Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Ashore and Afloat • JOURNAL • 1 copy available.

A descriptive catalogue of the naval manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge / edited by J.R. Tanner. Pepys Library 1903-23. • BOOK • 13 copies available. 061.22NRS

A Clear Case of Genius : Room 40's Code-breaking Pioneer /Admiral Sir Reginald 'Blinker' Hall This book produces the surviving chapters of an autobiography by Sir Reginald Hall, who served as the Royal Navy's Chief of Intelligence throughout the First World War, after the Admirality originally banned their publication in 1933. Presented alongside extensive commentary on the text by Philip Vickers, Hall's memoir provides unique insight into the critical role played by intelligence during the war, particularly in reference to the Zimmerman Telegram. Includes 32 pages of black and white plates. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92HALL, REGINALD

Ship killer : a history of the American torpedo /Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar. "In this book, Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar provide a definitive work on the development and use of the torpedo by the U.S. Navy. Their book begins with an overview of the early undersea weapons developed by Bushnell and Fulton, the spar torpedo of the Civil War and attempts to imitate the Whitehead torpedo, and then focuses on American torpedo development for use from submarines, surface warships and small combatants, and aircraft."--Publisher's description. 2010. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.946(73)"1775/..."

Hearts of Oak : the human tragedy of HMS Royal Oak /Dilip Sarkar. "The story of the sinking of the HMS Royal Oak by German submarine which cost the lives of 833 Royal Navy sailors. HMS Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship of the British Royal Navy, infamously torpedoed at anchor by the German submarine U-47 on 14 October 1939. Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland when she became the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battle cruisers sunk in the Second World War. The loss of life was heavy: of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero out of the German U-boat commander, Gunther Prien, who became the first submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. To the British, the raid demonstrated that the Germans were capable of bringing the naval war to their home waters, and the shock resulted in rapidly arranged changes to dockland security. Now lying upside-down in 30 m of water with her hull 5 m beneath the surface, Royal Oak is a designated war grave."--Provided by the publisher. 2010. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3ROYAL OAK

Listen up! : HMS Tarlair and memories of the Hawkcraig Admiralty Experimental Establishment Station, Aberdour, Fife, 1915-1918 /Diana Maxwell. "Other than two or three shattered concrete hut bases and the crumbling ruins of an old pier, nothing now remains of HMS Tarlair, WW1 Admiralty research station, yet the work carried out here is of local and national significance. This new edition includes more images of the base and further details of the wide-ranging and innovative work carried out and of the people involved. During its short period of operation, major technological advances were achieved in the battle against the German U-boat, and around 4,000 officers and men trained here. Diana Maxwell draws together local and national records with personal recollections of the people who lived and worked around the base. It is a fascinating account that is not only the story of the development of technology, but also of the characters and personalities involved."--Provided by the publisher. 2015. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.81

British Destroyers 1939-45 : Pre-war Classes /Angus Konstam "The Royal Navy entered World War II with a large but eclectic fleet of destroyers. Some of these were veterans of World War I, fit only for escort duties. Most though, had been built during the inter-war period, and were regarded as both reliable and versatile. Danger though lurked across the seas as new destroyers being built in Germany, Italy and Japan were larger and better armoured. So, until the new, larger Tribal-class destroyers could enter service, these vessels would have to hold the line. Used mainly to hunt submarines, protect convoys from aerial attack, and take out other destroyers, these ships served across the globe during the war. This fully illustrated study is the first in a two-part series on the real workhorses of the wartime Royal Navy, focusing on how these ageing ships took on the formidable navies of the Axis powers."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.823.1(42)

Balchen's Victory : the loss and rediscovery of an admiral and his ship /Alan M. Smith. "This is the story of Admiral Sir John Balchen, his life and career, and HMS Victory, the largest, finest ship-of-the-line in the Royal Navy at the time, which was his flagship when both were lost, along with more than 1,000 crew, in an October storm in the English Channel in 1744. This is not the Victory of Trafalgar fame, however, but the First Rate built some thirty years earlier, the last Royal Navy three-decker to carry bronze cannon, and a ship whose poor design may well have contributed to her loss. And the story of both the ship and her commander, their individual and remarkably parallel lives, are revealed as fundamental catalysts to the revolutionary reforms in naval shipbuilding, design and dockyard administration that transformed the Royal Navy after 1745. The exciting discovery of the wreck of HMS Victory in 2008, the subsequent and continuing public and political wrangling over possible salvage and the 2019 display at Portsmouth of a mighty 42-pounder bronze gun retrieved from the wreck, are all described in this compelling history of the admiral and his ship; anyone with an interest in naval and maritime hiostry, whether academic or popular, will be fascinated by the story of this hitherto almost unknown predecessor of Nelson's great flagship."--PRovided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

The letters of Admiral of the Fleet the Earl of St Vincent whilst First Lord of the Admiralty 1801-1804 Jervis, John 1922 • BOOK • 4 copies available. 92Jervis

Crisis in the Mediterranean : naval competition and great power politics, 1904-1914 /Jon K. Hendrickson. "The geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean before the First World War has been generally ignored by historians. However, in the years before the War, the fact that the Mediterranean was shifting from British control to a wide open, anarchic state occupied the minds of many leaders in Austria-Hungary, Italy, France and Great Britain. This change was driven by three largely understudied events: the weakening of the British Mediterranean Fleet to provide more ships for the North Sea, Austria-Hungary's decision to build a navy capable of operating in the Mediterranean, and Italy's decision to seek naval security in the Triple Alliance after the Italo-Turkish War. These three factors radically altered the Mediterranean situation in the years leading up to the First World War, forcing Britain and France to seek accommodation with each other and France to begin rapidly building ships to defend both British and French interests. However, all of this activity has been largely obscured by the July Crisis of 1914 and the ensuing World War. Traditional history has looked backward from these events, and, in so doing, ignored the turbulent seas building in the Mediterranean. Conversely, this dissertation seeks to understand these events as they unfolded, to understand how policymakers understood the changing Mediterranean world. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to redress the imbalance between historians, who have viewed the history of the Mediterranean in the early 20th century as a largely stable one, and policymakers in the Great Powers, who viewed the Mediterranean as a highly unstable region, and struggled to come to terms with that instability."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.02(4-015)"1904/1914"

Jutland : World War I's greatest naval battle /edited by Michael Epkenhans, Jèorg Hillmann, and Frank Nèagler. "During the first two years of World War I, Germany struggled to overcome a crippling British blockade of its mercantile shipping lanes. With only sixteen dreadnought-class battleships compared to the renowned British Royal Navy's twenty-eight, the German High Seas Fleet stood little chance of winning a direct fight. The Germans staged raids in the North Sea and bombarded English coasts in an attempt to lure small British squadrons into open water where they could be destroyed by submarines and surface boats. After months of skirmishes, conflict erupted on May 31, 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark, in what would become the most formidable battle in the history of the Royal Navy. In Jutland, international scholars reassess the strategies and tactics employed by the combatants as well as the political and military consequences of their actions. Most previous English-language military analysis has focused on British admiral Sir John Jellicoe, who was widely criticized for excessive caution and for allowing German vice admiral Reinhard Scheer to escape; but the contributors to this volume engage the German perspective, evaluating Scheer's decisions and his skill in preserving his fleet and escaping Britain's superior force. Together, the contributors lucidly demonstrate how both sides suffered from leadership that failed to move beyond outdated strategies of limited war between navies and to embrace the total war approach that came to dominate the twentieth century. The contributors also examine the role of memory, comparing the way the battle has been portrayed in England and Germany. An authoritative collection of scholarship, Jutland serves as an essential reappraisal of this seminal event in twentieth-century naval history."--Provided by the publisher. [2015]. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.456(489)

Rain of steel : Mitscher's Task Force 58, Ugaki's Thunder Gods, and the Kamikaze war off Okinawa /Stephen L. Moore. "Rain of Steel follows Navy and Marine carrier aviators in the desperate air battles to control the kamikazes directed by Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's Task Force 58 carriers had conducted air strikes on mainland Japan and supported the Iwo Jima landings, but his aviators were sorely tested once the Okinawa campaign commenced on April 1, 1945. Ugaki would unleash ten different Kikusui aerial suicide operations, one including a naval force built around the world's most powerful battleship, the 71,000-ton Yamato. These battles are related largely through the words and experiences of some of the last living U.S. fighter aces of World War II"--Provided by publisher. 2020 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/252294

Life and death on the Greenland Patrol, 1942 / by Thaddeus D. Novak, edited by P.J. Capelotti. "One of the untold stories of World War II is the guarding of Greenland and its coastal waters, where the first U.S. capture of an enemy ship took place. For six months in 1942 and against standing orders of the time, Thaddeus Nowakowski (now Novak) kept a personal diary of his service on patrol in the North Atlantic. Supplemented by photos from his last surviving shipmates, Novak's diary fills a void in the story of American sailors at war in the North Atlantic. It is the only known diary of an enlisted Coast Guard sailor to emerge from WWII. Though the Greenland coast was of vital importance to Allied forces, U.S. Coast Guard crews serving there were relegated to converted fishing vessels known as 'wooden shoes'. Hastily commissioned in Boston to serve as escorts for supply routes to new air bases in Greenland, ten Arctic trawlers were transformed into the basis of the Greenland Patrol, transporting young men who had never been away from home into a realm of mountainous icebergs, lurking U-boats, and the alien culture of native Greenland Eskimos. This story of the Nanok's 1942 patrol is a remarkable account of a sailor thrown into a global war in a remote area full of environmental hardships that few endured in World War II. Between the sudden excitements and mind-numbing boredom of military life, Novak records the routine details of day-to-day patrol, contacts with the native Greenlanders and their impenetrable way of life, and actions such as the loss of the cutter Natsek and its entire crew on the night of December 17,1942. Not an account of grand strategy or hand-to-hand combat, this story of a twenty-year-old petty officer on duty in the Arctic is rather the life of an ordinary individual at war, coping with rigorous hardships during a time of great crisis. Novak's account will be of significant value to students of the U.S. Coast Guard and of naval service in wartime. His illumination of the small details of a sailor's life and perceptive observation of the arctic region and its little-known people will appeal to anyone interested in maritime history."--Provided by the publsiher. 2014 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.353.5(73)"1942"

Southern thunder / Steve Dunn. "During World War One the Scandinavian countries played a dangerous and sometimes questionable game; they proclaimed their neutrality but at the same time pitched the two warring sides against one another to protect their import and export trades. Germany relied on Sweden, Norway and Denmark for food and raw materials, while Britain needed to restrict the flow of these goods and claim them for herself. And so the battle for the North Sea began. The campaign was ferociously fought, with the Royal Navy forced to develop new tactical thinking, including convoy, to combat the U-boat threat. Many parts of Scandinavia considered that the War had 'missed' the region, and that it was just a distant 'southern thunder'; Much of that thunder was over the North Sea. This new book tells this little-known, and often ignored, story from both a naval and a political standpoint, revealing how each country, including the USA, tried to balance the needs of diplomacy with the necessities of naval warfare. Starting from the declaration of a British blockade and its impact and reception in Scandinavia, the narrative progresses to cover the struggle to prevent supplies reaching Germany, the negotiations to gain preferential British access to Scandinavian trade and the work of the sailors, both of the merchant marine and Royal Navy who had to make the system function. By the end of 1916, the British-Scandinavian trade was so important that a new system of convoyed vessels was developed, not without much Admiralty infighting, leading to the growth of naval operations all along the East Coast of Britain in places such as Immingham, Lerwick and Mehil. Two years later, the Germans, desperate to break the tightening stranglehold, even brought out their big-gun ships to hunt and disrupt the Scandinavian convoys, and at one point US Navy battleships were perilously close to engaging with the High Sea Fleet as a result. Detailed analysis and first-hand accounts of the fighting from those who took part create a vivid narrative that demonstrates how the Royal Navy helped to bring about Germany's downfall and protect Britain's vital Scandinavian supply lines."--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.459(42:48)

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

Shipboard life and organisation, 1731-1815 / edited by Brian Lavery. 1998. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 355.124(42)"17/18"

British Columbia pilot : vol 1 comprising the coast of the United States of America from Cape Flattery to Point Roberts, including Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound; the coast of British Columbia from Point Roberts to Cape Caution; and Vancouver Island ... Great Britain. Hydrographic Department 1964 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 527.83

Minutes of the court martial, holden on board His Majesty's ship Gladiator, in Portsmouth harbour, on Thursday, the 25th day of April 1805 ... for the trial of Sir J T Duckworth ... on charges ... by Captain James Athol Wood Duckworth, J T, Sir 1805 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 92Duckworth

The trial of the Honble Admiral Byng, at a court-martial held on board His Majesty's ship the St George, in Portsmouth Harbour, Tuesday Dec 28, 1756, for an enquiry into his conduct, while he commanded in the Mediterranean ... : part 1 Great Britain. Royal Navy. Court-martial, Byng : 1756 1757 • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 92Byng

The Boca Chica Channel wreck : a site assessment A report covering a project to explore a shipwreck in the Boca Chica Channel near Key West in Florida believed to be that of a late 18th-century Spanish or French colonial-built trading or fishing vessel. The report also offers recommendations for the management, preservaton and public interpretation of the site which is seen as a significant regional and national archaeological site. [ca.2000] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61.085.3(759)

Catalogue of zodiacal stars for the epochs 1900 and 1920 reduced to an absolute system Hedrick, Henry B 1905 • RARE-FOLIO • 3 copies available. 527.093T

The Tomlinson papers : selected from the correspondence and pamphlets of Captain Robert Tomlinson, RN, and Vice-Admiral Nicholas Tomlinson Tomlinson, Robert 1935 • BOOK • 3 copies available. 92Tomlinson

Index to James' Naval history : edition 1886 James, William 1895 • BOOK • 4 copies available. 355.49"1793/1820"

Frigates, sloops & brigs / [James Henderson] Henderson, James. 2005. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1793/1815"(42:44)

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