Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Atlantic linchpin : the Azores in two world wars /Guy Warner. "On a map the Azores appear as nine tiny specks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but their location was to prove strategically vital in two world wars. The Atlantic became a crucial battleground twice within the space of 25 years, as the US 'arsenal of democracy' sent firstly stores, arms and equipment, followed by many thousands of troops to fight in Europe. In both desperate and closely fought struggles at sea, Germany sought to stem the flow and thereby win the war, by cutting this vital lifeline, using a new weapon - the ocean-going submarine. In the First World War the Azores became a mid-Atlantic refuelling location, a base for US and Portuguese naval vessels and - in a hugely innovative contribution to the anti-submarine war - for the patrol seaplanes and flying boats of the US Marine Corps. Portugal was neutral during the Second World War but when Winston Churchill invoked a treaty dating from 1373, permission was given in 1943 for an RAF Coastal Command base to be very rapidly established at Lagens. From there convoys could be protected and U-boats could be harried and sunk, so closing the notorious mid-Atlantic gap. Later, it also became an important staging post for US aircraft, as it had been in the previous conflict. The significance of the Azores has been overlooked in most military histories, but this extensively researched and copiously illustrated book from historian Guy Warner provides a detailed but balanced appraisal. The author has had access to archives and photographic collections in the UK, USA, Portugal and the Azores, consulting with local historians to produce a book that sheds much new light on a hitherto under-appreciated facet of twentieth-century history."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 946.9/9004

Fleet Air Arm boys : volume two: strike, anti-submarine, early warning and support aircraft since 1945 ; true tales from Royal Navy men and women air and ground crew /Steve Bond. "Since the end of World War 2 the primary role of the Royal Navys Fleet Air Arm has been airborne power projection; the ability rapidly to respond to any trouble spot across the globe and to protect the interests of the United Kingdom and its partner nations. The principal tools in that response were the strike aircraft which took the offensive to the aggressor. Although from 2010 to 2020 fixed-wing carrier aviation was not part of the Fleet Air Arm, with the advent of the navys two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, that capability has been restored. This renewed focus has not only seen the return of flying high performance aircraft from a carrier, but also the regeneration of the necessary skills, and courage, needed to cope with the extremes of weather and the nature of air operations in a very high-risk environment. However the lessons of the past have not been forgotten, and so many of those previous experiences are related within these pages true stories of the last 76 years from aircrew, maintainers, aircraft handlers and many other supporting staff both men and women. Following on from the success of volume one, this second volume covers every fixed-wing aircraft type flown from carriers in the strike, anti-submarine warfare and the vital airborne early warning roles; from Scimitars to Hunters, Buccaneers to Skyraiders and many more, plus an extensive fleet of land-based aircraft. As with the first volume, involvement in operations such as Suez, the Beira Patrol, the Falklands, Belize, Bosnia and elsewhere is included. Despite the intensity and all-to-frequent tragedy of operations, the esprit de corps, and the ability to find the necessary release through laughter, shine through. Here are the words of the men and women themselves, profusely illustrated in black and white and colour."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 358.4383

Harwich Submarines in the Great War : the first submarine campaign of the Royal Navy in 1914 /Mark Harris. "The Harwich Submarine Flotilla played a key role establishing British dominance in the North Sea at the beginning of the First World War. Letters, diaries, memoirs and combat reports of the participants are used to give a complete account. Much of this is in print for the first time. The foreword has been written by Rear Admiral Jonathan Westbrook CBE, former Royal Navy Submariner. Written in collaboration with the Friends of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, profits from royalties are contributing towards the work of the Museum. Both official and personal archive material is used to tell the story, sourced from British, German and French archives. The text is illustrated by charts and plans prepared using the patrol reports, war diaries and logs of the submarines and warships that took part. The war experience of the participants is brought to life, giving a real insight into what it was like to fight in these early submarines, whilst also relating what really happened and the true significance of the events. The Flotilla had to battle not just the enemy, but also the hazards of mines, human frailties, mechanical failure and the weather. The story of eery patrol in the 1914 campaign is told. This campaign saw the first torpedo fired in action by Royal Navy submarine, the first ship to be sunk and the first submarine to be lost in action. The commanders of the submarines were true pioneers, working out for the first time how to wage war with the latest technology of their age. Their patrol took submarine crews and commanders constantly onto the front line of the naval war to face a multitude of hazards. Many paid the ultimate price, with the names of figures like Roger Keyes and Max Horton to prominence. The early story of the Flotilla is also the story of a pivotal point in their journey to become key figures of the Royal Navy in the twentieth century. For others, even those who would go on to great fame as submariners, suhc as Martin Nasmith, it would be a challenging start to their wartime careers."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.451341

Gunboats, empire and the China Station : the Royal Navy in 1920s East Asia /Matthew Heaslip. "Examining Britain's imperial outposts in 1920s East Asia, this book explores the changes and challenges affecting the Royal Navy's third largest fleet, the China Station, as its crews fought to hold back the changing tides of fortune. Bridging the gap between high level naval strategy and everyday imperial culture, Heaslip highlights the importance of the China Station to the British imperial system, foreign policy and East Asian geopolitics, while also revealing the lived experiences of these imperial outposts. Following their immersion into a new world and the challenges they encountered along the way, it considers how its naval officers were perceived by the Chinese populations of the ports they visited, how the two communities interacted and what this meant at a time of 'peace'. Against the changing nature of Britain's informal empire in the 1920s, Gunboats, Empire and the China Station highlights the complex nature of naval operations in-between major conflicts, and calls into question how peaceful this peacetime truly was."--Provided by publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 359.40951/09042

Big guns in the Atlantic : Germany's battleships and cruisers raid the convoys, 1939-41 /Angus Konstam. "At the outbreak of World War II the German Kriegsmarine still had a relatively small U-boat arm. To reach Britain's convoy routes in the North Atlantic, these boats had to pass around the top of the British Isles - a long and dangerous voyage to their "hunting grounds". Germany's larger surface warships were much better suited to this kind of long-range operation. So, during late 1939 the armoured cruiser Deutschland, and later the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were used as commerce raiders, to strike at Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. These sorties met with mixed results, but for Germany's naval high command they showed that this kind of operation had potential. Then, the fall of France, Denmark and Norway in early 1940 dramatically altered the strategic situation. The Atlantic was now far easier to reach, and to escape from. During 1940, further moderately successful sorties were made by the cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper. By the end of the year, with British mercantile losses mounting to surface raiders and U-Boats, plans were developed for a much larger raid, first using both cruisers, and then the two battlecruisers. The climax of this was Operation Berlin, the Kriegsmarine's largest and most wide-ranging North Atlantic sortie so far. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau remained at sea for two months, destroying 22 Allied merchant ships, and severely disrupting Britain's lifeline convoys. So, when the operation ended, the German commander, Admiral Lèutjens was ordered to repeat his success - this time with the brand new battleship Bismarck. The rest, as they say, is history. These earlier Atlantic raids demonstrated that German surface ships could be highly effective commerce raiders. For those willing to see though, they also demonstrated just how risky this strategy could be. Covering a fascinating and detailed analysis of the Kriegsmarine's Atlantic raids between 1939 and 1941, this book will appeal to readers interested in World War II and in particular in Germany's naval operations." --Amazon.com. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545943

A dangerous enterprise : secret war at sea /Tim Spicer. "Between 1942 and 1944 a very small, very secret, very successful clandestine unit of the Royal Navy, operated between Dartmouth in Devon, and the Brittany Coast in France. It was a crossing of about 100 miles, every yard of it dangerous. The unit was called the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla: crewed by 125 officers and men, it became the most highly decorated Royal Naval unit of the Second World War. The 15th MGBF was an extraordinary group of men thrown together in the most secret of adventures. Very few were regular Royal Naval officers: instead the unit was made up of mostly Royal Naval Volunteer Officers and 'duration only' sailors. Their home was a converted paddle steamer and luxury yacht, but their work could not have been more serious. Their mission was to ferry agents of SIS and SOE to pinpoint landing sites on the Brittany coast in Occupied France. Once they had landed their agents, together with stores for the Resistance, they picked up evaders, escaped POWs who had had the good fortune to be collected by escape lines run by M19, as well as returning SIS and SOE agents. It is a story that is inextricably entwined with that of the many agents they were responsible for - Pierre Hentic, Yves Le Tac, Virginia Hall, Albert Huâe, Jeannie Rousseau, Suzanne Warengham, Franðcois Mitterrand and Mathilde Carrâe, as well as many others. Without the Flotilla, such intelligence gathering networks as Jade Fitzroy and Alliance would never have developed, and SOE's VAR Line and MI9's Shelburne Escape Line would never have been realised. Drawing on a huge amount of research on both sides of the Channel, including private archives of many of the families involved, A Dangerous Enterprise brings the story of this most clandestine of operations brilliantly to life."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545941

We're here because you were there : immigration and the end of empire /Ian Sanjay Patel. "Drawing on new archival material from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ian Sanjay Patel retells Britain's recent history in an often shocking account of state racism that still resonates today. In a series of post-war immigration laws, Britain's colonial and Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa were renamed immigrants. In the late 1960s, British officials drew upon an imperial vision of the world to contain what it saw as a vast immigration crisis involving British citizens, passing legislation to block their entry. As a result, British citizenship itself was redefined along racial lines, fatally compromising the Commonwealth and exposing the limits of Britain's influence in the world. Combining voices of so-called immigrants trying to make a home in Britain and the politicians, diplomats and commentators who were rethinking the nation, Patel excavates the reasons why Britain failed to create a post-imperial national identity. From the Windrush generation who came to Britain from the Caribbean to the South Asians who were forced to migrate from East Africa, Britain was caught between attempting both to restrict the rights of its non-white colonial and Commonwealth citizens and redefine its imperial role in the world. Despite Britain's desire to join Europe, which eventually occurred in 1973, its post-imperial moment never arrived, subject to endless deferral and reinvention." --Provided by publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 304.8/41

Spanish and Portuguese conflict in the Spice Islands : the Loaysa Expedition to the Moluccas 1525-1535 ; from Book XX of the General and Natural History of the Indies /by Gonzalo Fernâandez de Oviedo y Valdâes ; edited by Glenn F. Dille. "Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes (1478-1557), warden of the fortress and port of Santo Domingo of the Island of Hispaniola, also served his emperor, Charles V, as the official chronicler of the first half-century of the Spanish presence in the New World. his monumental Gerneral y Natural Hiostira de las Indies, consisting of three parts, with fifty books, hundreds of chapters and thousands of pages, is still a major primary source for researchers of the period 1492-1548. Part One, consisting of nineteen books, was first published in 1535, then reprinted and augmented in 1547, with a third edition, including Book XX, the first book of Part II, appearing in Valladolid in 1557. Book XX, which was printed separately in Valladolid in 1557 (the year of Oviedo's death), concerns the first three Spanish voyages to the East Indies. While it might be expected that the narrative of Magellan's voyage would predominate in book XX, Oviedo devoted only the first four chapters to this monumental voyage. The remaining thirty-one concern the two subsequent and little-known Spanish follow-up expeditions to the MOluccas 1525-35. The first, initially led by Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, set out from Coruna to follow Magellan's route through the Strait and across the Pacific. A second relief expedition under Alvaro Saavedra was sent out in search of Loaysa's company from the Pacifric coast of New SPain in 1527. In each venture only one vessel reached the SPice Islands. Oviedo's narrative offers many details of the ten years of hardships and conflict with the Portuguese, endured by the stoic Spanish, and of the growing unrest it provoked among their indigenous hosts. The news that Charles V had pawned his claim to King Joao III of Portugal allowed a very few of the Spaniards to negotiate a passage back to Spain via Lisbon, while others remained in Portuguese settlements in the East Indies. The reports made by the returnees to the Consejo de Indias were integrated by Oviedo into his narrative, expanded and enriched by personal interviews. His chronicle includes much information about the indigenous culture, commerce, geography, and exotic fauna and flora of the Spice Islands."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 959.8/5015

The perils of interpreting : the extraordinary lives of two translators between Qing China and the British Empire /Henrietta Harrison. "The 1793 British embassy to China, which led to Lord George Macartney's fraught encounter with the Qianlong emperor, has often been viewed as a clash of cultures fueled by the East's disinterest in the West. In The Perils of Interpreting, Henrietta Harrison presents a more nuanced picture, ingeniously shifting the historical lens to focus on Macartney's two interpreters at that meeting--Li Zibiao and George Thomas Staunton. Who were these two men? How did they intervene in the exchanges that they mediated? And what did these exchanges mean for them? From Galway to Chengde, and from political intrigues to personal encounters, Harrison reassesses a pivotal moment in relations between China and Britain. She shows that there were Chinese who were familiar with the West, but growing tensions endangered those who embraced both cultures and would eventually culminate in the Opium Wars. Harrison demonstrates that the Qing court's ignorance about the British did not simply happen, but was manufactured through the repression of cultural go-betweens like Li and Staunton. She traces Li's influence as Macartney's interpreter, the pressures Li faced in China as a result, and his later years in hiding. Staunton interpreted successfully for the British East India Company in Canton, but as Chinese anger grew against British imperial expansion in South Asia, he was compelled to flee to England. Harrison contends that in silencing expert voices, the Qing court missed an opportunity to gain insights that might have prevented a losing conflict with Britain. Uncovering the lives of two overlooked figures, The Perils of Interpreting offers an empathic argument for cross-cultural understanding in a connected world."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 327.5104109033

Conquering the Pacific : an unknown mariner and the final great voyage of the Age of Discovery /Andrâes Resâendez. "The story of an uncovered voyage as colourful and momentous as any on record for the Age of Discovery - and of the Black mariner whose stunning accomplishment has been until now lost to history. It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal's monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific - and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martâin, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships - and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet's flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrâes de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martâin to achieve the vuelta as well. It was he who now basked in glory, while Lope Martâin was secretly sentenced to be hanged by the Spanish crown as repayment for his services. Acclaimed historian Andrâes Resâendez, through brilliant scholarship and riveting storytelling - including an astonishing outcome for the resilient Lope Martâin - sets the record straight. "--Provided by publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 959.9/01092

Pendant numbers of the Royal Navy : a record of the allocation of pendant numbers to the Royal Navy warships and auxiliaries /Ben Warlow and Steve Bush. "Pendant (or pennant) numbers have been used by individual ships of the Royal Navy for purposes of identification for more than 100 years. They were also used in all the navies of the British Empire so that ships could be easily transferred from one navy to another without changing her number. They offer the simplest and clearest way to identify a ship, but until now there has been little in the way of consistent and accurate information, and certainly no single location where you can look up or research complete pendant numbers. The book is designed as an easy-to-use reference work and as such is, in the main, composed of alpha-numeric listings to enable the user to find and identify warships by reference to ship name and to identify specific pendant numbers assigned to that name; or by pendant number to identify specific vessels assigned that number at various times. It begins with an introduction and a brief history of visual signalling used by the Royal Navy before industrialisation, and explains how the large numbers of identical ships being built brought about the need to identify specific ships within fleets to aid signalling and tactical deployment. There follow chapters covering the pendant numbers of the surface fleet and submarines (which stopped using them once boats began to spend so little time on the surface), and then pedant numbers by ship name. A significant chapter lists the pendant numbers assigned to the British Pacific Fleet during the Pacific campaign of WWII together with an explanation of why numbers were assigned, and an examination of missing A27 series pendants known to have been carried by some vessels during the conflict. The BPF numbers have only recently come to light and there is still much that is not known but this section provides the most comprehensive study of available data at this time. There is also an appendix covering deck letters assigned to aviation capable ships. This is a genuinely new and significant reference book and is destined to become a major new aid for Royal Navy warship and auxiliary identification."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 359.3250941

Merchant Navy : an introduction /edited by Alexander Arnfinn Olsen. "The merchant navy offers a challenging yet exciting career choice for anyone willing to invest the time and effort. It is a career not suited to everyone, naturally, with long and lonely stints at sea surrounded by nothing but the open ocean. Time spent in port is often limited and stressful. Living and working with the same people for weeks and months on end can inevitably lead to flashes of irritation and antagonism. But with all things said and done, there is no experience quite like waking up to the sun rising over the horizon hundreds of miles away from the hustle and bustle of modern life on land.There are many facets to being a seafarer, and whilst this book initially started out as a book on onboard safety, it became readily apparent that there was so much else to say that the original concept morphed into an all embracing introduction to the merchant navy.But to keep the book true to its original intent, it is important to dwell a little on the all important aspect of safety. Onboard safety is an area of utmost importance for members of the ship's crew - from the Master down to the Steward and everyone in between. Safety is something which affects everyone equally, no matter what their rank or their role onboard. The safety of the ship and the safety of everyone onboard her is a responsibility shared equally, and if not, the consequences can be dire. From the simplest one man task to the navigation and manoeuvring of the largest ships in the world, safety is at the very heart of being a competent and considerate seafarer. Container ships, oil tankers, gas carriers, car carriers, bulk carriers, offshore support vessels all have their unique characteristics. But whatever the ship and whatever her job, it is the responsibility of the officers and crew to work together.The purpose of this book, therefore, is to introduce the reader to the fundamental aspects of onboard ship operations that can provide a safe working environment for everyone, from the regulations and standards that governs and controls safety to basic measures that can mitigate hazards and risks. This book touches on the shipboard safety organisation, inductions and new crew member familiarisation, safe means of access to enclosed spaces, general housekeeping, risk assessment and risk management, and specific hazardous activities such as cargo loading and unloading, drydocking, drills and what to do in the event of an emergency.This book has not been written as a definitive handbook, but rather as a handrail to introduce the reader to the vast, wide ranging and expansive nature of living and working onboard a modern merchant navy ship. It is absolutely fair to say this book does not introduce anything new. There are no revelations, or industry secrets. No shortcuts to the top. What this book offers is a single point of reference for the general reader, the merchant navy cadet, and the seasoned seafarer, to gain a glimpse of life on the open ocean.By combining and summarising the key aspects, and providing where appropriate case studies of related incidents, it is hoped this book will act as a comprehensive introduction for anyone with a keen interest in the life and work of the merchant navy."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

The voyages and manifesto of William Fergusson, a surgeon of the East India Company 1731-1739 / edited by Derek L. Elliott. "This volume brings to publication for the first time the manuscript of William Fergusson, a Scottish ship's surgeon who sailed for the East India Company in the 1730s. Written in 1767, while in retirement, Fergusson's diaries are the memories of his youth spent travelling the world during his apprenticeship. They detail the four voyages he took, the first, a passage from Scotland to England with a lading in Ireland, and three others to the East, calling at ports in the Atlantic, southern Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia, before reaching as far as China. Almost nothing is known of Fergusson and none of his other writings are known to survive. Remaining evidence suggests that he was an average man of his class, who travelled the well-plied trade routes of European merchant capitalism. While many logbooks of these voyages survive, comparatively few accounts were written by the men who sailed them. Fewer still ever come to light. Fergusson's manuscript offers a rare new source on what were by then the relatively routine voyages of the East India Company's early trading network, providing a treasure trove of comments on the politics, economics, societies, and religious beliefs and practices he witnessed along the way. Originally titled 'Journals of my Voyages & Manifesto', the name suggests Fergusson's manuscript offers far more than the insights usually contained in contemporary travelogues. In his manifesto, readers will discover Fergusson's impassioned polemics on natural religion, devotional 'enthusiasm', just governance, all while he implores the principles of rationality and reason. It is truly a manifesto of Enlightenment thought. As such, it also provides a unique example of how those who sailed for the East India Company during the early modern era participated in a global intellectual exchange of ideas. Fergusson wrote his private memories in twenty-two small bound booklets, all of which have been transcribed and annotated to guide the reader. These are presented here along with a critical introduction that contextualises the complex eighteenth-century world into which Fergusson voyaged, including elements of his role as a ship's surgeon, the Indian Ocean trading and political environment, and the ideas of the Enlightenment he so passionately expressed. Researchers interested in the histories of ideas, medicine, early-modern colonialism, maritime merchant empires, as well as historians of Africa and Asia, will find much new information to explore within the pages of this volume"-- 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22HAKLUYT

Flying heads and snapping limbs : imagining violence at sea in early seventeenth-century Dutch maritime art /Michel van Duijnen. "Exploding ships, flying heads, snapping limbs: the Rijksmuseum collection holds some of the most explicit and violent paintings of early modern maritime warfare. Dating to the early seventeenth century, these large works were often commissioned by Dutch civic or military institutions to celebrate the victories of the Dutch Republic over the Spanish Crown at sea. The pioneering Dutch maritime painters of the time who worked on these prestigious commissions showcased a lively interest in the extreme violence that characterized naval warfare. Famed painters such as Hendrick Vroom, Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen and Adam Willaerts all painted gory scenes of snapping arms, flying heads and dismembered torsos. The explicit details found in these paintings provide a unique window on the rise of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Commissioned by the rich and powerful, these works of art raise important questions about the glorification of violence, the self-image of the Dutch Republic as a military power, and the unique place of naval warfare in Dutch visual culture. In Flying heads and snapping limbs, Michel van Duijnen explores this new, different view of these impressive maritime paintings by discussing details that were previously overlooked and by asking questions that have never been asked before, giving them new and often unexpected and unexplored meanings."--Page 4 of cover. [2021] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 759.9492

My ancestor was a merchant seaman : how can I find out more about him? /Christopher T. Watts and Michael J. Watts. Watts, Christopher T. 2002. • BOOK • 16 copies available. 929.3

About ourselves. • JOURNAL • 113 copies available.

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