Showing results for "Water" in Wars & Conflicts

Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. This is the central plotline running through this page-turning history beginning with the Japanese Operation I-Go and the American ambush of Admiral Yamamoto and continuing on to the Allied invasion of New Georgia, northwest of Guadalcanal in the middle of the Solomon Islands and the location of a major Japanese base.

Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war’s naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy’s blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war’s early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports.

During the course of the Second World War, the Allies mounted a series of attempts to prevent Germany from manufacturing heavy water utilizing hydroelectric plants in occupied Norway. These efforts comprised a mix of bomber and Commando raids. The overall aim was to stop Nazi Germany building a nuclear bomb. In fact, Hitler was never as close as the Allies thought, but the idea that his regime could construct and deploy such a device was the ultimate doomsday scenario, one that would have tilted the balance in favor of the Nazis.

Into Enemy Waters is the story of World War II's most elite and daring unit of warriors, the direct precursors to the Navy SEALs, told through the eyes of its last living member, ninety-five-year-old George Morgan. Morgan was just a wiry, seventeen-year-old lifeguard from New Jersey when he joined the Navy's new combat demolition unit, tasked to blow up enemy coastal defenses ahead of landings by allied forces. His first assignment: Omaha Beach on D-Day. When he returned stateside, Morgan learned that his service was only beginning.

For three millennia, the Mediterranean Sea served as the center of western civilization and the scene of many colossal wars and naval battles. In the early summer of 1940, this ancient body of water again played host to a new and extensive conflict as the Kingdom of Italy challenged Britain for dominance within the region. With France on the verge of collapse and Britain facing the prospect of imminent invasion, the Italians hoped to re-establish control over the Mediterranean.

An unforgettable story of children in wartime, of heroism at sea, and--above all--of courage and the power of the human spirit. On September 17, 1940, at a little after ten at night, a German submarine torpedoed the passenger liner S.S. City of Benares in the North Atlantic. There were 406...

The legend was forged in the fires of World War II, when special units of elite navy frogmen were entrusted with dangerous covert missions. These Underwater Demolition Teams, as they were then called, soon became known for their toughness, fearlessness, and their remarkable ability to get the job - any job - done. Years later, the renamed US Navy SEALs (for Sea, Air, and Land) continued to be a wartime force to be reckoned with throughout the remainder of the 20th century and into the 21st.

On January 16, 1991, Speicher participated in the initial air strike of the Persian Gulf War. Moments after an attack by an Iraqi MIG-25, Speicher's plane vanished over the Baghdad desert. The next day, Secretary of State Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell told the American public that Speicher was the first casualty of the Gulf War. He was listed as KIA/BNR.

In December 1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of Storms, placing the mighty US Third Fleet in harm's way. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and rescuer, as well as many families of lost sailors, transcripts and other records from naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs, personal letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson finds some of the story's truest heroes exhibiting selflessness, courage, and even defiance.