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BOOK REVIEW – Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

By James M. Scott, W.W. Norton & Company, New York (2015) Reviewed by John R. Satterfield, DBA In the spring of 1992 at my local airport, two B-25 bombers landed and taxied to the FBO to refuel. I found out that they were headed to Washington, DC, for a low-level flight down the Mall to

BOOK REVIEW – The Myth of the Press Gang: Volunteers, Impressment, and the Naval Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century

By J. Ross Dancy, Boydell Press Woodbridge, Suffolk, England (2015) Reviewed by Mark Lardas If you rely on nautical fiction or even some histories (John Masefield’a among them), you might believe the Royal Navy of the Age of Fighting Sail was mainly composed of impressed men, with many – if not most – conscripts being

BOOK REVIEW – Coffins of the Brave: Lake Shipwrecks of the War of 1812

Edited by Kevin J. Crisman, Texas A&M University Press. College Station, TX (2014) Reviewed by James P. Delgado. Ph.D. Large in size and large in scope, Coffins of the Brave is a tour de force.  Published in 2014 to coincide with the bicentennial of the end of the War of 1812, this 415-page opus reflects

An American Inferno over Vietnam: Violent Skies Symposium Recap

“To the fair world: and heedless of repose We climb’d, he first, I following his steps, Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven Dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave: Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.” – Inferno, Canto XXXIV (Dante Alighieri) They were your friends and neighbors in your hometown.

PRESS RELEASE – Violent Skies Joint Symposium to Close with keynote speaker Jim Knotts, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                     October 5, 2015 Media Contact: Sarah Maguire  (703) 649-2781 [email protected] (DUMFRIES, Va.) – The organizers of the Violent Skies: Air War over Vietnam conference being held at National Defense University on October 15-16, 2015 (www.violentskies.org) are pleased to announce that Mr. Jim

Historical “Murderer’s Row” Photograph at Ulithi Update

We have received some updates from a blog post written in July 2012. The original article, “Looking for Assistance on WWII Ship Recognition at Ulithi Atoll,” caught the eye of David Stubblebine, a contributor to the World War II Database. According to Stubblebine, he cross examined several war diaries with a berthing chart of the

Death and Rebirth: 2015 McMullen Naval History Symposium Recap

  By Matthew T. Eng In his introduction to the 1995 essay collection Doing Naval History, Naval War College Professor Dr. John B. Hattendorf discussed the (then) current state of naval history. Using information gathered at the 1993 Yale-Naval War College conference, Dr. Hattendorf noted the dangers of moving forward in the field: “While there

A Conversation with Knox Award Winners

This past Friday, the Naval Historical Foundation held a special banquet honoring the myriad accomplishments of this year’s Commodore Dudley W. Knox in Annapolis, Maryland. The banquet also served as the final event of this year’s McMullen Naval History Symposium. Two of this year’s recipients, LCDR Thomas J. Cutler and Dr. Kenneth J. Hagan, were

Life Member Presents Paper at ICMH in China

Dr. Edward J. Marolda, a life member of the Naval Historical Foundation, participated in the annual Congress of the International Commission of Military History (ICMH) held in Beijing, China, during the first week of September. The theme of the conference, hosted by the Chinese Commission of Military History, was World War II and the Development

In Just Two Simple Paragraphs

By Stewart Milstein Universal Ship Cancellation Society It is a simple penny postcard without a return address. It was mailed on Nov 8, 1939 and bears a USS Guam (PR-3) cancel with the location Wanhsein between the killer bars. The card is addressed to Helen Bloomer of Eagle Rock, CA (A neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles).

BOOK REVIEW – Nelson’s Victory: 250 Years of War and Peace

By Brian Lavery, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD (2015) Reviewed by Mark Lardas Dozens of books have been written about HMS Victory. Why another one? Nelson’s Victory: 250 Years of War and Peace, by Brian Lavery, offers two very good reasons. The first is the author. If any historian could be described as the dean

BOOK REVIEW – Warships of the Great War Era: A History in Ship Models

David Hobbs, Seaforth Publishing, Barnsly, England (2014) Reviewed by Michael Wynd Esteemed naval historian David Hobbs has authored a very valuable publication on the warships of the First World War using ship models from the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This is part of a series of publications using ship models to

BOOK REVIEW – United States Coast Guard Leaders and Missions 1790 to Present

By Thomas P. Ostrom and John J. Galluzo, McFarland, Jefferson, NC (2015) Reviewed by Charles H Bogart This is the third in an excellent series of books written by Thomas Ostrom on the United States Coast Guard. The first two books of the series, The United States Coast Guard and National Defense and The United

BOOK REVIEW – We are Sinking, Send Help!

By Commander David D. Bruhn, U.S.Navy (Retired), Heritage Books, Berwyn Heights, MD (2015) Reviewed by David Kronenfeld We are Sinking, Send Help! presents readers with a well laid out chronology of US Navy salvage vessels and their contributions to the African, Mediterranean and European theaters of battle during World War II. Commander Bruhn carries the

BOOK REVIEW – The Ship That Wouldn’t Die: The Saga of the USS Neosho and a World War II Story of Courage and Survival at Sea

By Don Keith, Penguin Group, New York, NY (2015) Reviewed by Michael F. Solecki During the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942, the Japanese sank Neosho and her escort Sims. A sidebar of the battle until recently, the sinking of these two ships developed into a fascinating story of survival and heroism. I am