Best naval history books according to redditors
We found 499 Reddit comments discussing the best naval history books. We ranked the 219 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 499 Reddit comments discussing the best naval history books. We ranked the 219 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
That battle is goddamned insane. There is absolutely zero reason Taffy 3 should have survived that, and through a combination of insane/heroic actions on the part of the escort destroyers and under-informed decision making on the Japanese side they survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Tin-Sailors-Extraordinary-ebook/dp/B001L83PM0
His book, Thunder Below! is apparently a great read for submariners.
Yes, but on Ancient Aliens...
Snapshots:
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Here’s the backstory: I went to check out/purchase this Evo+ unit this morning. It actually had more optional features installed than I expected, so I was pretty psyched. When the seller opened up the hardshell on the back, I noticed a name inscribed on the scrubber canister – a name I recognized. Turns out that the original owner was John Chatterton, host of Deep Sea Detectives on the History Channel and author of Shadow Divers, one of my favorite diving related books. FTW!!!
Neptune's Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer gives a pretty in-depth depiction of what it was like, using interviews with veterans from both sides.
Most local libraries have a copy if you're interested.
What I find interesting is that in the US the submarine service is very tight lipped, but in Russia (especially post Soviet Union) they're much more open about it. I have extended family who are/were in the US Navy and other military branches, including a cousin who was the intelligence officer for an aircraft carrier group, and his son is currently deployed on a sub somewhere. None of my family members talk very much about their service. Those that do pretty much only talk about things that happened 50+ years ago.
I remember when the book Blind Mans Bluff came out, which explored the history of the US submarine service, and went into detail about a number of missions pulled off by them from the 50's up through the late 80's. It detailed how US subs were venturing into Soviet territories on a regular basis to tap undersea telephone cables on a regular basis, etc. When my dad asked a friend who was a former sub commander about the book his response was "Heads should roll for what was discussed in that book".
On the other hand, my understanding is that the authors of books like Hostile Waters, which documents a near meltdown of a reactor in a Soviet submarine, had very little problem meeting with and talking to some of the surviving crew members of that submarine.
> From what I understand, Koreans really really don't like the Japanese
FIFY, they've long fought each other, most recently Imperial Japan annexed and occupied the whole country in 1910, and I shouldn't have to tell you about how poorly they treated the native Koreans. But here's some bits from Wikipedia:
> The banking system was consolidated and the Korean currency abolished. The Japanese removed the Joseon hierarchy, destroyed much of the Gyeongbokgung palace and replaced it with the Government office building.
That landmark building was demolished in 1995-6 and the palace is being rebuilt. They're also finding and digging up iron posts which per feng shui were placed by the Japanese to mess things up at a fundamental environmental level.
> [...] After the outbreaks of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and World War II Japan attempted to exterminate Korea as a nation. The continuance of Korean culture itself began to be illegal. Worship at Japanese Shinto shrines was made compulsory. The school curriculum was radically modified to eliminate teaching in the Korean language and history. The Korean language was banned, Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names, and newspapers were prohibited from publishing in Korean. Numerous Korean cultural artifacts were destroyed or taken to Japan. According to an investigation by the South Korean government, 75,311 cultural assets were taken from Korea.
> [...]
> [...] During World War II, Koreans at home were forced to support the Japanese war effort. Tens of thousands of men were conscripted into Japan's military. Around 200,000 girls and women, many from China and Korea, were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers, with the euphemism "comfort women". Previous Korean "comfort women" are still protesting against the Japanese Government for compensation of their sufferings.
There's lots more, including a whole Wikipedia article on the subject. Plus I'll add that by the end of WWII subjects of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere were being killed at a generally accepted rate of 250,000 per month, and per the recent and very good Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947, it was more like 400,000. And that's with our already having wrested the well populated Philippines from them, which if I correctly remember, /u/md1957 can tell us quite a bit about.
Read this:
The Relationship Guy. Jack was my best friend at OCS and a physical stud. He was the ideal 5′10″, 200 lb, thick-necked, strong legged, Academy guy. He was raised in Maine as a member of the Polar Bear Club, so icy water didn’t even phase him, and he knew a great deal about BUD/S, SQT, and the Teams. We all, Jack included, thought he was a shoe-in. While under a boat in Indoc, Jack actually choke-slammed a pathetic member of his boat crew into the sand a few times until that guy (who we’ll talk about in a minute) quit. Jack was legit until he quit 3 hours into Hell Week, during a short Surf Torture after the last Log PT ever, of all things. Because of his girlfriend of 3 months (who had recently promoted herself to fiancee). Rewind a few months.
Jack was a great guy until we got a cell phone access at the end of OCS, when he ceased to exist. He was on the phone with this girl constantly, having the most emasculating phone calls one could ever imagine:
“What did you have for dinner?” “Oh, was it good?” “What did you have for desert?” “Well you should get ice cream then” “What flavor? I don’t know. What flavor do you want?” “Then you should get chocolate.” “One scoop or two? I think one.” “Okay, then get two scoops honey.” BARF.
I shared a room with Jack in BUD/S and spoke to him less in a month than I had in any given day of OCS. No joke. The kid was beyond reclamation and it showed. By the time we started First Phase, Jack was talking about marrying this girl during SQT. She came out to visit from the east coast on a regular basis, draining his bank account at an alarming rate. He proposed and they set a date for sometime in the middle of SQT when he thought he might be able to get a weekend off. He was so distracted that, at the beginning of Hell Week all he could think about was that she was too high-maintenance to deal with him being a SEAL. So he quit.
He was processed out of the Navy and got married while his class was in Kodiak, AK. (If he hadn’t quit, he would’ve got married while his class was in Alaska during his wedding, for which he’d already paid non-refundable deposits at his new wife’s insistence. Which shows he - at least subconsciously - knew he wouldn’t make it). After months and months of feigning happiness, he finally came to terms with his regret and is trying to join the Army Special Forces. I hope he makes it, but I can tell you one thing for sure: if it wasn’t for the woman, Jack would be a Team Guy already.
What do we learn from Jack’s failure?
I don't recall if there were pictures of the damage in the book I read (among other things, IIRC the DEs that were hit pretty much all sank, so there's no pictorial evidence from those, just eyewitness accounts), but the survivors described entire gun directors and (AA) gun mounts with their 12+ man crews being ripped right out of the ship and hurled through the air, as well as
> "a hole in the waterline big enough to drive a pair of sedans through, one beside the other".
That quote was regarding the USS Hoel, a Fletcher-class DD, probably hit by a 14-inch shell from the Kongo.
Then there's this one, regarding the DE Samuel B. Roberts, hit by three shells from the Kongo:
> At the waterline, about two-thirds of the way to the stern on the port side, gaped a cavernous hole seven to ten feet height and some fifty feet long. The massive opening would have neatly garaged a semitrailer parked sideways. ... Unlike the armor-piercing rounds that had penetrated earlier without exploding, the high-explosive shells that hit the Roberts now performed exactly as designed.
Note that it's largely conjecture that the IJN switched to HE rounds, but the damage and change in type of hits the ships were taking are very suggestive; the crew certainly believed the enemy had changed round types.
> Most of the planes from Taffy-3 were equipped for anti-sub and ground-support roles and didn't have the torpedoes and dive bombs usually used to attack warships
IIRC some of them were loaded with propaganda they were going to drop on the islands to try to win over the islanders the Japanese were invading.
So the planes would line up like they had torpedoes and bombs, buzzed the ships, and dropped a bunch of paper on them.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors is a book about the destroyer escorts that rode with the escort carriers and took on the Japanese navy. It covers every destroyer's crew and most of the escort carriers, explaining who was in charge, their story, and all the reasonings they had for what they did. It's really a great book and I'm kinda tearing up thinking of how great a sacrifice they were making.
Zoup did a pretty cool video about it.
I would highly recommend picking up The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
You certainly have to respect a man that said, "A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can." The entire fight of Taffy 3 was, most certainly, bravery in the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
I read a book about the naval battles around Guadalcanal during WWII. Survivors of sinking ships would sometimes be killed by the shock of unsafed depth charges exploding as the ship, to which the charges were still attached, sank beneath their detonation depth. The shockwave would go up their butthole (no, really) and rupture Important Things™.
Neptune's Inferno is a must-read book for anyone interested in naval combat.
All mine are WWII books.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - Story of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a Destroyer Escort, and a David vs. Goliath battle between a small US fleet and a huge Japanese fleet.
Neptune's Inferno - story of the USN at Guadalcanal.
Ship of Ghosts - Story of the USS Houston
Clash of The Carriers - About the Marianas Turkey Shoot
In Harms Way - The story of the USS Indianapolis, a crusier that delivered the core of the nuclear bombs used on Japan, and the secret sinking and horrible story of her survivors.
Shattered Sword - a new story of the battle of midway.
>bigger navy's
I don't think there were any larger navies, really. All of my books are packed up at the moment, but I am pretty sure the Royal Navy was, by far, the largest. It came at a price, though. The British army, by comparison, was small and much less effective. The British could afford to neglect their land forces, by comparison, because they for the most part, no longer had enemies that could invade by land.
Because of this, too, especially during the Napoleonic Wars, British sailors and officers were much more experienced than their Spanish and French counterparts, partly because the French Revolution decimated the French naval officer corps, and because French military ships spent most of their time bottled up in port by the British blockade. So, it is why Nelson wanted to sail in close with the French and Spanish at Trafalgar, trusting to superior British gunnery (In that they could fire much faster, thanks to experience) and the greater skill of his officers, to overcome the relatively inexperienced Combined fleet.
The French, on the other hand, had to maintain a large army because they were constantly fighting wars in Europe, specifically against their Habsburg rivals in Austria.
Nor did they always win. The most important example of this is the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781, which led to the French blockading Cornwallis in Yorktown, and his eventual surrender during the American Revolution.
In any case, I'm not too knowledgeable about how promotion in the French navy of the period worked (And would love if someone could fill me in on it), but the British had a semi-meritocratic system of filling their officer corps and promotion. British officers started out essentially as apprentice officers, midshipmen. To get their first real promotion, they had to pass an examination conducted by superior officers to achieve the rank of lieutenant, and then had to either distinguish themselves, get lucky, or have family connections in order to receive a post-captainship. Though, once they got there, promotion was determined only by seniority, and as long as they did not die or disgrace themselves, they would eventually end up an admiral.
So, I think it, generally, was a result of Britain's focus on its naval assets (which none of the other powers did to the same extent), it's system of semi-meritocratic promotion, and really, just luck in some of the people that ended up in the Royal Navy, such as Horatio Nelson.
This is really a question that can't be answered in such a short post. There are tons of books about the subject. Some works that are on the general subject are Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century, pretty much any of the books by N.A.M Rodgers on the subject. John Keegan also talks a bit about it in his chapter on Trafalgar in The Price of Admiralty
I hope the post helps. I don't think I really can do it justice in this format, though. Plus, I just kinda woke up, so I am not sure if my brain is completely on at this moment!
This is a classic, I've read this over 5x last year while flying around for work.
I also highly recommend thunder below!, I would pay a lot for a premium USS Barb...
*typo
>In January 1949 the Chief of Naval Operations directed both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets to create a submarine division to develop techniques for submarines to detect and destroy enemy undersea craft. Named Project Kayo, this led to the establishment of Submarine Development Group (SubDecGru) 2 in the Atlantic and SubDevGru 11 in the Pacific, with the sole mission of solving submarine ASW problems. Initially each group was assigned two fleet submarines and two GUPPY conversions. Both individuals and multiple submarine tactics were investigated under Kayo, often in Artic waters.
>
>A multitude of problems were identified by Project Kayo and by other ASW exercises. Submarine communications were found to be completely unsatisfactory, preventing coordinated efforts with aircraft and surface ships. Also, the SSK role submarines only could detect diesel submarines that were moving at high speeds (over eight knots). Although Project Kayo was soon reduced to only SubDevGru 2, the Korean War, which erupted in June 1950, increased interest in submarine ASW. The three submarines of the K1 class were completed in 1951-1952. Their anti-submarine performance was most impressive for the time: In exercises off Bermuda in 1952, the prototype K1 detected a snorkeling submarine at 30 n. miles and was able to track the target for five hours.
Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines, 1945-2001
by Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore
Sure! To start I have two good online Russian resources (I use the auto-translate feature on Google Chrome). http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/index-10.html has articles about a wide variety of submarines with some good pictures. That specific link goes to the general submarine section, but if you click on the links with the folder icons on the right side of the page, you can navigate to more articles, including articles on weapons. Some of these categories are a bit sparse, and a few "articles" are just blank pages, but in general the articles they do have are pretty good.
The second is deepstorm.ru. They have articles on each project, including many unbuilt projects, typically with an excellent interior profile view at the bottom. They also have a brief history for each and every boat. The website itself is super-clunky, so I would recommend searching something on google like "deepstorm.ru 667BDRM" or "deepstorm.ru Delta IV." If you search "deepstorm.ru [number]" you can search for both submarine projects and specific submarines with their K or B numbers.
And lastly, I would highly, highly recommend Cold War Submarines by Norman Polmar and K.J. Moore. It covers the development of both U.S. and Russian submarines, and is the best English-language source on the latter (much of the Russian info is straight from Russian sub designers). The only limitations are that it's a 2004 book (Norman is working on a revised version right now with just the Russian stuff) and that they don't go into an enormous amount of technical detail on any specific submarine. But they do give a fantastic summary of why a particular submarine was developed, which is really valuable to have.
There are more books other submarine subjects I can recommend, but those are my suggestions for the USSR/Russia. If you have any other specific subjects you'd like to research, just PM me on reddit and I'll help as best I can.
[Blind Man's Bluff] (https://www.amazon.ca/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589) by Sherry Sontag covers (among other things) the loss of USS Scorpion, including the original search for the lost sub and the investigation into its loss.
Depending on decade in question, the Soviet Navy was actually something like 'fourth' or even 'fifth' most important branch of the Soviet military. Some of leaders in Moscow (see Khrushchev), nearly 'despised' it (at least declared the navy for an 'unnecessary steel-eater'), and favourised other branches instead. Plus, the Soviet Navy did at least three major mistakes in its post-WWII-development, and thus lagged behind comparable Western services for decades...
Much compressed, it could be said that the Soviet Navy went through several developmental phases during the Cold War:
1.) First of these was the reconstruction phase (1946-1952). Starting point of this phase was to continue the pre-war build-up plans, so Soviets continued constructing cruisers and destroyers armed with guns. But, before soon they realized they couldn't match Western navies, and also that the latter have had immense amphibious capabilities. Thus, they decided to counter such threat with help of subs - primarily types developed from German Typ XXI (like W-, R-, Q-, Z-, and F-classes) - mines, and medium- and small-size surface vessels (cruisers and destroyers).
2.) In mid-1950s, Soviets realized that the threat of an amphibious assault on their shores was meanwhile minimal (if existant at all), while an entirely new threat emerged: that of aircraft carriers carrying bombers equipped with nukes. They reacted by developing own subs (J- class, E- and E II-class etc.) and warships armed with cruise missiles (carrying nuclear warheads). Gradually, this effort - which developed within three own phases - resulted in what could be described as 'anti-aircraft carrier' program.
3.) 1960s... Mid through the 2nd phase, Soviets realized that they couldn't outmatch US (and British) superiority in strategic bombers, so they gave up trying. Instead, they went for ballistic missiles. But, while they even gained something like minimal advantage in this regards, much of that was a show, and many systems took years longer to mature. Meanwhile, and since their development of nuclear-powered subs was lagging, they began installing ballistic missiles on reconfigured G-class (resulting in the H-class). But, because of the development of these was lagging too, they continued pushing projects for SSGs equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles, like E-/E-II- and J-classes.
4.) By early 1960s, the Soviet Navy was in true problems, then the USN began introducing to service its Polaris-armed SSBNs, and the Soviets had to realize - and this for the third time within less than 15 years - that not only the development of their navy was run in the wrong direction again, but they were lagging ever further in regards of technological development. So, they switched once again, and launched their 'anti-Polaris' effort, i.e. began developing ASW capabilities.
That's what - between others - resulted in construction of Moskva and Leningrad helicopter cruisers, Kurpny- and Kinda-, and then Kresta/Kresta-I/Kara-class cruisers (not to talk about a host of minor sub-hunting classes). These in turn have led to the subsequent Krivak-, and finally Udaloy-classes.
5.) During the late 1960s, Soviets finally managed to solve most of R+D problems with nuclear-powered subs and solid-fuelled missiles, and then rushed to build 33 units of the Y-class SSBNs. With this, they kind of 'equalized' the advantage of Polaris-equipped US and British (and then French) subs, and then began concentrating on developing offensive naval capabilities - and did so primarily around their large ASW-warships...
That's what resulted in the situation as it was of the late 1970s and at least the first half of 1980s, which was described by r/thefourthmaninaboat.
Recommended reading... the first that comes to my mind would be Sea Power: A Naval History by Nimitz and Potter. Depending on edition in question, this massive volume is going well into the 1970s and has a separate chapter dedicated to post-WWII development of the Soviet Navy, in which all the above-described phases are discussed in excellent detail.
A 'Soviet alternative' would be Gorshkov's Navies in War and Peace" - Analysis of the Cold War Soviet Navy.
Some of 'Soviet Military Power' volumes from the 1970s and 1980s were quite good at describing the development of the Soviet Navy since 1945 too, but can't recall exactly which one to recommend (they were issued something like annually): sorry, they're in a box I can't currently find.
Modern Naval Combat was probably the best-illustrated - but also best-explained - 'handbook on naval warfare for amateurs' in the 1980s, and I can't but recommend it to any student of this topic (curiously enough, much of that book is actually still valid: the only thing it's really missing would be introduction of stealth to naval warfare).
Minimalists might find such small volumes like An Illustrated Guide to the Modern Soviet Navy 'perfectly enough' too, of course.
Shadow Divers
An incredible read, I highly recommend to anyone.
[Here!] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AY59OS0/ref=aw_ls__8?colid=Q1SMEPUA12S4&coliid=I1VI0VOX9UF32Q)
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Blind Man's Bluff.
U-boat.net for a very good online source on German submarines in both World Wars, more encyclopedic than a book, however.
Wolfpack and Battle of the Atlantic are two very readable and good books for a general overview, but there are certainly more academic or exhaustive books as well.
The U-boat War is an oldie but a goodie, written by the same person who wrote das Boot, the fictional counterpart.
On the American side, several submariners wrote very good memoirs. Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey gives a great overview of both life at sea in an American submarine in the Pacific, but also of operational details, how the patrols worked, etc.
Read James D. Hornfischer's books:
Neptune's Inferno - About Guadalcanal
The Fleet at Flood Tide - The Pacific campaign later in the war. I'm currently reading this.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - About Taffey 3 and battle off Samar
This has been extensively written about. One excellent and meticulously detailed source is, "Assault on the Liberty" written by James Ennes, a survivor of the attack.
http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-James-Ennes-Jr/dp/0972311602/
Worth checking out if you are interested in the facts of the case rather then the conjecture and propaganda that saturates most internet discourse about the subject.
To briefly answer your question, the type of ship, the flag flown, the numerous Israeli recon flights overhead preceding the attack, among other things are all factors that leave the impartial observer unable to draw any conclusion other then that the ship was known to be American. The official Navy investigation done by the JAG determined the same thing.
Thunder Below, available on Amazon here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DKMWMWY/
http://www.marina.difesa.it/noi-siamo-la-marina/storia/la-nostra-storia/medaglie/Pagine/default.aspx
A Patrick O'Brien book would be helpful, but one of the companions would be even better. For really basic stuff I'd check out this book
Highly recommend reading the book Shadow Divers . It talks about what it takes to dive to these depths and to explore uBoats.
This is a pretty good read, too
Speaking only for my specialty, Blind Man's Bluff is an excellent book.
It focuses on the Cold War, but you could easily apply it to whatever country you consider to be a threat to the U.S. today.
If it does there is a small industry of books published to explain it all. Patrick O'Brian's Navy for example.
His other two are great as well.
Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of her Survivors
Then you NEED to read Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors which I think is the definitive book on the battle off Samar
I read this book to figure out modern naval tactics Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat: Second Edition.
Reading a great book right now, Blind Mans Bluff.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089EMLGK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
This is exactly right.
During Vietnam the USSR had subs tailing US CAG's with nuclear weapons...
The Sub force was meant to survive the initial exchange, and respond in kind. As theoretically, they were travelling undetected and safe from the initial strikes.
... except the US Navy has been playing that game since the 1950s!
(Source: Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag.)
And cutting undersea cables as an act of war has been a real thing since, oh, August 5th, 1914.
Excepting any authors here, two classic books to recommend are Blind Man's Bluff (https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589/) and, for the serious geeks, Cold War Submarines (https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Submarines-Construction-1945-2001/dp/1574885308/).
I don't normally read any fiction but I just read a brand new book called Arctic Gambit by Larry Bond and Chris Carlson (https://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Gambit-Jerry-Mitchell-Novel/dp/0765334925/) and I very much enjoyed it. Possibly a future classic.
-The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
-Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue
-Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
-In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
The book in question is "The First Casualty" and is thoroughly well researched from over 300 primary sources plus the Falkland Islanders' diaries and draws from the personal accounts of the Royal Marines, their Argentine opponents and those Stanley residents in the middle of it, to include the hospital staff at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Stanley and the hospital records. Here is a very good account by BFBS from an interview with myself (the author) and including a video with Royal Marine Jim Fairfield BEM where he also states that the Argentine forces took very heavy casualties and more than they ever admitted to and that the Royal Marines were told to say nothing about the truth:
https://www.forces.net/news/did-royal-marines-really-surrender-after-falklands-invasion
The words of many of these Royal Marines were also documented at the launch of The First Casualty on 28/3/17 by the Portsmouth News:
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/our-region/portsmouth/revealed-untold-story-of-how-60-marines-battled-thousands-of-argentinians-1-7895621
I would also point to the Daily Mail article of July 2017:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4721140/Falklands-final-secret.html
It is apparent that the Argentine forces lost very heavily that day and covered it up. An LCVP Landing Craft was sunk that day, which only Martin Middlebrook mentions (and conjectured in another book, oddly) which has since been found and dragged up (its picture is in the first link) as part of the investigation. John Smith recorded it as early as 1983 in his book "74 Days" and actually, immediately after the invasion, the editor of the Penguin News went to London (having been deported by the Argentine forces) and reported via Reuters not only that a Landing Craft had been sunk but even a figure of 200 Argentine casualties. The MOD certainly knows about it but never mentioned it. General Julian Thompson is on record as saying "The official line if asked, is that it exploded due to some form of premature detonation." It existed then, it exists now, Sir Rex Hunt even mentioned it twice on FIBS Radio on April 2nd. This can be confirmed via the radio broadcasts on YouTube which are very easy to find. The LCVP Landing Craft had a capacity of 40 men and lots of bodies were seen floating in the harbour for days afterwards (again, direct quotes in John Smith and in The First Casualty) one very direct account from the latter states, "looking over the side into the harbour (April 3rd) three Argentine bodies were floating who had come up from the sunken landing craft. One of them, I remember, actually looked like he had his hands in his pockets."
Next is the LVTP-7 Amtrack APC, of which each one was carrying 25 men plus three crew. This was always officially denied and a mildly damaged one substituted to show that the Royal Marines must have thought they destroyed it but didn't. They never claimed this vehicle but the one before it. Amtrack 07 (The one used to show no damage) turned to its left across the front of the Royals' position, the one they always maintained they had hit turned right, away from them and became stuck on a bank.
LCpl Burt Reynolds hit it first with a 66mm LAW in the back left quadrant (he was farthest out on the right of the Marines' position with GPMG gunner Sean Egan) and then Mark Gibbs hit it just behind the Commander's Cupola as George Brown and Danny Betts hit it just starboard of the nose with an 84mm Carl Gustav. Gibbs is on record as saying, "It stopped, rocked on its suspension and blew a great cloud of black smoke and just died". This is in print and also on a BBC Radio 4 documentary "My Falklands War" with myself and Falkland Islander Rachel Simons.
Jim Fairfield (mentioned above) saw this vehicle six times in three days and described the damage exactly, even looking inside it. Stanley fireman Neville Bennett was tasked with hosing out the inside and his chilling words were "It looked like the inside of an Auschwitz oven". Jim Fairfield is on record talking about it when he saw it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVWivce8vzc&t=17s
Major Mike Norman listed Argentine casualties as "The most conservative figure possible of only what we knew we had got and could confirm around Government House, about which there was no doubt" and his official report, declassified in 2012, stated 5 killed, 17 wounded and 3 prisoners. Again, this is shown in the first link above.
Dr Daniel Haines actively described in his memoirs an operation performed on two men, one of whom died on the operating table, the other spirited away in a terminal condition, who were found exactly where Royal Marines Nick Williams and Marcus Bennett described shooting them. Sir Rex Hunt in his own memoir "My Falklands Days" also describes Argentine soldiers dragging two full body bags across his wife Mavis' rockery... bear in mind that Pedro Giachino, the only man Argentina admitted died, was alive when he went to hospital, and there are many photos of him being treated in a Land Rover, so neither was him.
Nurse Diane Roberts came to the hospital that morning after the battle and her first job was cleaning out the sluices in the morgue, where, she recalled, "There were three Argentine corpses laid out already. The others told me that there were two more before this but they had been taken away. I looked at them and they were certainly dead... very dead." Dr Alison Bleaney recounted how, as she arrived at the hospital, "I came in the back way and passed one of their big tracked vehicles. They were stuffing bodies in there on top of each other. I saw at least six but could see that there were more stacked behind them, all crammed in. The ward was chaos, there must have been 50-60 wounded in there, everyone was shouting, I left the dead and just tried to save the living. There was one man with a serious gunshot wound to the groin who I tried to help, but you'd turn around to get something and they would spirit the wounded away. I must have performed at least ten operations that morning."
Hospital records show 12 wounded men still in the hospital the next day who were too critical to move. None of these were the three confirmed wounded who were all evacuated on April 2nd. Corporal Williams in his account detailed "literally an endless ferry of medevac helicopters going from the hospital to the airport" and a stack of bloodied stretchers abandoned there. The hospital records show 100 stretchers from WW1 in their stores before the invasion and not one left after. All were at the airport.
Finally, recorded in John Smith and several other private diaries, 70-80 bodies were found stacked up on the Darwin Road outside of town a few days after. The Argentine soldiers burned them. A year after the war, families representing over 500 (and as many as 1,000) men still missing from the war petitioned the Argentine government for information and were lied to and told the British still held them prisoner on Ascension island. Of course there were none. They came back still asking in 1987 and were told we didn't have them:
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/08/world/around-the-world-no-clues-on-lost-troops-british-tell-argentines.html
It is evident that Argentina hid hundreds of deaths from the war, not just on April 2nd. The full account with all of the evidence from primary sources and showing the entire working method is in "The First Casualty" which, I should add, is NOT a self published book at all, but was published by Navy Books, from whom I bought the rights prior to their selling the business. It has sold in over 40 countries and has been a repeated Amazon #1 Best Seller, with reviews by the veterans themselves:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1980585792/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521706982&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236
I hope this answers the question.
Ricky D Phillips.
A single torpedo is an accident. A two hour multi-plane attack is not.
https://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-James-Ennes-Jr/dp/0972311602/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518467027&sr=1-1&keywords=Assault+on+the+Liberty
>The cable isn't armoured so in theory someone could easily cut it and plug in a laptop to gain access to the house network for nefarious purposes.
Common things are common. It would be much more likely that someone would yank your cable out and take it to sell as scrap.
If there was an economic reason for you to have an armored guarded cable, you'd be able to afford an armored guarded cable.
It's much more likely someone will break into your home and steal stuff than someone would "tap into" an outdoor ethernet cable.
Incidentally, lightning hitting that cable, or near it, and destroying everything on your network is also much more likely than the Mission: Impossible team doing a cable tap.
The US Navy tapped into Soviet communications cables. It took AT&T and a billion dollar nuclear sub:
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589
Again, if you have super valuable data, an outdoor cable is not your first concern.
Dude, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book. One of the best reads ever.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589
People interested in diving and finding stuff, should read this book. It's totally awesome...
They used bunker oil it's an extremely dense oil. You should read Halsey's Typhoon it's incredible what those men went through. President Gerald Ford was almost washed overboard during it, he was saved by catching the lip of the flight deck with the tips of his toes.
As for your recurring nightmare, Descent into Darkness is a memoir about a US Navy salvage diver in Pearl Harbor. They found men who had survived for weeks in air pockets but died before they could be rescued... they found the dates scratched into the bulkhead. I personally would take the sudden sinking rather than being trapped and hearing salvage divers constantly passing you for weeks before finally dying alone in the cold darkness.
Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375760989/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Hhdfvb1PCVHAW
I cannot overstate how much I loved this book, and if maritime mysteries are your thing, stop reading this comment and find a copy!
That sounds cool. Definitely gonna grab a copy.
Here's the Amazon link to "Blind Man's Bluff" for those that are interested in it.
Pasting my comment from a recent thread:
>Dean King's Sea of Words and Harbors and High Seas are pretty essential, I find.
>
>I also like Patrick O'Brian's Navy: An Illustrated Guide to Jack Aubrey's World, though it's more 'additional reading' than a must-have, for me.
>
>And of course, Lobscouse and Spotted Dog is the essential culinary companion, if you've a mind to spend some time in the galley and want to shout "Which it'll be ready when it's ready!" as authentically as possible.
>
>I've heard good things about the Patrick O'Brian Muster Book, but I haven't used it so I can't speak to it personally.
Anything by Henry Petroski
Skunk Works by Ben Rich Military aircraft aren't really developed this way anymore, but the stories are amazing.
Blind Man's Bluff
Nicely done /u/whibbler. Do you know if Parche replaced Halibut vis-a-vis Blinds Man's Bluff and Operation Ivy Bells? I am curious how that timeline all fits together.
There is a really good book "Thunder Below!" written by Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey who was the captain of that boat during ww2. He toured the boat once, which was cool.
Well, it's worth remembering that the term "Tall Ship" refers to any traditionally-rigged sailing vessel, which covers hundreds of years of evolution in sailing technology, hence the mechanics of sailing, say, the Roseway, a 1925 Gloucester fishing schooner, are vastly different from sailing the Kalmar Nyckel, a replica of 1625 Dutch pinnace.
That being said, the best book I can recommend is Seamanship in the Age of Sail. It's a modern book, but based on contemporary sources, gives a very thorough explanation of how a 17th-19th century Man-of-War would have been rigged, sailed, and manuevered.
A beautiful photo for a fantastically crewed submarine.
For those of you that don't know her story, Thunder Below! was written by her skipper Eugene B. Fluckey and tells the tale of those 8 Battle Stars among other things.
This! Submarines are really underrated tools of surveillance and intelligence. Just look up the USS Parche.
9 Presidential Unit Citations, and it's records are still sealed til this day. Also, shoutout to Blind Man's Bluff if you want to know more about the hush side of submarines!
>I'd still have some sort of low range ping to detect objects within like 20 feet.
The Los Angeles class subs (of which the USS San Francisco is a part of) is 362 ft long, 33 ft in diameter, displaces 6,900 tonnes, and has an official speed of 20 knots (which equals 33.8 ft per second). At that size and speed, they would need a couple thousand feet of detection range just to start to react, and a couple thousand more to actually avoid a collision. Any active sonar that would give a usable return at that distance is also powerful enough to be detected tens of miles away and thus give away the subs position.
>If there is an enemy sub 20 feet away...
If any sub is 20 feet away and it hasn't been heard on passive sonar then it is because it is dead in the water and a collision is less than 1 second away.
>What's the point of being a war sub that can't see nearby giant objects?
Depends on the type of sub. Missile boats basically just go park off someones coast and wait until they receive orders to launch their missiles towards preprogramed coordinates without ever seeing the target. Attack boats (like the San Fran) have a variety of rolls but generally speaking are not looking for silent terrain. Typically they are looking for other vessels, and they do that by listening for the sounds of machinery. Surface ships are noisy as fuck, and don't require any effort to track passively, but even really quiet subs can be tracked by a well trained passive sonar crew. Coastal defense boats are basically the same as attack boats, except they are smaller and have a more limited range. There are a few other types of subs, but the only type I can think of that might even remotely do what you suggest is sonar mapping subs, but those are not combat vessels and are typically operated by civilians.
I'm not really certain what else you think there would really be to "see". Terrain isn't normally a big problem in the ocean. It's just certain locations that should be indicated on depth charts that you would need to limit operating depth to stay safe and collision free. Else-wise, the ocean is pretty empty, and subs are surfaced when pulling into/out of harbor.
If you want to get a decent idea of what subs do, and how they operate, read the book Blind Mans Bluff. It's probably the most accurate non-classified accounting you will find. Also watch the movie Down Periscope. It's a comedy, and takes some Hollywood liberties, but gives a fair representation when it comes to looking around with sonar.
Try this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Submarines-Construction-1945-2001/dp/1574885308
If you're interested in the techniques behind this stuff, this is my favorite book on the subject: Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail.
It's worth owning if you're REALLY into it (or you do it for a job), but you should try finding it at a library or something. It's basically an owner's manual for an 18th century ship.
Here's my list of recommended reads (no particular order)
Very large, very technical book. Helps if you have a bit of electronics or weaponeer knowledge already. Has information translated from recently de-classified cold war era Russian documents, publicly for the first time. Talks specifics of weapons, sensors, and comms, system by system. Reference book, not bathroom reading.
This is an actual textbook used by the US naval academy. Not sure if it is still part of their curriculum anymore. Discuses fundamentals of radar, sonar, blast effects, and a wide variety of other topics in a non platform specific way.
Haven't read this book, but understand it's popular with US naval officers today.
Not many people know Tom Clancy also wrote non-fiction. His works of that genre included; Carrier, Submarine, and Fighter Wing. Of course, his novels, Hunt for Red October, and Red Storm Rising are the gold standard in military-techno thrillers.
Bonus Material
The best narrative, novel-style nonfiction writer out there is probably John Krakauer. Into Thin Air, his story of a Mt. Everest expedition gone very badly wrong, is probably my favorite of his, but the guy has never written a less-than-excellent book.
Along similar lines, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, about a bunch of amateur SCUBA divers exploring an old WWII submarine at the bottom of the Atlantic, is equally hard to put down.
Let me put in a plug for Robert Lundgren's THE WORLD WONDER'D: What Really Happened Off Samar, a salvo-by-salvo account of the battle between Kurita and Taffy 3.
http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Wonderd-Really-Happened/product-reviews/160888046X
Hey, that's from Seamanship In The Age Of Sail! Here's a few other drawings that OP might enjoy:
http://imgur.com/a/gyvlj
Well then I strongly recommend going straight to the source and reading Thunder Below!. Written by Fluckey himself, this book is literally too insane to be made into a movie, because no one would believe it.
This is probably the best submarine story ever written. And there's cake.
Red Star Rogue is a must read if you enjoyed THFRO.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Rogue-Submarines-Nuclear-ebook/dp/B001NIT7KC
From Amazon's page...
"One of the great secrets of the Cold War, hidden for decades, is revealed at last.
Early in 1968 a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence, assembled here for the first time, strongly suggests that the sub, K-129, sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile, most likely at the naval base at Pearl Harbor.
We now know that the Soviets had lost track of the sub; it had become a rogue. While the Soviets searched in vain for the boat, U.S. intelligence was able to pinpoint the site of the disaster. The new Nixon administration launched a clandestine, half-billion-dollar project to recover the sunken K-129. Contrary to years of deliberately misleading reports, the recovery operation was a great success. With the recovery of the sub, it became clear that the rogue was attempting to mimic a Chinese submarine, almost certainly with the intention of provoking a war between the U.S. and China. This was a carefully planned operation that, had it succeeded, would have had devastating consequences. During the successful recovery effort, the U.S. forged new relationships with the USSR and China. Could the information gleaned from the sunken sub have been a decisive factor shaping the new policies of détente between the Americans and the Soviets, and opening China to the West? And who in the USSR could have planned such a bold and potentially catastrophic operation?
Red Star Rogue reads like something straight out of a Tom Clancy novel, but it is all true. Today our greatest fear is that terrorists may someday acquire a nuclear weapon and use it against us. In fact, they have already tried."
Found the picture here, and someone further down in the comments there seems to identify the book it came from as this one.
Hi there, I am not a professional naval historian (my master's was in American history, post civil war) but I have read quite a bit on the topic. Several books come to mind:
http://www.amazon.com/Dreadnought-Robert-K-Massie/dp/0345375564/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960465&sr=1-1&keywords=dreadnought+massie
http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0345408780/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960472&sr=1-6
The Safeguard of the Sea:
http://www.amazon.com/Safeguard-Sea-History-Britain-660-1649/dp/0393319601/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370960428&sr=1-3
The Command of the Ocean:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Command-Ocean-History-1649%C2%AD-1815/dp/0393060500
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140096507
http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889249
And, of course, if you want fiction, both the Horatio Hornblower and the Aubrey-Maturin series are good reads. A-M is a bit more modern lit; Hornblower is entertaining but starts to read a bit older.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey–Maturin_series
I hope this helps. When I get home I'll take a look at my shelves and see what else comes to mind.
Thank you for the book suggestion. I read Shadow Divers years ago and it sounds like Torpedo Junction should be right up my alley.
Any one interested in this should read Neptunes Inferno: The story of American and Allied(Austrailian and New Zealand) Navies against the Japanese at Guadal Canal Absolutely mind blowing read thats not covered enough by most WW2 history sources.
If you want more, read this insane book.
And then this one.
There have been several books written by officers on the Liberty that survived. The one by James Ennes is the best IMHO: https://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-James-Ennes-Jr/dp/0972311602
If he likes WWII nonfiction, I would recommend A Higher Call and The Hiding Place. I also liked this book on submarine Cold War espionage called Blind Man's Bluff.
Just one final comment:
> (In theory; the furthest any warship hit another while both were on the move was the HMS Warspite against an Italian cruiser at 24km)
Traditionally the title for longest hit has been given to Warspite, but there's some recent scholarship you might find interesting that suggests that Yamato hit USS White Plains at 34k off Samar.
Book - Patrick OBrians Navy - Illustrated Companion.
Different resource online.
I saw this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Patrick-OBrians-Navy-Illustrated-Companion/dp/0762415401
linked on the wiki page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_ranks,_rates,_and_uniforms_of_the_18th_and_19th_centuries
There are some references at the bottom which may be useful, most notably Michael Lewis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lewis_%28naval_historian%29
and Brian Lavery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Lavery
Subreddits, I am not so sure on -- there are things like r/militaryporn but that's a pretty superficial and spurious link to CMANO type discussions -- more pictures of cool things.
Other resources I can recommend would include:
There is a VERY high level of detail and expertise on this site. In fact, the admins are pretty strict keeping topics rational and informative. They have some excellent sticky posts, for example one called "Airpower 101" which really lays out some high-level concepts and fundamentals in the employment of air power with the goal of dissuading the usual "why is this plane better than that one" simplistic arguments.
This site also has a broad scope, they have active forums on military aviation, naval power, geopolitics etc...
Then a couple of essential books:
1: Fleet Tactics and coastal combat 2nd edition by Capt. Hughes.
http://www.amazon.com/Fleet-Tactics-Coastal-Combat-Edition/dp/1557503923/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51NEDTZS0NL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR108%2C160_&refRID=1BT71WJ7KT78SNP06Y3V
2: The Air Campaign -- planning for combat by Col. Warden.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Air-Campaign-Revised-Ed/dp/1583481001
You could get a long way with just these two books in terms of understanding fundamental concepts, both are excellent and highly regarded in their respective fields.
Good luck!
I could easily write a 15 page paper on the Six-Day-War :) But that's not an offer.
Not sure how much I can help you if you aren't even going to post your initial thoughts on the event. Do you just want to take up our feelings on it?
Well anyway I'll just get the ball rolling by giving you a book on a significant incident that happened on the peripheral of the "war":
http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-James-Ennes-Jr/dp/0972311602
I believe that reading this would be helpful for your report and also your understanding of geopolitics in the east beach of the Mediterranean. It's a well known book, you've probably even heard of it (at least if you're an American you have).
There's a really interesting book about the impact of the two major typhoons that hit the U.S. Navy during WWII called Halsey's Typhoon. Good read IMO.
One of my favorite books is Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375760989/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_UuWPub08PTZA4
True story that reads like fiction about extreme deep sea divers and the mystery they found at the very edges of what is humanely possible to dive.
http://www.amazon.com/Neptunes-Inferno-U-S-Navy-Guadalcanal/dp/0553385127
This book is really good too, regarding the IJN and USN fights during the Guadalcanal campaign.
Keegan's History of Warfare touches on maritime power, but his Price of Admiralty is very good, and much more focused on Naval history. If you want a great memoir of WW2 in the Pacific, I'd recommend With the Old Breed by Sledge although this is the Marines, not the Navy specifically.
What kind of facilities do you have access to bud? Any weights, or is it all bodyweight?
Stew Smith is the man with all things prep-fitness-related.
You may check out Military Athlete as well; they have programs for literally every school on the planet. The unscrupulous may be able to find some of the PDFs online without paying for them.
Finally, Tactical Barbell is pretty cool.
I'm not familiar with BA Airborne pipeline or what's emphasized. US Airborne School is running and pullups, basically. It's not a particularly physically demanding course. There's also jumpmaster school which has one of the highest attrition rates for schools, but that's not physically taxing, it just requires 100% scores.
But any of those resources should help you find a workable program. Pretty much any 3-day strength/resistance training program followed by 30-60 minutes of HIIT should plug into your schedule fairly well.
Finally (and obviously) – don't drink. Drink to celebrate after you've finished. You don't want to get run down, fuck your times up, get sick, or not be on your game. Beer will still be there in a month.
Keep at it and keep your head down.
EDIT: Somebody here can probably say with more certainty but when I seem to remember something about staying in shape during fleet basic in the excellent but fairly obvious Breaking BUD/S.
Also look up Seamanship in the Age of Sail
Archives for links in comments:
----
I am Mnemosyne 2.0, GG.^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^Website
Ghost in the Wires - The story of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick
Any Mary Roach Book if you like Science
In the Heart of the Sea - The true story behind Moby Dick
The Omnivore's Dilemma - A great walk through our food landscape
Gang Leader for a Day - Behavioral Economist embeds with a Chicago Gang
Shadow Divers - My first audiobook. It's a thriller about a scuba discovery of a Nazi Submarine on the Eastern US coast.
The Devil In The White City - A story about a serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893
Non-fiction for sure. I do really like history but sometimes its just too dense. I like to switch it up with non-fiction (or some sci-fi) that are kinda self-contained and only relate tangentially to larger events or just a lighter biography. Thinking Shadow Divers, The lost city of Z, Lost in Shangri-La, At Ease - Eisenhower or An American Doctor's Odyssey
Neptune's Inferno was excellent, but not quite as riveting as Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
Got started on At All Costs, but haven't yet dug in.
Whadda ya got for me?
D.M. Giangreco wrote an interesting book a few years ago detailing just how difficult it would have been for the American military to sustain an invasion of the Home Islands, and how that was a major factor in the decision to drop the bombs.
Shadow Divers is a great book about the discovery and subsequent identification of a U-Boat off the coast of New Jersey
I'll just go ahead and leave this right here http://www.amazon.com/The-Royal-Navy-Napoleonic-Era/lm/31C0AQAP2Z11 I highly recommend books 2-5, and you can download the first book from Gutenberg (I think).
http://www.amazon.com/Patrick-OBrians-Navy-Illustrated-Companion/dp/0762415401 Pictures... purty
SPOILERS for A-M and (minor) Hornblower
I don't think there's any fiction that is more accurate than O'Brian (on any subject anywhere for that matter), but Forrester's Hornblower series is worth reading for more "naval life". Hornblower and Aubrey were even on station together for the capture of the Spanish treasure frigates! Hornblower does a Hornblowery thing though and laughs when Aubrey gets screwed out of the treasure a mere political point.
Lastly for some quick mindless fun plus tall ship video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze8Y1gokHyA
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9hsQpB3zA (all four parts are in the related videos, and all worth it)
It's been done before, and probably many/most/all cables are monitored by someone.
For what it's worth, Blind Man's Bluff includes the story of the US tapping an underwater cable between Kamchatka and Vladivostok. The tap was found and is now on display in Moscow. Picture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
to new depths.
Nope. US subs already did that 30-odd years ago.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589
Absolutely. I would direct you to this for a great history of US and Russian submarine operations. It also discusses the current state of the Russian (and US) submarine fleet. It's a very accurate and interesting resource.
Also this is nice too.
Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World
If you guys liked this interview you should read Neptune's Inferno.
It's a book that tells the story of the USN at Guadalcanal, and it's built using first hand accounts like that of Captain Ruiz, Captain's Log, After Action Reports, and all sorts of sources, and it's blended into a book that really hits home about just how brutal the war at sea was, and how ordinary men can do extraordinary things when they have to.
I don't think any non-fiction has ever hit me quite the way that this book did, and it's because of stories just like Captain Ruiz's.
If no one mentioned, and you haven't read it - you HAVE to read and internalize this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-BUD-Regular-formerly-Training-ebook/dp/B00AY59OS0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415927753&sr=1-1&keywords=breaking+buds
It's kind of a niche genre but I too am a history buff. I'm also a certified scuba diver and my all time favourite book is Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.
https://www.amazon.ca/Shadow-Divers-Adventure-Americans-Everything/dp/0375760989
It's the true story of a WWII U-Boat found off the coast of New Jersey by a couple of divers. The book jumps back and forth between present day while the divers are trying to figure out what the heck the wreck is and figure out how it got there, and the ships history.
I've probably read it half a dozen times now! History, real life adventure and scuba :)
tiene un libro publicado
https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Casualty-Untold-Story-Falklands/dp/1980585792/
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Naval-Combat-David-Miller/dp/0517613506
Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World https://www.amazon.com/dp/0762415401/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_zbJ8yb6MBDKDG
Do you have both Thedas books? The second one is also great.
I gifted the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Characters and World Compendium to a friend and he seemed to like it very much.
There are a lot of similar things for Tolkiens universe.
My personal favourite companion book is Patrick O'Brians Navy.
Much of the crew believes the attack was intentional. The people who were there, particularly the deck officers like LCDR James Ennes have gone on the record claiming there is no way it was not deliberate, and that much of what was in the official report was false, and things were omitted and altered, as claimed by those on board who were never allowed to go on the congressional record and testify about the attack. Why would a Navy LCDR serving on the ship adamantly lie? Also CIA director Richard Helms and Secretary of State Dean Rusk believed the attack was deliberate.
Claiming it was an error...they were flying their holiday colors for fucks sake. Huge letters on the bow, "GTR 5" signifying who they were. Israelis claimed they believed it was the Egyptian ship El Quseir which looks nothing like the Liberty!
Also the CO Capt. McGonagle following the incident never came out to make public claims, but in 1997 during the ships reunion he was quoted saying:
"I think it's about time that the state of Israel and the United States government provide the crew members of the Liberty and the rest of the American people the facts of what happened, and why . . . the Liberty was attacked 30 years ago today.
"For many years I have wanted to believe that the attack on the Liberty was pure error," Captain McGonagle said.
But "it appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity. It was, on the other hand, gross incompetence and aggravated dereliction of duty on the part of many officers and men of the state of Israel."
LDCR James Ennes wrote a book about it "The Assault on the Liberty"
http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Below-Revolutionizes-Submarine-Warfare/dp/0252066707
Could be made into a movie
If you were really a Vietnam Vet, you would remember LBJ's falsification of the Gulf of Tonkin incident which he used to escalate the war in Vietnam, and his shameless recalling of jets sent to assist the USS Liberty (two times!) as it was under attack which Israel hoped would be blamed on Egypt, drawing US into the 1967 war. LBJ covered up the entire incident which left 34 dead and 171 wounded.
Can you possibly imagine the howls of outrage if Bush pulled BS like that rather than LBJ, especially if the attacker was Arab, not Israeli? Appalling.
Lundgren argued that it's Yamato that did that really, with 3 of her 18-inch shell caused direct hit on Johnston. She also unleashed barrage that put Hoel in sinking condition.
Summary of that book here
You're welcome. If your interest in the Pacific theater is broader, you may also consider "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. It revisits the battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective and is excellent.
Other extremely good works are John B. Lundstrom's The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway and The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. Despite the appearance of these titles, they are not dry academic works, but full of interesting facts and quite fun reading.
Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-194 by D. M. Giangreco is an excellent work examining the end of the war in the Pacific, what the impact of strategic bombing was (nuclear and conventional), how the US and her allies planned to invade Kyushu and Honshu, how much the Japanese knew and how far developed their preparations were, and reasonable estimates of how events would play out if the invasions had actually been carried out. He examines how the details of each sides' plans would play out, the impact of nuclear weapons in the tactical role, how actual weather conditions and events would impact the land and sea portions of the campaigns and more.
I own all of the above and recommend them whole-heartedly.
A brief search also gave videos of several speeches/talks by Jon Parshall, but I haven't viewed them yet. Given the quality of his and Tully's work in Shattered Sword, I plan to watch each of them now.
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.
From the book description: In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves.
The audio book is particularly good with great narration by Michael Prichard with his raspy and dramatic voice.
http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002V57VVS&qid=1348609611&sr=1-1
Seaman ship in the age of sail is a good one.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0870219553?pc_redir=1395279573&robot_redir=1
The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor is marvelous aswell
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0486402207/ref=pd_aw_sims_1?pi=SL500_SY115
And if your interested about knots
The Marlinespike Sailor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0070592187/ref=pd_aw_sims_6?pi=SL500_SY115
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0870219553?pc_redir=1395279573&robot_redir=1
About as ready as it was possible to be.
There were very few places that the Allies (primarily the US) could invade and still be within comfortable range of Okinawa, the staging base for any invasion, AND have appropriate terrain for such a landing.
Because of this, it was relatively simple to figure out exactly where the invasion would be heading. Kyushu, the southermost of the home islands, would be hit in November 1945, and only the "bottom third" of the island taken. A number of major airbases would be built to support the invasion of the Kanto Plain around Tokyo in March of 1946.
While Japan didn't know exactly when the attack would come, they'd been moving troops to Kyushu for some time, and as the US came closer and closer, moved more and more troops and aircraft into position for the defensive of Kyushu, called Operation Ketsugo.
These were given plenty of time to dig into the terrain for cover, terrain that sometimes wasn't really as great as the Americans thought. What little armor they had was moved to the island and hidden away as a mobile reserve. Aircraft by the thousands for kamikaze missions were positioned in caves or well camouflaged, to be launched when the attack was just beginning. US Intelligence expected some 6500 kamikaze to be available; at the time of surrender, they were horrified to discover the actual number was closer to 13000. By August, 1945, there were close to 900000 troops on Kyushu as well.
Operation Olympic would almost certainly be won by the Allies. That's pretty much not in question. The question is, would the American public, tired of war and freshly victorious in Europe, be willing to pay the butcher's bill involved with just the first part of the invasion of Japan. The Japanese high command was betting on making the invasion forces bleed and the answer being "no."
Immediate sources:
US Army MacArthur Reports V1, Ch XIII: *Downfall: The Plan for the Invasion of Japan
DM Giangreco: Operation Downfall: The Devil was in the Details PDF warning.
DM Giangreco: Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945 - 1947
Here is the mobile version of your link
Has k-129 Ben mentioned? Terrifying read: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Rogue-Submarines-Nuclear-ebook/dp/B001NIT7KC
I don't think you've answered my question.
>I think that they are dealing in supposition and that those statements show that they actually have no reason to believe what they say they believe.
They are short quotes intended to demonstrate that officials, not conspiracy loons and Jew haters, don't believe the official story. They weren't intended to be an exposé on the reasons for why they believe what they believe.
The quoted officials and survivors have expounded on the reasons for their position in writing and interviews. Here is the 1967 diplomatic note from Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the Israeli ambassador where he explains why he doesn't believe the USS Liberty could have been mistaken for anything it wasn't. James Ennes, one of the attack survivors, wrote a book on the incident. The linked documentary also interviews Ennes and other survivors.
>The Israelis had no cause whatsoever to attack Americans, and would not have wasted the resources without some cause.
Israel was at war with Egypt. I'm not however here to argue that Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty or that it had a motive to do so, anyone interested in making an actual opinion for themselves about the events is welcome to do their own research, read the transcripts of Israeli military transmissions released by the Jerusalem Post in 2004 or watch any of the available documentaries on the incident.
>Your quotes would have indicated what the cause was if any existed.
The quotes weren't intended to provide a cause for the attack. They were intended to dispel the false impression your comment gave that skepticism about the incident is associated with antisemites when the fact is that respected members of the intelligence community and high ranking military officers don't believe it was an accident.
Thats because I was quoting specifically the Japan vs USA Pacific War losses, not their entire Naval Power.
I saw that chart too, and quite honestly that makes their plight even more desperate. Having being outclassed in tonnage alone to the tune of roughly 8:1 by the USA alone is a drastic statistic that was superseded by the fact that again, their forces were divided and their war was on multiple fronts.
Just because you have 16 carriers, doesn't mean all the carriers are fighting in a single battle, or even in the same war.
In the Current War with Iraq, the USA never tasks more than 3 offensive Carriers to the Persian Gulf at any one time. Other carriers are stationed elsewhere with other duties and other missions aside from just that one conflict.
One of my quotations is yes a Wikipedia article, but also from
NavSource
Hara Struggle for the Middle Sea: The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940-1945 Kindle Edition
by Vincent P. O'Hara (Author)
Never quote directly from Wikipedia, read the sources as well. The context you missed so obviously by finding a simple contradictory table was proved irrelevant through use of proper data and research.
Edit: added a single word.
A good non-Israel approved book is Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes. It is specifically about the attack on the US intelligence vessel by Israeli bombers and torpedo boats during the Six-Day war, not the Yom Kippur war, but OP would probably find it very interesting nonetheless.