Reviewed by Rory McAlevy How do you explore the last 150 years of British seafaring history in just one book? One shipwreck at a time, according to the author of Breaking Seas, Broken Ships: People, Shipwrecks & Britain, 1854-2007. Ian Friel followed Britain and the Ocean Road, a deft and historically sound coverage of the
Reviewed by Rory McAlevy To study history is to study people, and Ian Friel captures that exquisitely in “Britain and the Ocean Road.” His work centers on the individual human experiences that illustrate the story of Britain’s ascendency to a dominant ocean power. Armed with this poignant narrative lens, Friel traces a national heritage of
Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Michael Claringbould’s Operation I-Go: Yamamoto’s Last Offensive — New Guinea and the Solomons, April 1943 skillfully utilizes Japanese and Allied sources to thoroughly investigate Operation I-Go, an aerial operation set against the backdrop of the March-April 1943 Pacific War. While this ambitious operation employed a large number of Imperial Japanese Navy
Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink Martyn R. Beardsley’s new book Heroes of the RNLI: The Storm Warriors tells the stories of the men of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), an institution that is not only one of the better-known maritime rescue services but also a national icon in the United Kingdom. From the 1820s up
Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. The Kamikaze, a well-known unit of the Japanese military in World War II, still fascinates many students of war history. Having just read Rain of Steel: Mitscher’s Task Force 58, Ugaki’s Thunder Gods, and the Kamikaze War off Okinawa, by Stephen L. Moore, I found Stewart’s book a good
Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. Author of over a dozen books about World War II, Stephen L. Moore adds to his bibliography with a wonderful analysis of the Spring 1945 Pacific Campaign for Okinawa. As expected by the title of the work, the first chapters are devoted to telling readers who Vice Admiral Marc
Reviewed by Tyler Robinson Vengeance Strikes the Blow is a remarkably vivid and grounded read, particularly given that it is such a departure from G. Alvin Simons’ prior historical-fiction novel, Odin-Son: The Berserk Saga. Much of the text reads as Socratic dialogue on the subject of tactics, not unlike Niccolo Macchiavelli’s The Art of War. The tone is also
Reviewed by Lt. Col. Michael D. Miller, USAF When considering the 7 December 1941 attack on the U.S. military forces on Oahu, the sinking battleships of the devastated Pacific Fleet are the first images that may come to mind. The Pearl Harbor Tactical Studies Series examines the island’s airfields as part of the larger attack and
Reviewed by Steve Ryan Very senior policymakers on occasion use fiction as a way to win our attention. For example, during the perilous 1980s, Sir John Hackett, a retired British general who fought with the British Red Devil paratroopers in the doomed Arnhem campaign in 1944, wrote The Third World War: August 1985, which was
Reviewed by Lt. Col. Trey Guy, USA Foxtrot in Kandahar: A Memoir of a CIA Officer in Afghanistan at the Inception of America’s Longest War is the second book and first work of non-fiction from Duane Evans, a retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Operations Officer. This riveting snapshot memoir focuses on Evans’ experiences in Afghanistan
Reviewed by Joseph Moretz, PhD That navies require intelligence to operate effectively may pass largely without comment. So too that they acquire and assess raw data and then disseminate an end-product for their own needs no less than for the nation served. That the formal organizational underpinnings of this process are only of relatively recent
Reviewed by Ed Calouro John Roberts, a leading expert on British capital ships and warships of World War II, is the author of a technical history of the battle cruiser HMS Repulse. The title of his latest book is Battlecruiser Repulse: Detailed in the Original Builders’ Plans. It is not the typical warship biography – normally a narrative
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, PhD David Hobbs, MBE served in the Royal Navy from 1964 until 1997 and retired as a Fleet Air Arm pilot with the rank of Commander. He qualified as both a fixed and rotary wing pilot, logged 2,300 hours with over 800 carrier landings (150 at night), and served on
Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink With more than 1500 craft operating during World War II the Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS) was a fleet of substantial size, but as these craft were mainly converted trawlers, fuel carriers, and motor launches with some corvettes and sea plane tenders it is also a fleet often overlooked by naval
Reviewed by John Grady New York Times bestselling author Josh Young’s Expedition Deep Ocean brings to life a detailed portrait of Victor Vescovo. A very rich Texas equity-fund founder and Navy intelligence reservist educated at MIT, Harvard, and Stanford, Vescovo flew fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and climbed the world’s seven highest mountains, but his latest
