Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink Maritime disasters are regularly topics catching the attention of maritime interested readers, authors, the media, historians and so on. The loss of HMS Thetis in 1939 was no exception to this rule. It had substantial coverage by the media in the immediate aftermath of the tragic event as well as a
Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink. While marine painting was a fairly common artistic genre up to the 19th and early 20th century, ships of the second half of the 20th and the early decades of the 21st century only rarely caught the attention of professional artists, and the profession of the marine painter needs to be
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. There has been a deluge of new books and recent articles focusing on American wartime shipbuilding, 1939-1945, witness Evan Mawdsley’s The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2019) and Jamie McGrath ‘s “Peacetime Naval Rearmament, 1933-39:
Reviewed by Admiral Walter F. Doran, USN (Ret.) Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt draws on his thirty-four year Naval career and a decades long involvement with National Security issues within the Department of Defense and with the Center for Naval Analysis to produce a timely and well written book. He chronicles the evolution of the PLA
Reviewed by ENS Sean Bland, USNR (Chaplain Candidate) I first encountered Alfred Thayer Mahan as an undergraduate student in Professor Paul Kennedy’s “Military History of the West Since 1500” course at Yale. Mahan was studied in-depth and championed as the premier naval historian and strategist of the modern world. Mahan’s personal, religious convictions were, unsurprisingly,
Reviewed by Dr. Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. This innovative series of well-researched, highly-illustrated hardcover volumes provides detailed combat narratives of the 7 December 1941 Japanese attacks on United States military bases in Hawaii which would, within days, lead to American declarations of war against Axis powers and entry into both the Pacific and European Theaters
Reviewed by Rear Admiral William J. Holland, USN (RET). Commodore Thompson’s wonderful memoir opens by describing a major steam leak in a submerged submarine where he was what we call the Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW). This is as scary and stressing an event as can happen in a nuclear powered submarine. How he
Reviewed by Col Jody Owens. The Allied forces began Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944. The battle continued until late August with the escape of German forces through the Falaise Gap. This roughly three-month clash became one of military history’s most famous battles. In the 76 years since the pitched battle occurred, countless historians, military
Reviewed by Ed Calouro HMS Vanguard was the final battleship built for the Royal Navy. She represented the last of a long line of historic ships stretching back at least a century to the ironclad HMS Warrior (1860) if not to HMS Victory (commissioned in 1778) and similar ships of the line. It was a
Reviewed by LTC Trey Guy, USA. From the Sea to C Suite: Lessons Learned from the Bridge to the Corner Office is the first book from Cutler Dawson, a retired Navy Vice Admiral and former Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) CEO. His co-author, Taylor Kiland, has authored, co-authored, ghost-written, or edited a number of military
Reviewed by CAPT Ken Hagan, USNR (Ret.) The brilliant audacity of this volume merits the highest praise. In no way is it yet another recounting of blasts, broadsides, and bloodletting. Instead, Peter Hore has assembled a collection of magnetic essays depicting Horatio Nelson as an Irishman and portraying the hardscrabble victories ashore won by the
Reviewed by Jeff Schultz. Matthew Willis’s Supermarine Seafire offers a brief yet discerning look at the Supermarine Seafire in Fleet Air Arm service from 1942-1950. Meant to fulfil a desperate need for a modern fighter aboard the Royal Navy’s carrier decks in the chaotic early days of World War II, the Seafire rose doggedly to
Reviewed by William A. Taylor, Ph.D. In Dorwart’s History of the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1865–1945, Jeffery M. Dorwart, professor emeritus of history at Rutgers University, has provided the most complete yet highly concise history of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) available. A consolidation of two of Dorwart’s excellent earlier works, The Office of
Reviewed by Diana Ahmad James “Rex” Ritter joined the United States Navy’s Seabee Battalions at the start of World War II, as well as the birth of the Seabee units. From Texas to Tinian and Tokyo Bay looks at the contributions of the editor’s grandfather and his men during World War II Alaska and the
Reviewed by Paul W. Murphey, Ph.D., CDR, CHC, USN (Ret). Elliott Carlson has written an exceptionally fine book. It is well worth reading more than once. The only caveat I have is the title: Stanley Johnston’s Blunder. The book is not so much about a reporter’s miscalculation, as about the extraordinary life and times of
