Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into...

"A history of the legendary ship Endeavour"-- "[This book] is the story of a ship, an idea, and a way of looking at the world. It is grounded in the Enlightenment, an age of endeavors, with Britain consumed by the impulse for grand projects undertaken at speed. Endeavour was also the name given to a collier--a commonplace coal carrying vessel--made of oak, bought by the Royal Navy in 1768. No one could have guessed it would go on to become the most...

"On June 19, 1864, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. The Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish. Authors Phil Keith and Tom Clavin introduce some of the crucial players, including John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, as well as Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Alabama. Winslow pursued Semmes in a fourteen-month chase, culminating in what would become...

World-wide maritime trade has been the essential driver of wealth-creation, economic progress and global human contact. Trade and exchange of ideas have been at the heart of economic, social, political, cultural and religious life and maritime international law. These claims are borne out by the history of maritime trade beginning in the Indian Ocean and connecting to Southeast Asia, Japan, the Americas, East Africa, the Middle East especially the...

Stirring tales of heroism at sea have been ingrained in the annals of maritime history since time immemorial. Christopher Columbuss discovery of the New World, Queen Elizabeth Is defeat of the Spanish Armada, and Horatio Nelsons victory at Trafalgar are just some of Britains most memorable naval triumphs. But what about the lesser-known tales from our seafaring past? The Victorian who invented a swimming machine in order to cross the English Channel;...

The topsail schooner 'Lady of St Kilda' was built in 1834 for the wealthy Devon landowner Sir Thomas Dyke Acland. She was to become a key part in the development of the City of Melbourne at a time when untold prosperity was accelerating the growth of the city. Designed as a 'fruit schooner' she served as a private yacht until she was sold to Pope & Co of Plymouth when she sailed out to Port Phillip Bay, Australia in1841. There she undertook several...

Life at sea in the nineteenth century was demanding and perilous. Seamen had to be able to rely on those around them. This was easier said than done. The sea could be, and still is, a place of constant and unpredictable danger, whether by storm, shipboard disease or threat from the crew. Stories of unimaginable cruelties inflicted upon crews by savage officers and treacheries committed by mutinous crews were the soap operas of the day. People followed...

From the sinkings of the El Faro to the Andrea Doria, with dozens of similar maritime tragedies in between, the vague explanation of "human error" has been cited as the reason for the tragedies. For the first time, a 40-year safety consultant challenges much of that causation theory as too simple. The captain and crew, too often, in modern maritime history have become the scapegoats for far deeper failures of ship design, ship inspection and maintenance,...

A global account of pirates and their modus operandi from the middle ages to the present day In the twenty-first century piracy has regained a central place in Western culture, thanks to a surprising combination of Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as well as the dramatic rise of modern-day piracy around Somalia and the Horn of Africa. In this global history of the phenomenon, maritime terrorism and piracy expert Peter Lehr...

One Halloween the US Navy would like to forget, played a terrible trick on LIEUTENANT DAVID PORTER, in 1803.He, along with 306 other shipmates aboard the 38-gun frigate USS Philadelphia, including Captain William Bainbridge, were caught by pirates at Tripoli It took guile and courage to free them from their 18-month slavery in the grip of a murderous, despotic Pasha, and a renegade Scot-turned-Turk pirate. Plus the politicking of a President, Emperor...