Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945 By Trent Hone, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2018) Reviewed by David F. Winkler, Ph.D. Admiral John Harvey always opened talks with naval audiences by stacking a small pile of recently published books on the podium and urging his listeners to acquire
Target America – Hitler’s Plan to Attack the United States By James P. Duffy, The Lyons Press, Guilford, CT, (2012) Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. Over the past quarter century, James P. Duffy has written nearly two dozen books, mostly about military history with the majority of these focusing on the European Theater
The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: The Ancient World Economy and the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia and India By Raoul McLaughlin, Pen and Sword Maritime Books, Yorkshire and Philadelphia, (2018) Reviewed by Janet Nolan, Ph. D. A graduate of Lagan College, Northern Ireland’s first Integrated School, Raoul McLaughlin has written a remarkable book
White Water Red Hot Lead: On Board U.S. Navy Swift Boats in Vietnam By Dan Daly, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, (2017) Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D., Missouri University of Science and Technology Approximately 3,500 men served in the Swift Boat units during the Vietnam War over a period of six years. Dan Daly’s excellent
Graf Zeppelin: The Only German Aircraft Carrier By Jürgen Prommersberger, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, (2017) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess “Graf Zeppelin” is a name to conjure with. Most people know it as the name of the pioneering passenger dirigible which made 143 Atlantic crossings, most on commercial service. Less know of her successor,
Warship 2018 John Jordan, Ed., Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK and New York, NY, (2018) Reviewed by Capt. Howard R. Portnoy USN (Ret.) The first hardcover volume in the Warship series appeared in 1977. It was the follow-on to a successful quarterly magazine with the same title. New volumes would be issued annually and would
USN Battleship vs IJN Battleship: The Pacific 1942-44 By Mark Stille Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK (2017) Reviewed by Ed Calouro Mark Stille has succeeded in squeezing significant information into a limited number of pages. Stille is a retired USN commander and a graduate of and former faculty member at the Naval War College.
Doomed Before the Start: The Allied Intervention in Norway 1940 Volume 2 – Evacuation and Further Naval Operations By Niall Cherry, Helion & Company, Gliwice, Poland, (2017) Reviewed by Jeffrey Schultz The final volume in Niall Cherry’s Norway 1940 campaign study, this cautionary work continues from the Narvik evacuation until the final departures.
Episode Eight-From the Ashes There are several conclusions that one can reach as this well-conceived series concludes. Two are very important. First, it was truly the “Greatest Generation” that won a brutal war and made the world a better place in which to live. Second, and perhaps more closely
Battle Briefings: D-Day and the Normandy Campaign By David Reisch Stackpole, (2018) 128 pp. $21.95 The historiography of the June 1944 Normandy Campaign, centering on the amphibious assault on 6 June, has been chronicled exhaustively in the literature of military history. Journalist and military historian David Reisch’s entry into the field, his second
British & German Battlecruisers: Their Development and Operations By Michele Cosentino and Ruggero Stanglini. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2016. HMS Dreadnought and the Invincible-class battlecruisers transformed naval warfare when they were laid down in 1905 and 1906. Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship, made previous ships of the line obsolescent if not
NHF Establishes ‘Teacher of Distinction’ Award for National History Day Teachers Inaugurating a new academic award, the Naval Historical Foundation (NHF) recognized 26 “Teachers of Distinction” in the 2018 National History Day (NHD) nationwide history competition for middle and high school students that concluded June 14 at the University of Maryland. The Foundation awards
Churchill’s Thin Grey Line: British Merchant Ships at War 1939 -1945 by Bernard Edwards 2018, Pen & Sword, Havertown, PA. 248 pp., $34.95. The United Kingdom has always considered its Merchant Marine to be part of its armed forces during wartime. Since time immortal, the White Ensign of the Royal Navy and the
Adrift: A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell About It Brian Murphy with Toula Vlahou New York: Da Capo Press, 2018 240 pp., Bibliography, Map, and Illustrations If in the mid-19th century an ocean crossing wasn’t the blind leap into the unknown that it
Episode Seven—No Surrender The series continues with more riveting footage of the Pacific war, some rare and never seen. The allies are closing in on Japan. Behind-the-scenes film and the voices of combat veterans leave the viewer feeling the fight. The Philippines are liberated, but the islands are in tatters. Rarely-seen home movies vividly demonstrate
