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showing 501 library results for '2018'

Granville Stapylton : Australia Felix 1836 : Second in command to Major Mitchell /Gregory C. Eccleston. "Granville Stapylton Australia Felix 1836 Second-in-command to Major Mitchell is based on the true journals of the pioneer land surveyor Granville Stapylton when he accompanied Major Thomas Mitchell on the famous 'Australia Felix' expedition in 1836, as his second-in-command. This expedition proceeded down the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers into far western New South Wales, before crossing into what is now Victoria and proceeded south past the Grampians to the coast at Portland, before returning via Mount Macedon to the settled areas near Gundagai. Their continuous survey traverse from Boree (near Molong) to Jugiong (near Gundagai), via south-west Victoria, was found to have a commendably small misclosure of 13/4 miles. Stapylton's journals clarify when and where several natural history discoveries were made, including that of the now extinct Pig-footed Bandicoot, the now extinct White-footed Rabbit-rat, and the first-ever sighting of an australite. Stapylton's journals also describe several first contacts with the indigenous people, the sometimes-fraught relationship between himself and Mitchell, and Stapylton's concern for the welfare of the young girl Ballandella, whom Mitchell took home to raise with his family: one of the first instances of the 'stolen generation'. Being of the aristocracy, Stapylton found it hard to fraternise with the convicts in the team, but by the end of the expedition he had warmed to them sufficiently to praise them for always treating Turandurey (the female in the party) with respect. The book later describes the attack on Stapylton's survey camp in far north-eastern New South Wales, inland from Mount Warning, in 1840, resulting in the murder of Stapylton and one of his men. The farcical criminal trial in Sydney in 1841 is described in detail, with the men adjudged guilty being brought back to the infant Brisbane Town to be publicly hanged from the vanes of the windmill. Also revealed is Mitchell's assuming responsibility for Stapylton's baby son, including his care and schooling until he was old enough to become employed."--Dust Jacket 2018. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 92STAPYLTON
They were just skulls : the naval career of Fred Henley, last survivor of HM submarine Truculent /John Johnson-Allen. ''This compelling story is the result of many hours spent recording the memories of Fred Henley. His life at sea is at the centre of his being and his own words are at the heart of the book. At the age of 14 Fred worked on a Thames sailing barge, then after his training at HMS Ganges, he joined his first ship which took him from the icy Arctic Ocean to the heat of West Africa where the Bismarck and her support ships were hunted. His experiences included visiting Archangel, sailing on Arctic convoys, capturing German supply ships, the failed attack on Oran, landings in Piraeus, Salonika and the French Riviera and operating with special forces in the Greek Islands. There is inevitably some humour when Fred recounts his encounters with girls. The book then explores the tragic loss of his last submarine, HMS Truculent. In the cold January waters of the Thames Estuary, within sight of Southend, over 60 men were lost in a major disaster, just five years after the end of the war. The voices of the survivors are heard telling how they stood in complete blackness in a sunken submarine, waiting for the water to come in so that they could escape to the surface, only for all but a few to drift away and die in the darkness. The story concludes with happier times with Fred visiting ports in the Mediterranean during peacetime as a married man.''--Provided by the publisher. [2018] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359
Heroes of Coastal Command : 1939-1945 /Andrew D. Bird. "In Heroes of Coastal Command, Andrew Bird examines the maritime war between 1939 and 1945, interweaving accounts of events of the period with personal stories of individuals caught up in them. Through interviews, letters, diaries and reports, all combined with his own research, the author looks afresh at the maritime conflict, reassessing long-held views of the Cinderella Service's defensive and offensive capabilities through the eyes of ordinary individuals battling for survival above the oceans against flak gun, enemy aircraft and weather as the stakes rose higher and the number of casualties become catastrophic. Heroes of Coastal Command makes the reader think again about the RAF's maritime arm, Coastal Command, which was established in 1936. Throughout the war, its crews worked tirelessly alongside the Royal Navy to keep Britain's vital sea lanes open. Together, they fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic, with RAF aircraft destroying 212 German U-Boats and sinking a significant tonnage of enemy warships and merchant vessels. Often working alone and unsupported, undertaking long patrols out over opens seas, Coastal Command bred a special kind of airman. This includes individuals such Lloyd Trigg, who was awarded the Victoria Cross; Roger Moorwood, a Blenheim pilot who flew in the Battle of France; Jack Davenport, who flew his Hampden; John Watson, the sole survivor of a Short Sunderland which was lost during a rescue mission; Maurice Guedj, a Frenchman who escaped from Morocco to join the Free French Air Force; Sam McHardy, who for a short while became a Coastal Command ground coordinator posted aboard a Royal Navy destroyer for a raid on Norway; and Ken Gatward, who flew a unique daylight mission over Paris to drop a Tricolore on the Arc de Triomphe. These are just some of the fabulous stories, full of daring and breath-taking courage, and individuals explored in this book."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.544.9(42)
The China Station, Royal Navy : a history as seen through the careers of the Commanders in Chief, 1864 - 1941 /Jonathan Parkinson. "In the The Navy List for April 1864 the China Station was first shown as a separate Royal Navy Station. It remained as such until the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941 which was to signal the end of that era. In addition to a precis of the lives and naval careers of each of the Commanders in Chief of the China Station, this volume also gives relevant information outlining something of the concurrent internal affairs of China and Japan. Both are very different but sad tales, the former in decline towards the end of the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty and then into the chaotic 1920's and 1930's, and the latter increasingly adopting a militaristic attitude which was to result in their disaster of the Pacific War of 1941-1945. As a reminder of these days long gone are interwoven brief references to the British Consular Service. This is especially relevant for China, and for a shorter period for Japan during that era of extraterritoriality. Mention is also made of the British Colonial Service with whom, necessarily, the Navy worked very closely. In addition, being one important reason for it all, frequent references are made to a few British shipping and trading interests together with those of some other nations. All of these areas are linked together to give a definitive history of this very important Royal Navy Station."--Provided by the publisher. 2018 • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.81(42:51)
Zeebrugge : the greatest raid of all /Christopher Sandford. "The combined forces invasion of the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on 23 April 1918 remains one of Britain's most glorious military undertakings; not quite as epic a failure as the charge of the Light Brigade, or as well publicised as the Dam Busters raid, but with many of the same basic ingredients. A force drawn from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines set out on ships and submarines to try to block the key strategic port, in a bold attempt to stem the catastrophic losses being inflicted on British shipping by German submarines. It meant attacking a heavily fortified German naval base. The tide, calm weather and the right wind direction for a smoke screen were crucial to the plan. Judged purely on results, it can only be considered a partial strategic success. Casualties were high and the base only partially blocked. Nonetheless, it came to represent the embodiment of the bulldog spirit, the peculiarly British fighting âelan, the belief that anything was possible with enough dash and daring. The essential story of the Zeebrugge mission has been told before, but never through the direct, first-hand accounts of its survivors - including that of Lieutenant Richard Sandford, VC, the acknowledged hero of the day, and the author's great uncle. The fire and bloodshed of the occasion is the book's centrepiece, but there is also room for the family and private lives of the men who volunteered in their hundreds for what they knew effectively to be a suicide mission. Zeebrugge gives a very real sense of the existence of the ordinary British men and women of 100 years ago - made extraordinary by their role in what Winston Churchill called the 'most intrepid and heroic single armed adventure of the Great War.'"--Provided by the publisher 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.458(493.3)
'I was transformed' : Frederick Douglass: an American slave in victorian Britain /Laurence Fenton "In the summer of 1845, Frederick Douglass, the young runaway slave catapulted to fame by his incendiary autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, arrived in Liverpool for the start of a near-two-year tour of Britain and Ireland he always called one of the most transformative periods of his life. Laurence Fenton draws on a wide array of sources from both sides of the Atlantic and combines a unique insight into the early years of one of the great figures of the nineteenth-century world with rich profiles of the enormous personalities at the heart of the transatlantic anti-slavery movement. This vivid portrait of life in Victorian Britain is the first to fully explore the 'liberating sojourn' that ended with Douglass gaining his freedom - paid for by British supporters - before returning to America as a celebrity and icon of international standing. It also follows his later life, through the American Civil War and afterwards. Douglass has been described as 'the most influential African American of the nineteenth century'. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted most of his time, immense talent and boundless energy to ending slavery. On April 14, 1876, Douglass would deliver the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92DOUGLASS, FREDERICK
Saving Jack : the story of the Seamen's Mission of the Methodist Church The Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest /David Hurrell and Alexander Campbell. "'Have you seen the old man, outside the Seamen's Mission?' Seamen's Missions may be enshrined in popular culture, but who nowadays really appreciates the seminal part these charitable institutions played in the civilising of 'Sailor Town'? The Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest (founded in 1843 as the Wesleyan Seamen's Missionary Society by the young and zealous Methodist Church) - situated in the very heart of London's Docklands - is the most famous mission of all. This pioneering social enterprise amongst the very poorest, disenfranchised, vulnerable and vilified inhabitants of the world's premier port, became the inspiration and catalyst for a new age of social reform centred around the mantra 'Soup, Soap and Salvation'. Here, for the first time, is told the graphic history of London's East End through the eyes of the 'Queen Vic' - the wharves and warehouses, the ships and sailors, the crimps and cut-throats, the hoi polloi and the horrific social depriviation. For one hundred and seventy five years the Seamen's Mission has striven to provide merchant seamen with a haven of hope in a sea of hopelessness. 'Saving Jack' commemorates this extraordinary enterprise, sown as a 'grain of mustard seed' by a group of visionary and faithful Christians back in 1843, who were responding - in the best way they knew how - to the physical needs and spiritaul hunger of the lowliest of outcasts."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • FOLIO • 1 copy available.
Essential Library of Congress Subject Headings / Vanda Broughton. LCSH are increasingly seen as 'the' English language controlled vocabulary, despite their lack of a theoretical foundation, and their evident US bias. In mapping exercises between national subject heading lists, and in exercises in digital resource organization and management, LCSH are often chosen because of the lack of any other widely accepted English language standard for subject cataloguing. It is therefore important that the basic nature of LCSH, their advantages, and their limitations, are well understood both by LIS practitioners and those in the wider information community. Information professionals who attended library school before 1995 - and many more recent library school graduates - are unlikely to have had a formal introduction to LCSH. Paraprofessionals who undertake cataloguing are similarly unlikely to have enjoyed an induction to the broad principles of LCSH. There is currently no compact guide to LCSH written from a UK viewpoint, and this eminently practical text fills that gap. It features topics including: background and history of LCSH; subject heading lists; structure and display in LCSH; form of entry; application of LCSH; document analysis; main headings; topical, geographical and free-floating sub-divisions; building compound headings; name headings; headings for literature, art, music, history and law; and, LCSH in the online environment. There is a strong emphasis throughout on worked examples and practical exercises in the application of the scheme, and a full glossary of terms is supplied. No prior knowledge or experience of subject cataloguing is assumed. This is an indispensable guide to LCSH for practitioners and students alike from a well-known and popular author. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 025.4
Diving for treasure / Vic Verlinden and Stefan Panis "This book recounts the efforts over many years to dive wrecks that contained treasure in one form or another. The often prolonged and sometimes dangerous expeditions tell of dives to many ships that were wrecked while carrying tons of gold or other valuables. Many of the wrecks came to lie at great depths which demanded considerable diving expertise using rebreathers which allowed longer dives to be performed. The authors are both diving experts and in addition to the accounts and historical pictures they have added their own photography to convey to the reader the challenges of the dives undertaken. The technical demands were considerable, from adjusting the camera housing to accommodate the depth to diving at particular times of the year because many of the wrecks were situated in areas of high seas and extreme currents. Many of these wrecks have been the subject of concerted efforts from salvage teams but success could never be assumed. It took several years to visit and photograph the wrecks mentioned in the book which provides a fascinating account of the vessels and their treasure, and the challenges of diving in what can be a dangerous environment. Each entry provides details and a brief history of the vessel and the means of its demise, enhanced by a modern diving account with photographs. As such the book will be of great interest to all divers whether active or armchair, and to anyone with an interest in maritime/military history"--Provided by the publisher. 2018 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 627.764
Transfer between sea and land : maritime vessels for cultural exchanges in the early modern world /edited by Simone Kahlow. "Questions about the cultural exchange of both knowledge and material goods are just as topical today as in years gone by. These questions have gained increasing attention from scholars since the 1980s when the term 'transfers cultures' by historians arose. However, this book provides a completely new approach in this context by interdisciplinary investigation of cultural exchanges based on chosen objects from shipwrecks and land, significant written documents and verifiable transfer of knowledge. The publication combines studies from humanities and natural sciences. Thus, historians, archaeologists, and pharmacists have investigated the way of transfer by means of material and immaterial goods, such as ship lists, medicine, metal ware, exotic animals and Asian objects as well as ship constructions. They set out, the continuity and discontinuity of cultural exchange based on moving objects depending on different conditions such as region, time, demand and availability. The innovative contributions of the publication aim to improve the understanding of cultural exchange by sea, as well as its reflection on land in the Early Modern Time and are the results of a workshop, which took place in the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven, a Research Institute of the Leibniz Association, in 2015. The results show good promise for forthcoming investigations at the interface between History and Maritime Archaeology."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382(100)
Blackbeard's sunken prize : the 300-year voyage of Queen Anne's Revenge /by Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing and Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton. "In 1717, the notorious pirate Blackbeard captured a French slaving vessel off the coast of Martinique and made it his flagship, renaming it Queen Anne's Revenge. Over the next six months, the heavily armed ship and its crew captured all manner of riches from merchant ships sailing the Caribbean to the Carolinas. But in June 1718, with British authorities closing in, Blackbeard reportedly ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground just off the coast of what is now North Carolina's Fort Macon State Park. What went down with the ship remained hidden for centuries, as the legend of Blackbeard continued to swell in the public's imagination. When divers finally discovered the wreck in 1996, it was immediately heralded as a major find in both maritime archaeology and the history of piracy in the Atlantic. Now the story of Queen Anne's Revenge and its fearsome captain is revealed in full detail. Having played vital roles in the shipwreck's recovery and interpretation, Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing and Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton vividly reveal in words and images the ship's first use as a French privateer and slave ship, its capture and use by Blackbeard's armada, the circumstances of its sinking, and all that can be known about life as an eighteenth-century pirate based on a wealth of artifacts now raised from the ocean floor."--Provided by the publisher. 2018 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3QUEEN ANNE'S REVENGE
U-Boat pens of the Atlantic battle / Philip Kaplan. "In the opening years of the Second World War, Germany's U-boat (submarine) fleet was tasked with attacking and destroying the supply ships that Britain depended upon for its survival. The U-boats were under the command of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz who, for much of the war, effectively guided that strategy. There was a very real possibility that the British people would starve if the U-boats succeeded in their campaign. When France fell to the German forces in 1940, Hitler's Ubootwaffe gained a significant asset in five important ports along the Brittany coast - Brest, Lorient, St. Nazaire, La Palace and Bordeaux. The use of these ports put Germany's submarine force hundreds of miles closer to the action in the North Atlantic, the routes of the Allied supply convoys which were operating mainly between Halifax, Nova Scotia and various English port cities. This afforded the U-boats several more days at sea on their deadly patrols than was possible while they had been based in Germany and German-occupied Norway. In this new publication from Philip Kaplan, the massive bunkers or 'pens' constructed in Brittany by the labourers of the German Organisation Todt are revisited. These giant structures, some of which sheltered more than a dozen submarines at a time, still exist because they were built with concrete ceilings more than three metres thick. With equally impressive supporting walls, they suffered relatively little damage in the wartime bombing raids of the Royal Air Force and the US Eighth Army Air Force. Illustrated with more than 150 rare and compelling photo images, this book is a richly rewarding journey back across time to some of the most intriguing and electrifying sites from the war years. The story of the pen shelters and their part in that war is both fascinating and enduring."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545.1