Maritime Museums.
A guide to the collection and Museum Ships of Britain and Ireland.

The era of the 'Pax Britannic' was anything but peaceful for many Royal Navy officers. But few saw as much active service as Samuel Gurney Cresswell, who contrived to fight in the Baltic campaign of the misnamed 'Crimean War' - the first time whole battle fleets maneuvered and fought under steam power - and to achieve fame as an Arctic explorer (he is credited with being the first to traverse the much sought-after North West Passage, as the result of a truly epic sledging trip form the trapped HMS Investigator in 1853). As his career advanced, he rose to sea-going command, and played his part in the imperial coercion of China, which included amphibious operations and the suppression of piracy in the South China Sea. Throughout his action-packed service, he always found time to keep journals and to correspond with his family. He was an acute observer of the closed world of the Victorian navy, as well as the exotic climes he was privileged to visit, and his lively first-hand accounts form the raw material for this book. Like many contemporary sailor he could also express his observations in competent drawings and watercolors, but Cresswell's skill was of a higher order: indeed, he was summoned to the Palace to present his Arctic sketches to Queen Victoria, and they were eventually issued as lithographs. However, most were never published and appear here for the first time. This book follows Cresswell's career through his own journals and letters.

From its emergence in Holland in the early seventeenth century to its present renaissance as a luxury charter vessel, the sleek and elegant schooner has embodied the romance of the seas. It has been used in just about every seafaring role from modest coastal craft navigating narrow inland waterways to high speed clippers plowing the world's oceans. Though schooners in Britain, America, and Canada were primarily cargo carriers, they were also used as Grand Banks fishing schooners, pilot boats, Baltimore clippers, colonial schooners, and yachts. This comprehensive history describes in detail the development of the beautiful rig and gives examples of all if its variations. Heavily illustrated with plans, paintings, and photographs, this new paperback edition will delight every maritime enthusiast.

A History of Fighting Ships.

Part of a series of naval and sea-life memoirs, this title offers an alternative to the usual top-down history, and has much to say on the topic of press gangs. It includes an eyewitness account of Hawke's great victory in Quiberon Bay in 1759.

After two centuries of biographies and analyses, Admiral Lord Nelson speaks for himself in this collection of excerpts from his private letters and dispatches. Through Nelson's own words readers come to fully appreciate the admiral's insights and opinions. With chapters devoted to such subjects as duty, combat, politics, sea power, life and death, and Nelson's views of himself and his wife, Frances Nisbet, and mistress, Lady Hamilton, the book offers an array of memorable quotations. Each is placed in context to give contemporary dimension to the words. Engravings depicting events in Nelson's life accompany the text.

The nuclear-powered USS Skate was the first submarine to break the surface of the North Pole. Author James Calvert captained the Skate and his book details a series of exploratory underwater voyages north before he and his crew finally found a way to the top and triumphantly smashed through the polar ice-cap on 17 March 1959.

Profusely illustrated w/ original plans of battleships, fleet aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers & submarines.

1956 1st edn.
'"Scharnhorst" sunk by British naval forces 60 sea miles NW of North Cape, 26th December, 1943 at 19 hours 45'. So ran the radio announcement that told the world of the end of the German battleship "Scharnhorst". The implications of this short message, in terms of human experience, remained unknown until the end of the war when the story was told by the few German survivors and the officers and men of the British Navy. While the epic of the final battle forms the core of his narrative, Fritz-Otto Busch also depicts life aboard the 32,000-ton warship and records her short, eventful history from her launching in 1939 to her fateful demise. He relates how "Scharnhorst" sank the British aircraft carrier "Glorious" in 1940, menaced Allied shipping in the Atlantic throughout 1941, and made her impudent, flaunting dash up the channel to the safety of the Norwegian fjords in 1942. Considered by her crew to be a "lucky ship", her luck ran out in 1943 when she found herself outnumbered in Arctic waters by superior Allied naval forces. The British ships were equipped with Radar, the "Scharnhorst" was not - a fatal disadvantage that was to prove decisive.
Pic of Reprint Edn.

The aim of this book is to provide complete and accurate information on the ships of the Soviet Navy throughout the Cold War and beyond. Details are given of the construction, capabilities and career of every Soviet and Russian naval vessel in a period of growth and development. It also includes Stalin's ambitious postwar proposals for battleships and battle cruisers, the development of the nuclear submarine fleet in the 1960s, and the air-capable ships of the 1970s and 1980s. Each vessel is listed with its project number, Russian name, specifications, building dates and ultimate fate, from the guided-missile battle cruiser Kirov to the smallest intelligence-gathering trawlers. This edition has been revised and updated to include the latest information that has become available. Illustrations include internal layouts of nuclear submarines.

This text comprises of a listing of surviving historic ships. Entries are organised by country, but cross-referenced by ship type, and contain the basic data on each vessel, with a brief outline of its career and historical significance. The current state of vessels undergoing restoration is described, and appendices also list parts of ships preserved in museums, the addresses of all organisation owning or managing such vessels, and a bibiography.

Although countless books have been written about the U-boat war in the Atlantic, precious few facts have come to light about the men who served in the submarines that wrought such havoc on Allied ships. Eager to get beyond the stereotypes perpetuated in movies and novels and find out who these elusive sailors really were, archivist Timothy Mulligan started searching official records. Eventually he went straight to the source, conducting a survey of more than a thousand U-boat officers and enlisted men and interviewing a number of them personally. The result is this character study of the German submarine force that challenges traditional and revisionist views of the service. Mulligan found striking similarities in the men's geographic and social origins, education, and previous occupations, particularly within the specialized engineering and radio branches of the submarine force. The information he gathered establishes quantifiable patterns in age, length of service, and experience, as well as the organization's overall recruitment policies and training standards. The numbers and losses of U-boat personnel are also fully examined. Beyond these objective characteristics, this study lists such subjective factors as morale, treatment of enemy ship survivors, and the relationship of the submariners to the Nazi regime, and it confirms a serious crisis in morale in late 1943. The roles played by the head of the U-boat arm, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, and its organizational chief, Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, are thoroughly addressed. Mulligan concludes that the U-boat arm quickly evolved from a handpicked elite to a more representative sample of the German navy at large but continued to be treated as an elite force. The only comprehensive investigation yet published, this book also draws on POW interrogations of U-boat survivors and documentation of Kriegsmarine personnel policy obtained from German archives.

The re-release of this long-lost gem from 1897 culminates the ten-year celebration of "The Nelson Decade" and coincides with the Trafalgar bicentennial events currently underway. The author, W. Clark Russell, was one of the nineteenth-century's most popular and prolific writers of nautical literature, and his short stories and novels were so widely read that they were mentioned in other novels of the day. Largely forgotten today is the fact that Russell brought his prodigious storytelling talents to bear upon the true-life exploits of Admiral Lord Nelson. In 1890 Russell published a dense and lengthy biography of the admiral that left no stone unturned about the naval hero's life. With the timelessness of a good novel, the much leaner and better-paced Pictures focuses solely on the action-filled episodes of the Nelson saga. Modern-day readers who revel in the works of Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester will find it to be just as enjoyable as did Russell's contemporaries.

Drawing on previously untapped sources, naval historian James Reckner provides a complete picture of the fleet that thrust the United States into the ranks of great world naval powers. His fresh interpretations of the fleet's historic 1907-09 world cruise, which won him the 1989 Roosevelt Naval History Prize, allow today's readers to fully appreciate the significance of the famous fleet that set sail during Teddy Roosevelt's second term as president. Reckner recreates the colorful pageantry of the event--sixteen U.S. battleships on a fourteen-month voyage around the world--that drew thousands of sightseers at every port of call, but his main emphasis is on the cruise's long-range impact on the Navy. He shows how the cruise revealed the fleet's shortcomings and forced the naval establishment to acknowledge the faults and make concessions that eventually led to permanent benefits.

The victory at Trafalgar marked the beginning of nine years of expansion and domination by the Royal Navy right across the globe. This book charts the events of those years, including the Battle of San Domingo in 1806, the attack on Copenhagen in 1807 and the capture of the French base on Mauritius in 1810. Also covered is the Navy's crucial support of Wellington's army in the Peninsula War. Thematic sections of the book feature the skills of the seaman and the lives of prisoners of war. The prints and drawings collection of the National Maritime Museum is the source for the 300 contemporary illustrations.

From 1799 to 1819 more than 1,000 pages of British naval news and views were published every year in The Naval Chronicle, including action reports, intelligence of foreign naval matters, and biographies of officers. In short, it was the most important original account of the naval part of the Napoleonic Wars. Outside the major libraries the 40 volumes of The Naval Chronicle are not generally available. This new consolidated edition, in five volumes, contains all the most significant material from the originals, including Admiral Nelson's only autobiographical record.

From 1807 to 1810 more than 1,000 pages of British naval news and views were published every year in The Naval Chronicle, including action reports, intelligence of foreign naval matters, and biographies of officers. In short, it was the most important original account of the naval part of the Napoleonic Wars. Outside the major libraries the 40 volumes of The Naval Chronicle are not generally available. This new consolidated edition, in five volumes, contains all the most significant material from the originals, including Admiral Nelson's only autobiographical record.

The story of what the Royal Navy has achieved over the last fifty years is both a fascinating and proud one. Lord Boyce, former Chief of the Defence Staff. This new history of the Royal Navy, published to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of the White Ensign Association, is a full and exciting account of all the many campaigns, operations and deployments conducted around the world from the Cold War and the Cod Wars to the Falklands War and the Gulf Wars. It has been written and compiled from privileged access to secret and confidential Admiralty Plans and Commanding Officers? reports and contains a wealth of previously unpublished material. The story of how the Royal Navy has adapted to meet the many new challenges of the modern world and how it has carried out its vital roles from manning the nation?s strategic nuclear deterrent to guarding the vital offshore oil and gas facilities as well as protecting Britain?s worldwide interests is a truly fascinating one, while the development of ships, submarines, aircraft, weapons, tactics and strategies as well as the changes in personnel and life at sea are brought to life by contributions from people who served over the period. Profusely illustrated throughout with many previously unpublished photographs and paintings, this beautifully-produced volume is a magnificent golden jubilee tribute to the Royal Navy. AUTHOR: John Roberts spent over thirty years in the Royal Navy, and is uniquely qualified to write this book. He went to sea in aircraft carriers, cruisers, frigates and minesweepers, and served in the Far East, the Middle East, Aden, the Radfan and the Gulf. He later served on various Admirals? staffs, and spent ten years in the Ministry of Defence.

This fascinating book provides a unique record of the careers and final underwater resting places of ships of the Cunard Line, whose rich history spans over 300 ships and nearly two centuries. Many books have been published on Cunard's heritage but the final fate of these ships is often little more than a footnote of history. Authors Sam Warwick and Mike Roussel have taken the shipwrecks as a starting point to create a vivid new history. Featured vessels include the well-known Caronia, Lancastria, Campania, Lusitania, Malta, Oregon, Scotia and Carpathia, famous for rescuing the survivors from the Titanic, as well as many others. Events surrounding the wrecking of each vessel are thoroughly explored and unique diver accounts are incorporated, along with never-before-seen underwater images of the wrecks. Finishing off with practical data for interested divers, this book offers a fresh analysis of Cunard's maritime history.

This is a history of the flags flown at sea by the principal naval powers - Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA - during the Age of Sail. The subject is one that has been obscured by curious myths and misunderstandings about where, when and why certain flags - like the piratical 'Jolly Roger' - were flown, and this book's narrative aims to unravel these issues. It also tackles such apparently complicated issues as signalling in peace and war. The book also contains a profusion of illustrations, covering the many variants of well-known flags, in both contemporary flag-charts and modern drawings done specially for this work. It therefore provides the degree of detail demanded by modelmakers, artists and historians.

From 1811 to 1815 more than 1,000 pages of British naval news and views were published every year in The Naval Chronicle, including action reports, intelligence of foreign naval matters, and biographies of officers. In short, it was the most important original account of the naval part of the Napoleonic Wars. Outside the major libraries the 40 volumes of The Naval Chronicle are not generally available. This new consolidated edition, in five volumes, contains all the most significant material from the originals, including Admiral Nelson's only autobiographical record.

This edition brings the history of Henry VIII's famous warship right up to date with new chapters on the stunning presentation of the hull and the 19,000 salvaged artifacts in the new museum in Portsmouth.

Mary Rose has, along with HMS Victory, become an instantly recognisable symbol of Britain's maritime past, while the extraordinary richness of the massive collection of artefacts gleaned from the wreck has meant that the ship has acquired the status of some sort of 'time capsule', as if it were a Tudor burial site. But she is much more than an archaeological relic; she was a warship, and a revolutionary one, that served in the King's navy for thirty-four years, almost the entire length of his reign.

This book tells the story of her eventful career, placing it firmly within the colourful context of Tudor politics, court life and the developing administration of a permanent navy. And though the author also brings the story right down to the present day, with chapters on the recovery, the fresh ideas and information thrown up by the massive programme of archaeological work since undertaken, and the new display just recently opened at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, it is at heart a vivid retelling of her career and, at the end, her dramatic sinking.

With this fine narrative and the beautiful illustrations the book will appeal to the historian and enthusiast, and also to the general reader and museum visitor.

Professor Rohwer served in the German Navy throughout most of World War II, and recounts in this book the naval battles and engagements that took place during that same war. The book contains over 250 photographs