Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

Eighteenth-century life : William Falconer, sailor poet : 47:2 /Michael Edison and Bridget Keegan. Edson, Michael 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available.

Torpedo bombers, 1900-1950 : an illustrated history /Jean-Denis G. G. Lepage "The torpedo-bomber was a very short-lived weapon system, operational for scarcely half a century from just prior WWI to the 1960s. Yet during its brief existence it transformed naval warfare, extending the ship-killing range of ships and coastal defences to hundreds of miles. The Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm led the way, recording the first sinking of a ship by aerial torpedo in August 1915 but all major navies eagerly developed their own torpedo bomber forces. The torpedo-bomber reached its zenith in WWII, particularly from 1940-42, with notable successes at the Battle of Taranto, the sinking of the Bismarck and Pearl Harbor. It was the weapon of choice for both the US and Japanese in the big Pacific battles such as Midway. In the latter stages of the war, increasingly effective anti-aircraft fire and interceptor aircraft started to render it obsolete, a process completed post-war by long-range anti-ship missiles."--Provided by the publisher. 2020 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.74632

The Experience of Sampson Maynard, Local Preacher of the Methodist E. Church : to which is prefixed, an allegorical address to the Christian world, or, a thimble full of truth to blow up the world of error. This work by Devon-born methodist preacher Maynard Sampson combines an account of the author's life, with particular focus on how he came to be a member of the church, with a long sermon in the form of an 'allegorical address'. The autobiography includes a description of the Sampson's seven-year service as a sailor in the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War, engaging both American and French forces. 1828. • RARE-BOOK • 1 copy available. 92MAYNARD:277.6:094

Royal Naval biography : or, memoirs of the services of all the flag-officers, superannuated rear-admirals, retired-captains, post-captains, and commanders ... Marshall, John 1823-1830 • BOOK • 15 copies available. 92:355.33:094

At war in distant waters : British colonial defense in the Great War /Phillip G. Pattee. "At War in Distant Waters investigates the reasons behind Great Britain's combined military and naval offensive expeditions outside of Europe during the Great War. Often regarded as unnecessary sideshows to the conflict waged on the European continent, Pattee argues that the various campaigns were necessary adjuncts to the war in Europe, and fulfilled an important strategic purpose by protecting British trade where it was most vulnerable. Since international trade was essential for the island nation's way of life, Great Britain required freedom of the seas to maintain its global trade. While the German High Seas Fleet was a serious threat to the British coast, forcing the Royal Navy to concentrate in home waters, the importance of the island empire's global trade made it a valuable target to Germany's various commerce raiders, just as Admiral Tirpitz's risk theory had anticipated."-- 2013. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 355.49"1914/1918"(41-44)

Dutch warships in the age of sail, 1600-1714 : design, construction, careers and fates /James Bender ; introduction by J. D. Davies. "For most of the seventeenth century the Netherlands constituted the most important maritime power in the world, with by far the largest merchant fleet and a dominance in seaborne trade that other countries feared and envied. Born out of an 80-year struggle against Spain for independence, the Dutch republic relied on naval power to guarantee its freedom, promote its trade and defend its overseas colonies. The Dutch navy was crucial to its survival and success, yet the ships that made up its fleets are among the least studied of any in the age of sail. The reasons for this include a decentralised administration of five separate admiralties, often producing ships of the same name at the same time, the widespread co-opting of merchantmen into naval fleets, and competing systems of measuring ships, all of which leads to confusion and error. The most significant contribution of this book is to produce the first definitive listing of all Dutch fighting ships - whether purpose-built, purchased, hired or captured - from the heyday of the United Provinces, complete with technical details and summaries of their careers. It also provides an appreciation of the administrative, economic and technical background, and outlines the many campaigns fought by one of the most successful navies in history. With its unique depth of information, this is a work of the utmost importance to every naval historian and general reader interested in the navies of the sailing era."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • FOLIO • 2 copies available. 623.82(492)

Papers and addresses : Mercantile marine and navigation, from 1871 to 1894 /Lord Brassey, K.C.B., D.C.L. Part II. Navigation -- I. The examination of adjusters of compasses. Paper read at the Institution of Naval Architects, March 31, 1871 -- II. The Channel lights. Speech, House of Commons, May 1873 -- III. Additional lighthouse. Speech, House of Commons, March 4, 1880 -- IV. Harbour works, lights, shipping, etc. Addresses as President of the Second International Maritime Congress, July 18, 1893 -- V. The loss of the 'Victoria' and the new programming of shipbuilding. Letters to 'Times,' July 7 and December 29, 1893 1894. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 656.61(42)

Henry VIII : a European court in England /edited by David Starkey 1991 • FOLIO • 5 copies available. 92Henry VIII

Breaking the Chains : the Royal Navy's War against White Slavery /Tom Pocock "When the Napoleonic wars ended, Britain had already halted the transatlantic trade in African slaves, although slavery itself in the Caribbean had yet to be abolished. But, in the Mediterranean, the enslavement of Europeans by north African states - semi-autonomous regencies of the Ottoman Empire - continued with Algiers as its driving force. This, too, would have to stop and, if necessary, be stopped by force. But, when that seemed to have been achieved without apparent ruptures with the ruling Sultan in Constantinople, a new and unexpected crisis arose. The Greeks, subjects of the Sultan for four centuries, rose against their rulers and many in the west also saw them as Christian slaves, despite their religion being under no threat. [...] The confrontation that followed threatened war, which all except the Greeks and Russians wished to avoid; eventually war, not only between east and west but within Europe itself, seemed possible. The British strained to avoid the conflict, once with unworthy avoidance of their own responsibility; despite this, extreme violence did erupt. This narrative is primarily as seen by those in the executive arm of British foreign policy: the Royal Navy and, whenever possible, it is told in their own words."--Taken from the Introduction. 2006. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48:326.4"18"

Poor England has lost so many men : the loss of Queen Anne's man o'war Association, three other warships & 1,450 lives in the Isles of Scilly /edited by Richard Larn. "Locals on the Isles of Scilly woke on 23rd October 1707, completely unaware of the disaster that was still unfolding out amongst the Western Rocks. Wrecks were no novelty here on Scilly, but a disaster on this scale was unprecedented, and its impact and effect on Islanders must have been one of total disbelief as the news spread. During the previous night a fleet of British men o'war had literally blundered into the rocks surrounding the Bishop and CLers, with an appalling loss of ships and men, which was to prove the second worst disaster in the long history of the Royal Navy. Boatmen from St.Agnes and Samson, the enarest islands to the largest of the wrecks, were the first to return with gruesome evidence, floating wreckage and the bodies of literally dozens of drowned men. This Commemoration booklet not only precis events leading up to and after the accident, bubt looks into the effect it most certainly had on both authority and locals alike. The discovery of the corpse at Porth Hellick of Sir Clowdisley Shovell, an admiral as famous in his time as Lord Nelson was in his; Parson Henry Penneck, less than nine months in this idyllic island parish, suddenly faced with the burial of over 1,000 seamen, no wonder he left in December. These and other topics are succinctly covered in this account of Scillies worst ever shipwreck 300 years ago."--Provided by the publisher. 2006. • PAMPHLET • 1 copy available. txt

The war of the gunboats / Bryan Cooper "The 'little ships' of the Second World War - the fast and highly manoeuvrable motor torpedo boats and gunboats which fought in coastal waters all over the world - developed a special kind of naval warfare. With their daring nightly raids against an enemy's coastal shipping - and sometimes much larger warships - they acquired the buccaneering spirit of an earlier age. And never more so than in the close hand-to-hand battles which raged between opposing craft when they met in open waters. Large numbers of these small fighting boats were built by the major naval powers. The Germans called them Schnellboote (Fast Boats), referred to by the British as E-boats (E for Enemy). In the Royal Navy they were MTBs and MGBs. The American equivalent were PT boats (for Patrol Torpedo). They fought in the narrow waters of the English Channel and the stormy North Sea, in the Mediterranean off the coasts of North Africa and Italy and among the islands of the Aegean, across the Pacific from Pearl Harbour to Leyte Gulf, in Hong Kong and Singapore, and off Burma's Arakan coast. Bryan Cooper's book traces the history and development of these craft from their first limited use in the First World War and the fast motor boats designed in the 1930s for wealthy private clients and water speed record attempts. With account of the battles which took place during the Second World War, when the vital importance of coastal waters came to be recognised, he captures the drama of this highly individual form of combat. And not least the sea itself which was the common enemy of all who crewed these frail craft."--Provided by the publisher. 2009. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.824"19"

Normandy, the sailors' story: a naval history of D-Day and the battle for France /Nick Hewitt. "On 6 June 1944, Operation Neptune began. The D-Day landings in Normandy, involving 7,000 ships and nearly 200,000 sailors, formed the largest seaborne invasion in history. Nick Hewitt draws on groundbreaking new material to chart the complex campaign at sea which enabled the Allied assult, and the violent sea battle that mirrored the fighting on land. Aboard ships ranging from frail plywood landing craft to sleek destroyers, sailors were active combatants in the operation, having already worked tirelessly to secure the Seine Bay in the months preceding. They fought battles against German submarines, aircraft, and warships, and maintained careful watch to keep control of the English Channel. But despite this immense effort from the Navy, the wider maritime campaign has been broadly forgotten. Hewitt recounts these sailors' stories for the first time--and shows how, without their actions, D-Day would have failed."--Provided by the publisher. [2024] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/21421

Englishmen at sea : labor and the nation at the dawn of empire, 1570-1630 /Eleanor Hubbard. "Drawing on a wealth of understudied sources, historian Eleanor Hubbard explores the labor conflicts behind the rise of the English maritime empire. Freewheeling Elizabethan privateering attracted thousands of young men to the sea, where they acquired valuable skills and a reputation for ruthlessness. Peace in 1603 forced these predatory seamen to adapt to a radically changed world, one in which they were expected to risk their lives for merchants' gain, not plunder. Merchant trading companies expected sailors to relinquish their unruly ways and to help convince overseas rulers and trading partners that the English were a courteous and trustworthy 'nation'. Some sailors rebelled, becoming pirates and renegades; others demanded and often received concessions and shares in new trading opportunities. Treated gently by a state that was anxious to promote seafaring in order to man the navy, these determined sailors helped to keep the sea a viable and attractive trade for Englishmen." --Provided by publisher. 2021 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382.0942009031

Cayman's 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail : peace, war, and peril in the Caribbean /Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton. "The story has been passed through generations for more than two centuries. Details vary depending on who is doing the telling, but all refer to this momentous maritime event as the Wreck of the Ten Sail. Sometimes misunderstood as the loss of a single ship, it was in fact the wreck of ten vessels at once, comprising one of the most dramatic maritime disasters in all of Caribbean naval history. Surviving historical documents and the remains of the wrecked ships in the sea confirm that the narrative is more than folklore. It is a legend based on a historical event in which HMS Convert, formerly L'Inconstante, a recent prize from the French, and 9 of her 58-ship merchant convoy sailing from Jamaica to Britain, wrecked on the jagged eastern reefs of Grand Cayman in 1794. The incident has historical significance far beyond the boundaries of the Cayman Islands. It is tied to British and French history during the French Revolution, when these and other European nations were competing for military and commercial dominance around the globe. The Wreck of the Ten Sail attests to the worldwide distribution of European war and trade at the close of the eighteenth century. In Cayman's 1794 Wreck of the Ten Sail: Peace, War, and Peril in the Caribbean, Margaret E. Leshikar-Denton focuses on the ships, the people, and the wreck itself to define their place in Caymanian, Caribbean, and European history. This well-researched volume weaves together rich oral folklore accounts, invaluable supporting documents found in archives in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and France, and tangible evidence of the disaster from archaeological sites on the reefs of the East End."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.9163/65

Fatal passage : the true story of John Rae, the Arctic hero time forgot /Ken McGoogan. A biography of John Rae (1813-1893). Born in Orkney, Rae qualified as a surgeon working for the Hudson's Bay Company in Ontario, Canada. He developed a reputation for stamina and his use of snowshoes, learning to live off the land while travelling long distances, adopting and learning the ways of indigenous Arctic peoples. Rae went on to explore the Gulf of Boothia and made three voyages along the Arctic coastline from 1848?1851. In 1854, back in the Gulf of Boothia, he obtained credible information from local Inuit peoples about the fate of the Franklin Expedition which had disappeared in 1848. His report to the Admiralty included evidence that cannibalism had been a last resort for some of the survivors. Franklin's widow Lady Jane Franklin was outraged and recruited many important supporters, including Charles Dickens, to condemn Rae for daring to suggest Royal Navy sailors would have resorted to cannibalism. Rae's reputation was ruined and although he had discovered the final link in the North-West passage, he was shunned by the establishment at the time and his achievements never recognised. 2002. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92RAE

The dress of the British sailor / comp. by Gerald Dickens. Dickens, Gerald,-Sir, 1957. • PAMPHLET • 7 copies available. 355.14(42)

The autobiography of a seaman Dundonald, Thomas Cochrane,-Earl of, 1860 • BOOK • 6 copies available. 355.49"17/18"

National Service / by Peter Doyle and Paul Evans. "Overshadowed in the public eye by the events of the Second World War - and of the impacts of recent wars at the transition of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - the period of National Service is sometimes portrayed as a long-running and monumental waste of time, a period of 'bull' and 'blanco' of 'jankers' and 'whitewashing'. Yet, emerging from the harsh reality of a truly world war and into the new dawn of the Cold War, it was clear that Britain would have to face new threats from old allies, and to meet considerable overseas obligations from its vestiges of Empire. The occupation of Germany would require 100,000 troops, and Palestine Aden, Cyprus and the Suez Canal Zone, would demand a strong British military presence. With only a limited number of men still in service, the government of the day had no option but to continue conscription. The 1948 National Service Act fixed the period of National Service to eighteen months with four years in the reserves. With involvement in a major, UN sanctioned war in 1950, the period of service was extended to two years with three and a half years in the reserves. The Korean War would be just one of many conflicts - the 'bush-fire wars' - of the 1950s and early 1960s in which National Servicemen would serve, and 400 would lose their lives. Between 1945 and 1963, 2.5 million young men were compelled to do their time in National Service - with 6,000 being called up every fortnight. During a period of often-brutal basic training, the raw recruits would, in the main, be turned into soldiers and airmen - the navy required more specialist skills and took only a small number of men. The new servicemen would be posted to dreary bases up and down the country, subject to the mercies of iron-hard NCOs. Travelling from home, the young conscripts would be transformed within moments of arrival into uniformed rookies - still with no idea of military discipline, tradition or procedure. From all walks of life, some would prosper - others, separated from home life for the first time, would find it traumatic. The 'call-up' finally came to a halt on 31 December 1960 and the very last National servicemen left the Army in 1963. Born from good intentions, National Service was inevitably to supply more men than the services could absorb, and would draw criticisms for its often pointless activities - criticisms that hide today the role these men had in the defence of Britain, and the post-colonial transition. The National Serviceman will explore all aspects of the life of the post-war conscripts."--from the publisher. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.211.2(42)

Warship histories / [Chris Ware, J. J. Colledge, Charles Gray Pitcairn Jones] 1986]. • MICROFICHE • 2 copies available. 623.82

Ships & guns : the sea ordnance in Venice and Europe between the 15th and the 17th centuries /edited by Carlo Beltrame and Renato Gianni Ridella. 2011. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.42(450.341)"14/16"

Britain against Napoleon : the organisation of victory, 1793-1815 /by Roger Knight. "For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe. Only at sea was British power dominant, though even with this crucial advantage the British population lived under fear of a French invasion for much of those two decades. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and eventually won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? There have been innumerable books about the battles, armies and navies of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This book looks beyond the familiar exploits (and bravery) of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, because of the magnitude and intensity of hostilities, the capacities of the whole British population were involved: industrialists, farmers, shipbuilders, cannon founders, gunsmiths and gunpowder manufacturers all had continually to increase quality and output as the demands of the war remorselessly grew. The intelligence war was also central: Knight shows that despite a poor beginning to both gathering and assessment, Whitehall's methods steadily improved.No participants were more important, he argues, than the bankers and international traders of the City of London, who played a critical role in financing the wars and without whom the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. Knight demonstrates that despite these extraordinary efforts, between 1807 and 1812 Britain came very close to losing the war against Napoleon - not through invasion (though the danger until 1811 was very real) but through financial and political exhaustion. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole."--Provided by the publisher. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1793/1815"(42:44)

Uncommon warriors : 200 years of the of the most unusual American naval vessels /Ken W. Sayers. Sayers, Ken W. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.82(72)"19/20"

Indonesia pilot : volume II south coast of Jawa, north coast of Jawa east of Tanjung Awarawar, east coast of Jawa, Nusa Tegnara, south coast of Kalimantan east of Tanjung Puting, east coast of Kalimantan south of the parallel of 4 deg 10' N, Sulawesi and the west part of Kepulauan Sula Great Britain. Hydrographic Department 1976. • FOLIO • 5 copies available. 527.83

Unruly desires : American sailors and homosexualities in the age of sail /William Benemann. "In its voracious hunger to fill its decks and spars with the bodies of strong young sailors, the nineteenth century US Navy and the commercial maritime industry welcomed eccentrics, criminals, outcasts and misfits into a community of the marginalized, one that held very different values and expectations than the towns and villages from which the young men fled, a community that offered a tentative refuge to men who were sexually attracted to other men. Drawing from biographies and autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, government reports, Congressional hearings, religious tracts, pornography, ships' logs, medical treatises, maritime fiction, court-martial reports, personal letters and business correspondence, Benemann provides an in-depth examination of nineteenth century homosexual culture as it developed at sea and in America's port cities." [2019] • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

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