Battle on the Bay
Battle on the Bay

Author: Edward Terrel Cotham

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0292712057

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The Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. As other Southern ports fell to the Union, Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy's only lifelines to the outside world. When the war ended in 1865, Galveston was the only major port still in Confederate hands. In this beautifully written narrative history, Ed Cotham draws upon years of archival and on-site research, as well as rare historical photographs, drawings, and maps, to chronicle the Civil War years in Galveston. His story encompasses all the military engagements that took place in the city and on Galveston Bay, including the dramatic Battle of Galveston, in which Confederate forces retook the city on New Year's Day, 1863. Cotham sets the events in Galveston within the overall conduct of the war, revealing how the city's loss was a great strategic impediment to the North. Through his pages pass major figures of the era, as well as ordinary soldiers, sailors, and citizens of Galveston, whose courage in the face of privation and danger adds an inspiring dimension to the story.

The Battle of Milne Bay 1942
The Battle of Milne Bay 1942

Author: Nicholas Anderson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-08-05

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1925675688

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By 1942 the formidable Japanese military had conquered swathes of territory across south-east Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Despite its defeat at the Battle of Midway, Japan remained a potent enemy committed to the creation of a defensive arc to shield its captured possessions in the Pacific. The capture of Port Moresby would cement the southern border of this defensive arc and sever the vital lines of communication between Australia and the United States. It was the Japanese plan to seize Moresby that would set the course for the Battle of Milne Bay. Situated on the eastern tip of New Guinea, Milne Bay was a wretched hell-hole: swamp-riddled, a haven for malaria and cursed with torrential rain. It was here that General Douglas MacArthur ordered the secret construction of an Allied base with airfields to protect the maritime approach to Port Moresby. But the Japanese soon discovered the base at Milne Bay and despatched a task force to destroy its garrison and occupy the base. All that stood between the Japanese and their prize was a brigade of regular Australian soldiers untrained in tropical warfare and a brigade of Australian militia with no combat experience whatsoever. While the Kokoda campaign is etched in public memory, its sister battle at Milne Bay has long been neglected. However the bitter fighting over this isolated harbour played an equally important role in protecting Port Moresby and made a valuable contribution to shifting Allied fortunes in the Pacific War.

Battle for the Bay
Battle for the Bay

Author: Joshua M. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2012-05

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9780864927590

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As the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 approaches, a new chapter in the history of the war is being opened for the first time. Although naval battles raged on the Great Lakes, combat between privateers and small government vessels boiled in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. Three small warships - the Provincial sloop Brunswicker, His Majesty's schooner Bream, and His Majesty's brig of war Boxer - played a vital role in defending the eastern waters of British North America in this crucial war. The crews of these hardy ships fought both the Americans and the elements - winter winds, summer fog, and the fierce tidal currents of the Bay of Fundy - enduring the all-too-real threats of shipwreck and possible capture and imprisonment. In peacetime, these patrol craft enforced maritime law. In wartime, they engaged in a guerre de course, attacking the enemy's commercial shipping while protecting their own. Now, for the first time, Joshua Smith tells the full story of the battle for the bay.

West Wind, Flood Tide
West Wind, Flood Tide

Author: Jack Friend

Publisher: US Naval Institute Press

Published: 2014-06-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781612514871

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Immortalized by David Farragut's apothegm, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," the Battle of Mobile Bay remains one of history's great naval engagements, a contest between two admirals trained in the same naval tradition who once fought under the same flag. This new study takes a fresh look at the battle--the bloodiest naval battle of the Civil War--examining its genesis, tactics, and political ramifications. If the Confederacy had been able to deny the Union a victory before the presidential election, the South was certain to have won its independence. The North's win, however, not only stopped the blockade-runners in Mobile but insured Lincoln's re-election. Although the Union had an advantage in vessels of eighteen to four and an overwhelming superiority in firepower, it paid dearly for its victory, suffering almost ten times as many casualties as Franklin Buchanan's Confederate fleet. The author traces the evolution of the battle from the time Farragut took command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in February 1862 until the battle was fought on 5 August 1864. He then continues the narrative through the end of the war and explains how the battle influenced ship design and naval tactics for years to come.

Turning Point
Turning Point

Author: Michael Veitch

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0733640567

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The Battle for Milne Bay - Japan's first defeat on land in the Second World War - was a defining moment in the evolution of the indomitable Australian fighting spirit. For the men of the AIF, the militia and the RAAF, it was the turning point in the Pacific, and their finest - though now largely forgotten - hour. Forgotten, until now. In August 1942, Japan's forces were unstoppable. Having conquered vast swathes of south-east Asia - Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies - and now invading New Guinea, many feared the Empire of the Rising Sun stood poised to knock down Australia's northern door. But first they needed Port Moresby. In the still of an August night, Japanese marines sailed quietly into Milne Bay, a long, malaria-ridden dead end at the far eastern tip of Papua, to unleash an audacious pincer movement. Unbeknown to them, however, a secret airstrip had been carved out of a coconut plantation by US Engineers, and a garrison of Australian troops had been established, supported by two locally based squadrons of RAAF Kittyhawks, including the men of the famed 75 Squadron. The scene was set for one of the most decisive and vicious battles of the war. For ten days and nights Australia's soldiers and airmen fought the elite of Japan's forces along a sodden jungle track, and forced them back step by muddy, bloody step. In Turning Point, bestselling author Michael Veitch brings to life the incredible exploits and tragic sacrifices of these Australian heroes.

Britain at Bay
Britain at Bay

Author: Alan Allport

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1101974699

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From statesmen and military commanders to ordinary Britons, a bold, sweeping history of Britain's entrance into World War II—and its efforts to survive it—illuminating the ways in which the war permanently transformed a nation and its people “Might be the single best examination of British politics, society and strategy in these four years that has ever been written.” —The Wall Street Journal Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the conflict’s first crucial years, Alan Allport tackles pressing questions such as whether the war could have been avoided, how it could have been lost, how well the British lived up to their own values, and ultimately, what difference the war made to the fate of the nation. In answering these questions, he reexamines our assumptions and paints a vivid portrait of the ways in which the Second World War transformed British culture and society. This bracing account draws on a lively cast of characters—from the political and military leaders who made the decisions, to the ordinary citizens who lived through them—in a comprehensible and compelling single history of forty-six million people. A sweeping and groundbreaking epic, Britain at Bay gives us a fresh look at the opening years of the war, and illuminates the integral moments that, for better or for worse, made Britain what it is today.

Battle Station Sick Bay
Battle Station Sick Bay

Author: Jan K. Herman

Publisher: US Naval Institute Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13:

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In this compelling oral history, Navy medical personnel from World War II recall their experiences and the role Navy medicine played in the great crusade. Physicians, nurses, and corpsmen report the way it was, matter-of-factly, with pride and pathos, but not without humor. These are the veterans whose skills were tested at Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Readers will appreciate as never before the single-minded purpose to which the men and women of Navy medicine dedicated themselves as they healed the wounded aboard vessels under kamikaze attack, in POW camps, and still other appalling circumstances. Former pharmacist's mate Wheeler Lipes describes the time, mythologized by Hollywood and the press, when he removed a shipmate's appendix while his submarine cruised submerged in enemy waters. Dr. Henry Heimlich reveals how a failed chest surgery performed on a wounded Chinese soldier later inspired the lifesaving maneuver that has made his name a household word throughout the world. Cardiologist Dr. Howard Bruenn remembers Franklin D. Roosevelt's last moments at Warm Springs. Stanley Dabrowski recalls the confusion and terror at Iwo Jima as he, a pharmacist's mate, treated his first sucking chest wound under fire. Dr. Ferdinand Berley tells about hearing, while a POW, the Japanese emperor announce the war's end over the radio.