Naval Forces

From the number-one New York Times best-selling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania....

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway....

The devastation of Pearl Harbor and the American victory at Midway were prelude to a greater challenge: rolling back the vast Japanese Pacific empire island by island....

Interweaving the stories of three survivors - the captain, the ship's doctor, and a young marine - journalist Doug Stanton has brought this astonishing human drama to life....

The Barb sank the greatest tonnage of any American sub in World War II. This is a gripping adventure chock-full of "you-are-there" moments....

The planning, the strategy, the sacrifices and heroics - on both sides - illuminating the greatest naval war in history....

From America's preeminent naval historian, the first full-length portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the Pacific in World War Two....

Craig Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up. World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection....

With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy....

Blind Man's Bluff shows for the first time how the navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables....

This landmark account of the US Navy in the Cold War, Who Can Hold the Sea combines narrative history with scenes of stirring adventure on—and under—the high seas. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the victorious Navy sends its sailors home....

Called a great book worthy of a great man, this definitive biography of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet in World War II is considered the best book ever written about Admiral Chester W. Nimitz....

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she is sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. For the next five nights, almost 300 miles from the nearest land, nearly 900 men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other....

This is an unforgettable narrative that captures the essence of heroism, the power of loyalty, and the way in which the unadorned truth is more stirring than legend itself....

The Admirals tells the story of how history's only five-star admirals triumphed in World War II and made the United States the world's dominant sea power....

The story of Tang and her gallant crew ranks with the most amazing of naval history....

From the seas of the Central Pacific to the shores of Japan itself, The Fleet at Flood Tide is a stirring and deeply humane account of World War II's world-changing finale....

Celebrated historian Winston Groom tells the intertwined and uniquely American tales of George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall....

The career of the USS Wahoo in sinking Japanese ships in the farthest reaches of the Empire is legendary in submarine circles....

Command of the oceans was crucial to winning World War II. In this definitive account, Evan Mawdsley traces events at sea from the first U-boat operations in 1939 to the surrender of Japan....

Conflict. Crisis. Risk. These words have a distinct meaning in a military context that we hope will never apply identically in our own lives. But at the same time, as Admiral Stavridis shows with great clarity, many lessons are universal....  

Through diaries, personal interviews, and letters, preeminent historian John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the WWII Pacific theater's victorious Destroyer Squadron 21 and its men....

Elliot Carlson's biography of Captain Joe Rochefort is the first to be written of the officer who headed the U.S. Navy's decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and broke the Japanese Navy's code....

From Brandon Webb, Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times best-selling author, comes his account of the eight friends and fellow SEALs who made the ultimate sacrifice....

 Battleship Commander explores Lee's life from boyhood in Kentucky through his eventual service as commander of the fast battleships from 1942 to 1945. Said to be down to earth, modest, forgiving, friendly, and with a wry sense of humor, Lee eschewed the media....

The Battle of the Atlantic, Canada’s longest continuous military engagement of the Second World War, lasted 2,074 days, claiming the lives of more than 4,000 men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian merchant navy.

The ‘Devil Dogs’ of K Company, 3/5 Marines, were part of the legendary first Marine Division. They landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1942—the first US ground offensive of the war—and were present when Okinawa, Japan’s most southerly prefecture, finally fell to American troops after a bitter struggle in June 1945. In between they fought in the ‘Green Hell’ of Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain, and across the coral wasteland of Peleliu in the Palau Islands.

This story has been written in response to a demand for some account of the very generally misunderstood submarine campaign and, particularly, of the means by which it was defeated. While opinions may differ to a certain extent as to the influence exerted upon the campaign by the various forms of tactics, the means and weapons employed, and the general strategy adopted, I have given what I believe to be a consensus of the best-informed opinion upon these matters; I have taken advantage of all of the information now available to ensure accuracy in the account.

The British evacuation from the beaches of the small French port town of Dunkirk is one of the iconic moments of military history. The battle has captured the popular imagination through LIFE magazine photo spreads, the fiction of Ian McEwan and, of course, Christopher Nolan’s hugely successful Hollywood blockbuster. But what is the German view of this stunning Allied escape? Drawing on German interviews, diaries and unit post-action reports, Robert Kershaw creates a thrilling historical account of a battle that we thought we knew. 

Sub Culture explores the crucial role of the submarine in modern history, its contribution to scientific progress and maritime exploration, and how it has been portrayed in art, literature, fantasy, and film. Ranging from the American Civil War to the destruction of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000, the book examines the submarine's activities in the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and in covert operations and marine exploration to the present day.