Maritime history Books

Book Synopsis''You have six escaped prisoners aboard. I give you fifteen minutes to consider, and if you don''t heave to I''ll blow the masts out of you.'' With these words, the commander of the British steamer Georgettehailed the American whalerCatalpa. Pointing to the Stars and Stripes, Captain Anthony of theCatalpareplied with classic brevity: ''That''s the American flag. I am on the high seas. If you fire on this ship you fire on the American flag.'' On board theCatalpathe men prepared to resist till death. The mood of the moment was set when First Mate Samuel Smith, whose fund of nautical phrase was the richest on the seven seas, called down fire and damnation on the man who uttered the threat. Terse instructions were given by John Breslin to sink the boarding party if it came alongside. All available weapons were readied for a desperate stand, guns, whaling lances, grindstones and heavy logs. The fifteen minutes grace passed.?.?. Such was the situation that faced Captain George Anthony when his shipCatalpa, with six rescued Fenians from Fremantle aboard, was intercepted off the Australian coast by a British gunboat. He was fully equal to it. How he met it forms one of the many strange and exciting episodes described inFREMANTLE MISSION, an epic record of courage and adventure.

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Book SynopsisIn the century after 1530 the Habsburgs of Spain and the Ottoman Turks fought a maritime war that seemed destined to lead nowhere. Lasting peace was as unlikely as final triumph, in part because the principal beneficiaries of the fighting were pirates or 'corsairs' based in ports such as Malta and Algiers. It was also a war of unequal means, since the Habsburgs had too few good warships and the Ottomans too many bad ones. Phillip Williams here provides a detailed examination of the oared warships used in the fighting, the structures of political and military organization, the role of geography and the environment and the respective claims to be defending 'Christendom' and 'Islam' advanced by Habsburg rulers such as Charles V and Philip II and the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Providing a unique perspective on early modern maritime conflict, this book will be essential reading for all students and researchers of Mediterranean History and the early modern world.Trade Review'an excellent analysis.' Ronald H Fritze, Athens State University, Sixteenth Century Journal XLVI/1.Table of ContentsTable of Contents* Introduction The Naval Battle Chusma The Sea Wolves Those Esteemed Dreadful Monsters The Royal Armada The Shadow of God on Earth Dear Prudence The Lordship of the Sea The Shift to the Mediterranean The Problem of Holy War Conclusion

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Book SynopsisNow a major television documentary (Channel 4, 2021)The epic mission to destroy Hitler’s flagship.‘Bismarck was now loose in the Atlantic … we had to find and sink her.’May, 1941. The most powerful battleship the world has ever seen, the German Navy’s Bismarck, breaks out into the Atlantic to ravage Allied convoys. Together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, the Bismarck will seek to deliver a killer blow to Britain’s war effort.The British launch an all-or-nothing bid to sink her, with the Home Fleet and other naval units steaming hard from all points of the compass, straining every sinew to trap and destroy Bismarck. HMS Hood, the battlecruiser pride of the Royal Navy, is destroyed within eight minutes of engaging Bismarck on 24 May. However, the brand new battleship HMS Prince of Wales lands a pivotal blow on Bismarck, puncturing a fuel tank, forcing the German battleship to make for refuge in a friendly port.Reeling from the loss of the Hood, the Royal Navy redoubles its efforts, intent on avenging lost shipmates. Aircraft carrier Ark Royal, along with battleships King George V and Rodney, plus cruisers and destroyers, are among those who hunt and pursue the foe over more than 1,700 miles.This is the story of Bismarck’s fateful final twenty-four hours on 26/27 May 1941: the finale of the hunt and the culminating brutal close-quarters battle as Bismarck makes a desperate bid to escape the enemy.Using eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors, Royal Marines and Swordfish torpedo-bomber aviators – including searing testimony gleaned by the author during unique interviews with a ‘band of brothers’ who were in the thick of the action - Ballantyne brings one of the Second World War’s most dramatic events thundering to life. He also draws on new research in museum archives and other accounts from both the British and German side, to present a multi-dimensional, cinematic telling of a legendary episode in naval combat history.An epic story, told with compelling immediacy, it takes readers aboard warships in unforgiving seas, into the cockpits of warplanes in shrapnel-lashed skies and even inside a U-boat under a cruel ocean. Perfect for readers of Richard Hough and Saul David.Praise for Bismarck: 24 Hours to Doom ‘A powerful and moving cinematic study devoted to what has to be the most dramatic event of the Second World War at sea’Julian Stockwin, author of the Thomas Kydd series of naval adventures‘By drawing on the first-hand experiences of veterans in the thick of the action, Iain Ballantyne has produced a deeply researched and unputdownable account of the hunt for the Bismarck that is at once authoritative, insightful and highly readable’Rowland White, author of Harrier 809 and Vulcan 607

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Book SynopsisThe voyage of the 'coffin ship' Ajax, from Dublin to Grosse Île, the Canadian quarantine station as described in the contemporary diary of one of the passengers, Robert Whyte. Whyte was a Protestant gentleman of education and position, as well as being a professional writer who intended to publish his diary. The diary appeared in 1848. It is signed in the author's own handwriting and features vivid descriptions of the spectacular scenery along the way and the striking delineations of the passengers, the crew and the suffering travellers.

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Book SynopsisThe tragic tale of the sinking of the famine ship, the St. John in Massachusetts Bay in 1849. The Great Irish Famine drove huge numbers of Irish men and women to leave the island and pursue their survival in foreign lands. In 1847, some 200,000 people sailed for Boston alone. Of this massive group, 2,000 never made it to their destination, killed by disease and hunger during the voyages, their remains consigned to a watery grave. The sinking of the brig St. John off the coast of Massachusetts in October 1849, was only one of many tragic events to occur during this mass exodus. The ship had sailed from Galway, loaded with passengers so desperate to escape the effects of famine that some had walked from as far afield as Clare to reach the ship. The passengers on the St. John made it to within sight of the New World before their ship went down and they were abandoned by their captain, who denied that there had been any survivors when he and some of his crew made it ashore. For those who died in the seas off Massachusetts, there was nothing to mark their last resting place; no name, no memory of them ever having existed, just another statistic in a terrible tragedy.

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