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Author: James A. Dunn
Publisher:
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEqually interesting, the diary reveals what it meant to be an African American in a white navy within a segregated American society, the shipboard tensions and the shipboard cooperation and sense of unity.
Author: Sam Moses
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2006-11-07
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 1588365611
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this gripping, page-turning account, Sam Moses has told a story in the tradition of Sebastian Junger’s A Perfect Storm, Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers, and Hampton Sides’s Ghost Soldiers. It’s a story about the heroism of two men in battle at sea during World War II, and one woman fleeing Nazi Norway with her child. It’s about how courage can change the course of history. AT ALL COSTS: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Marines Turned the Tide of World War II is the astonishing untold account, with original historical reporting, of how two men faced unfathomable danger to help save the island of Malta, Churchill’s crux of the war. In 1942, the tiny island of Malta was the most heavily bombed place on earth. Hitler needed Malta as a stepping-stone to get to the oil in Iraq and Iran (Persia at the time). Blockaded by sea, Malta was running on empty, in food, fuel and ammunition. Axis U-boats and dive-bombers made supply convoys to Malta more like suicide missions. In this last-hope convoy, 50 warships escorted 13 freighters carrying aviation fuel, and a single critical tanker, the SS Ohio, with 107,000 barrels of oil from Texas. Winston Churchill had traveled to Washington and asked FDR for the tanker–his prime ministership was at stake over this mission to Malta. Relentlessly dive-bombed and repeatedly torpedoed, the Ohio suffered huge hits and was abandoned. Two young American merchant mariners– pulled from the sea after their own ship went down in flames–boarded the ravaged tanker, repaired her guns and fought off German and Italian dive-bombers, as the sinking Ohio was towed at 4 knots toward Malta with a tiny crew of volunteers. Sam Moses’ AT ALL COSTS is a triumphant story of human bravery: fearless, selfless acts by men determined to save a ship and win a war; profound communal courage from an island under brutal siege; and leaders who understood the cause of freedom.
Author: Mary Pat Kelly
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2015-02-15
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 1612518184
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFew Americans know the history-changing story of the men of the USS Mason, the only African-American sailors to take a World War II warship into combat. At a time when most blacks in the Navy were relegated to stewards or laborers, the crew of the USS Mason escorted six convoys across the perilous North Atlantic, helped to win the Battle of the Atlantic and directly influenced President Harry S. Truman’s decision to integrate all of America’s armed forces. Recommended in 1944 for a commendation for their heroic actions during a violent storm, the Mason sailors finally received that commendation in 1995. The Navy further honored the men by naming a new destroyer (DDG 87) after the crew of the Mason. This book is the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary and the feature film Proud starring Ossie Davis. The USS Mason story is featured in The National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Author: William M. Arkin
Publisher:
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 110
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Robert F Cross
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2010-05-15
Total Pages: 277
ISBN-13: 1612512720
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis compelling tale of courage, heroism, and terror is told in the words of ninety-one sailors and officers interviewed by the author about their World War II service aboard fifty-six destroyer escorts. They reveal many never-before-told details of life at sea during wartime and, along with information found in secretly kept war diaries and previously unpublished personal photographs, add important dimensions to the official record. Unseasoned teenage recruits when they first went to sea, these sailors were led by inexperienced college boys more accustomed to yachts than warships. Their ships were untested vessels, designed by a man with no formal training in ship design, and which many viewed as a waste of money. Yet, as Cross points out, these men are credited with helping turn the tide of the war in the Atlantic as they singlehandedly sank some seventy U-boats and captured U-505, the only German submarine taken during the war and the first enemy vessel captured by Americans at sea since the War of 1812. In the Pacific, the destroyer escorts fought in every major battle, side-by-side with Allied battleships and destroyers. But this story is not just about battles. It is also about American genius, hard work, honor and growing up in the Great Depression. The author provides eyewitness details about the historic first step taken to end racial discrimination in the military as African-Americans stepped aboard the destroyer escort USS Mason as full-fledged sailors for the first time and earned a Navy commendation of heroism in the Battle of the Atlantic presented to the surviving crewmen fifty-one years later. Readers also learn about an ingenious invention when a sailor breaks his silence about a secret weapon tested aboard his destroyer escort that rendered a new German radio-controlled glide bomb useless.
Author: Rawn James, Jr.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2014-03-25
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13: 1608196224
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe century-long struggle to achieve equality for America's black soldiers and sailors, in a stirring narrative history by the author of Root and Branch
Author: Alexander M. Bielakowski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2013-01-11
Total Pages: 1064
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis encyclopedia details the participation of individual ethnic and racial minority groups throughout U.S. military history. Ethnic and Racial Minorities in the U.S. Military: An Encyclopedia is unique in its coverage of nearly all major ethnic and racial minority groups, as opposed to reference works that have focused only on individual ethnic or racial minority groups. It acknowledges the military contributions of African Americans, Asian Americans, French Americans, German Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, and Native Americans. This timely work highlights the individuals and events that have shaped the experience of minorities in U.S. conflicts. The work provides a comprehensive encyclopedia covering the role of all major ethnic and racial minorities in the United States during wartime. Additionally, it considers how the integration of servicemen in the U.S. military set the precedent for the eventual desegregation of America's civilian population.
Author: Ken W. Sayers
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2022-08-24
Total Pages: 339
ISBN-13: 1623499356
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Hussar V was launched in the early 1930s, first built for Marjorie Merriweather Post, owner of General Foods and heir to the Post Cereals fortune. By 1935, when Post married Joseph Davies, US ambassador to the Soviet Union, the ship was renamed Sea Cloud, the name it holds to this day. Soon after the nation entered World War II, the ship was partnered with the military as a weather ship under the command of Lt. Carlton Skinner. Tales of the Sea Cloud tells the story of a luxury yacht that became a remarkable wartime experiment in racial integration. After having witnessed an African American sailor be denied a promotion because of the limits of segregation, Skinner proposed to the commandant of the Coast Guard a plan to sail with a fully integrated crew. Ultimately, eighty black sailors, including four officers, were stationed on the Sea Cloud. Skinner’s experiment demonstrated that an integrated crew could work just as, or even more, efficiently as a segregated one and set an important precedent for later civil rights reforms. Author Ken W. Sayers takes readers on the full journey of the Sea Cloud, from its beginnings with the multimillionaire Hutton family, its wartime involvement, and its postwar ownership by Rafael Trujillo—soon-to-be assassinated dictator of the Dominican Republic—to its use as a commercial cruise ship in Panama, its near-disastrous physical deterioration and restoration, and on to the present day as a luxury charter sailing yacht. Readers will be captivated by the fascinating story of this historic vessel.
Author: Denise Okuda
Publisher: B.E.S. Publishing
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780764166068
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPresents an account of the U.S.S. Enterprise history, discussing her voyages, propulsion, and tactical abilities.
Author: Krewasky A. Salter I
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-10
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1134749449
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBlack members of the military served in every war, conflict and military engagement between 1861 and 1948. Beyond serving only as enlisted soldiers and non-commissioned officers, many also served as commissioned officers in positions of leadership and authority. This book offers the first complete and conclusive work to specifically examine the history of black commissioned officers.
