The only book devoted exclusively to a single merchantman's seagoing career during World War II, this work describes the activities of the Liberty ship John W. Brown and of the Merchant Marine and Navy Armed Guard crews who manned the ship. As the author demonstrates in this thoroughly researched account, Liberty ships carried about two-thirds of the vital cargoes transported overseas during the war and played an indispensable role in landing and supplying the troops that defeated the Axis powers in Europe and Asia. This book is based on logs, official documents, and reports in the National Archives, on the collection of unpublished Navy administrative histories in the Navy Department library, and on diaries, letters, and recollections of men who sailed on the Brown. The insights derived from the author's interviews and correspondence with a number of the Brown's wartime Merchant and Navy Armed Guard crewmen add a personal dimension to the narrative. A fine collection of photographs supplements the text.
During the Second World War, the Merchant Navy suffered a higher percentage loss than any of the British armed forces, but despite this extraordinary fact few people today are aware of it. In total, 33,000 merchant seamen died, while others were severely injured both physically and mentally. This book is an important volume attempting to dispel the ignorance, and for the first time brings together a wealth of information concerning ship losses, including such details as ships' names, their captains, the route they were lost on, date and positions when lost, loss of life, and many other particulars. A former wartime Merchant Navy man himself, Malcolm presents a compendium of shipping company losses that is staggering in scale. This work will be of great value to shipping enthusiasts and anyone interested in the war at sea.
In the dark days of World War II, merchant mariners made heroic contributions to the eventual Allied victory and suffered tremendous casualties in so doing. Among these were the engineers who toiled deep in the bowels of the ship and suffered appalling casualties. After the war, engineering personnel were unlikely to talk about their experiences, let alone write them down. These modest and self-effacing men were more comfortable in a world of turbines and pistons, so they seldom brought their stories forward. Liberty’s War sets out to explore the experiences of one such engineer, Herman Melton, from his time as a cadet at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy through his experiences at sea as a third assistant engineer. Melton’s story is representative of the thousands of Merchant Marine engineers who served on board Liberty ships during the war. Like many young Americans, he sought to do his part, and in 1942 he obtained an appointment to the newly created U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York. After graduating from the academy in 1944, he shipped out to the Pacific Theatre, surviving the sinking of his Liberty ship, the SS Antoine Saugrain, and its top-secret cargo.
The first U.S. hospital ship of World War II saw service in mid-1943. By war's end, the fleet had carried nearly 17,000 sick and wounded home. This richly illustrated work covers all 39 ships that served as U.S. Navy and Army hospital ships during World War II. Each ship's history is fully covered, concentrating on the ship's hospital service. Information is presented on each ship's personnel, the handling of patients, types of wounds and diseases encountered, and life aboard the ships. General layouts of the ships and technical data are also included. Biographies are provided on persons for whom ships were named.
The Second World War transformed British society. Men, women and children inhabited the war in every area of their lives, from their clothing and food to schools, workplaces and wartime service. This transformation affected the landscapes, towns and cities as factories turned to war work, beaches were prepared as battlefields and agricultural land became airfields and army camps. Some of these changes were violent: houses were blasted into bombsites, burning aircraft tumbled out of the sky and the seas around Britain became a graveyard for sunken ships. Many physical signs of the war have survived a vast array of sites and artefacts that archaeologists can explore - and Gabriel Moshenskas new book is an essential introduction to them. He shows how archaeology can bring the ruins, relics and historic sites of the war to life, especially when it is combined with interviews and archival research in order to build up a clear picture of Britain and its people during the conflict. His work provides for the first time a broad and inclusive overview of the main themes of Second World War archaeology and a guide to many of the different types of sites in Britain. It will open up the subject for readers who have a general interest in the war and it will be necessary reading and reference for those who are already fascinated by wartime archaeology - they will find something new and unexpected within the wide range of sites featured in the book.
Although not a weapon in the traditional sense of the word, arguably no item in the Allied arsenal contributed as much to the defeat of the Axis during WWII as did the Liberty ships. The 2,710 Liberty ships placed into service between 1941 and 1945 provided a vital link in the supply chain not only of US but also Allied forces during WWII. Although the basic design itself was obsolete even before the first one slid down the builder's ways, it had the advantage of being relatively easy to produce, and simple to operate and maintain. Thus, the vessels were mass-produced by no fewer than eighteen shipyards. Building time, initially 244 days, dropped to forty-two days per ship, although as a publicity stunt the Robert E. Peary was launched four days and fifteen and a half hours after the keel was laid.
George Trowbridge recounts his journey from the Midwest to a warship in the Gulf of Tonkin during the closing months of the Vietnam War. George shares the details of the living conditions on board a naval destroyer in this era, the strike attacks his ship made on enemy coastal defenses and finally coming home at the end of the war.
Vigorous and highly readable, this portrait of the enlisted man's life aboard the U.S. battleship California depicts the devastation at Pearl Harbor from the hazardous vantage point of the open "birdbath" atop the mainmast.