘U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve ‘They Are Marines’: Uniforms and equipment in WorldWar II’ by J. Moran
The United States Marine Corps has a mantra ‘First to Fight.’ They are also ‘Last to Adapt’ having been traditionally resistant to societal changes. Reportedly, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Joseph F. Dunford, who just retired as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the sole service head to oppose […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Book Review-‘After Jutland: The naval war in northern European waters June 1916–November 1918’ by J. Goldrick
Rear-Admiral James Goldrick combines enormous experience as a serving officer at sea and ashore with a well-earned reputation as a first-rate naval historian. Recently he rewrote one of his early works, The Kings Ships Were at Sea, as a more comprehensive and deeply and maturely analysed Before Jutland covering naval operations in northern European waters, […] Read More
Filed under: WW1
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics
Book Review-‘Recollections of an Unsuccessful Seaman’ by L. Noake, (ed.) D. Creamer
Len Noake (1887–1929) was a seaman. He trained aboard HMS Conway and then began a 20-year career in the mercantile marine serving aboard deep sea and coasting vessels in a variety of roles from quartermaster to first officer. In his dying days he wrote his memoirs in the form of a 235-page journal illustrated with […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar
Subjects include: Biography | Merchant Marines
Book Review-‘Ordeal Below Zero: The heroic story of theArctic Convoys in World War II’by G. Blond
‘It is unlikely that anyone who sailed on the Arctic convoys will ever forget them. The Seamen, the gunners, the pilots, were drawn from all walks of life, regular servicemen and men who had left their shops and offices and factories to venture across the roof of the world in the teeth of winter and […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics | WW1
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Merchant Marines
Book Review-‘Putting Cargoes Through: The US Navy at Gibraltar during the First World War 1917–1919’ by A. P. Niblack and J. B. Hattendorf (eds)
Vice-Admiral Albert P. Niblack commanded the US naval base at Gibraltar and US naval forces in the western Mediterranean during the final year of the First World War, for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal. At some unknown point afterwards he wrote an account of the US Navy’s role at Gibraltar which was submitted […] Read More
Filed under: WW1
Subjects include: Harbours & Dockyards | Logistics
Book Review-‘Exploring the Britannic: The life, last voyage and wreck of ‘Titanic’’s tragic twin’ by S. Mills
The Royal Mail Steamer Britannic was laid down in 1911 in Harland & Wolff’s Belfast ship yard where her near sisters Olympic and Titanic had been built. She was intended to have been the third of the White Star Line’s trio of luxury liners which were necessary to maintain a weekly service on the North […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Mediterranean
Subjects include: Archaeology | Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration
Book Review-‘Southern Thunder: The Royal Navy and the Scandinavian trade in World War One’ by S. R. Dunn
Standing on the shores of the North Sea in a typical winter gale presents a bleak and forbidding prospect. It is sobering to consider that for the four years of the First World War this was a battleground where the warring nations committed their navies to a bitter and relentless struggle in order to wrest […] Read More
Filed under: Baltic | WW1 | North Sea
Subjects include: Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘With the Royal Navy in Peace and War: O’er the dark blue sea’ by B. B. Schofield
Born in 1895, Vice-Admiral B. B. Schofield first donned a naval uniform in 1908 when Britain’s empire, merchant navy and Royal Navy were at their apogee. It was an exciting time, one of great technical innovation; the era of the dreadnought, the submarine, torpedo and mine, precision gunnery, wireless, and aircraft. And it was a […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | Post WW2
Subjects include: Biography