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Struggle For The Middle Sea
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Book Synopsis Struggle for the Middle Sea by : Vincent O'Hara
Download or read book Struggle for the Middle Sea written by Vincent O'Hara and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mediterranean is the maritime crossroads where Europe, Asia, and Africa meet. More major naval actions were fought there than in the Atlantic or Pacific yet remarkably little has been written about the subject. Th is fresh study of the Mediterranean’s naval war analyzes the actions and performances of the five major navies—British, Italian, French, German, and American—during the entire five-year campaign and examines the national imperatives that drove each nation’s maritime strategy. Struggle for the Middle Sea provides a history of the entire campaign from all perspectives and covers Germany’s largely unknown—and remarkably successful—struggle to employ sea power in the Mediterranean after the Italian armistice. Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (August 2009) has called it “a new and stunningly important view of World War II” and “a fabulously readable and important book.”
Book Synopsis The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943 by : Jack Greene
Download or read book The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943 written by Jack Greene and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2023-12-03 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This superbly researched book gives a complete account of the war in the Mediterranean on, above and beneath the sea up until Italy's armistice in September 1943. Written with full access to Italian sources, it not only provides a detailed and fascinating narrative of the entire naval war, but also sets the individual actions fully in their strategic context for both the Axis and the Allies. Topics include: • The complex and distrustful relationship between the Italians and their German allies which culminated in open conflict after the Italian armistice in 1943. • The battle for Malta, and that island's vital strategic role threatening Axis supply lines to North Africa. • The exploits of the Italian human torpedoes of the X MAS flotilla, which threatened to change the balance of power in the Mediterranean. This book is essential reading for all those interested in one of the major naval theaters of the Second World War.
Book Synopsis Empires of the Sea by : Roger Crowley
Download or read book Empires of the Sea written by Roger Crowley and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date–a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. This struggle’s brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto–one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away “because of the countless corpses floating in the sea.” Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today. Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best–a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.
Book Synopsis The South China Sea by : Bill Hayton
Download or read book The South China Sea written by Bill Hayton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China’s rise has upset the global balance of power, and the first place to feel the strain is Beijing’s back yard: the South China Sea. For decades tensions have smoldered in the region, but today the threat of a direct confrontation among superpowers grows ever more likely. This important book is the first to make clear sense of the South Sea disputes. Bill Hayton, a journalist with extensive experience in the region, examines the high stakes involved for rival nations that include Vietnam, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and China, as well as the United States, Russia, and others. Hayton also lays out the daunting obstacles that stand in the way of peaceful resolution. Through lively stories of individuals who have shaped current conflicts—businessmen, scientists, shippers, archaeologists, soldiers, diplomats, and more—Hayton makes understandable the complex history and contemporary reality of the South China Sea. He underscores its crucial importance as the passageway for half the world’s merchant shipping and one-third of its oil and gas. Whoever controls these waters controls the access between Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Pacific. The author critiques various claims and positions (that China has historic claim to the Sea, for example), overturns conventional wisdoms (such as America’s overblown fears of China’s nationalism and military resurgence), and outlines what the future may hold for this clamorous region of international rivalry.
Download or read book Six Victories written by Vincent O'Hara and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six Victories examines one of the most interesting and instructive naval campaigns of World War II: the war on traffic in the Mediterranean during the fall and winter of 1941-42. It is a cautionary tale of how sea power was practiced, and how it shifted 180 degrees overnight. Based on British and Italian archival sources, the book emphasizes strategic context, the role of intelligence, and the campaign's logistics. In October 1941 the British Admiralty based a surface strike force in Malta to attack Axis sea lanes between Italy and Africa. Aided by Ultra intelligence, submarines, and bombers based in Malta, this force dominated the Central Mediterranean. From the end of October through the middle of December 1941, less than a third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel finally compelled the Afrika Korps to retreat four hundred miles. Then, in the space of thirty hours, this all changed. First, Italian naval forces broke the blockade by fighting through a major convoy that arrived in time to blunt the British advance; next, the strike force plowed into a minefield laid by Italian cruisers; and finally, in a daring attack, Italian commandos crippled the Mediterranean Fleet's battleships in port. The swing in fortune was immediate and dramatic. Six Victories breaks new ground in the historiography of World War II. A compelling story, it relates lessons that are relevant today and should be required reading for all who practice the art of power at sea and for those who want to understand the intricate and interrelated factors that are the foundations of military success.
Book Synopsis In Passage Perilous by : Vincent P. O'Hara
Download or read book In Passage Perilous written by Vincent P. O'Hara and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By mid-1942 the Allies were losing the Mediterranean war: Malta was isolated and its civilian population faced starvation. In June 1942 the British Royal Navy made a stupendous effort to break the Axis stranglehold. The British dispatched armed convoys from Gibraltar and Egypt toward Malta. In a complex battle lasting more than a week, Italian and German forces defeated Operation Vigorous, the larger eastern effort, and ravaged the western convoy, Operation Harpoon, in a series of air, submarine, and surface attacks culminating in the Battle of Pantelleria. Just two of seventeen merchant ships that set out for Malta reached their destination. In Passage Perilous presents a detailed description of the operations and assesses the actual impact Malta had on the fight to deny supplies to Rommel's army in North Africa. The book's discussion of the battle's operational aspects highlights the complex relationships between air and naval power and the influence of geography on littoral operations.
Download or read book Torpedoed written by Deborah Heiligman and published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR). This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning author Deborah Heiligman comes Torpedoed, a true account of the attack and sinking of the passenger ship SS City of Benares, which was evacuating children from England during WWII. Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set sail for Canada with one hundred children on board. When the war ships escorting the Benares departed, a German submarine torpedoed what became known as the Children's Ship. Out of tragedy, ordinary people became heroes. This is their story. This title has Common Core connections.
Book Synopsis That Most Precious Merchandise by : Hannah Barker
Download or read book That Most Precious Merchandise written by Hannah Barker and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-09-27 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the Black Sea as a source of Mediterranean slaves stretches from ancient Greek colonies to human trafficking networks in the present day. At its height during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the Black Sea slave trade was not the sole source of Mediterranean slaves; Genoese, Venetian, and Egyptian merchants bought captives taken in conflicts throughout the region, from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, and the Aegean Sea. Yet the trade in Black Sea slaves provided merchants with profit and prestige; states with military recruits, tax revenue, and diplomatic influence; and households with the service of women, men, and children. Even though Genoa, Venice, and the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Greater Syria were the three most important strands in the web of the Black Sea slave trade, they have rarely been studied together. Examining Latin and Arabic sources in tandem, Hannah Barker shows that Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the Mediterranean shared a set of assumptions and practices that amounted to a common culture of slavery. Indeed, the Genoese, Venetian, and Mamluk slave trades were thoroughly entangled, with wide-ranging effects. Genoese and Venetian disruption of the Mamluk trade led to reprisals against Italian merchants living in Mamluk cities, while their participation in the trade led to scathing criticism by supporters of the crusade movement who demanded commercial powers use their leverage to weaken the force of Islam. Reading notarial registers, tax records, law, merchants' accounts, travelers' tales and letters, sermons, slave-buying manuals, and literary works as well as treaties governing the slave trade and crusade propaganda, Barker gives a rich picture of the context in which merchants traded and enslaved people met their fate.
Book Synopsis Asia's New Battlefield by : Richard Javad Heydarian
Download or read book Asia's New Battlefield written by Richard Javad Heydarian and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compact, insightful book offers an up-to-the-minute guide to understanding the evolution of maritime territorial disputes in East Asia, exploring their legal, political-security and economic dimensions against the backdrop of a brewing Sino-American rivalry for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. It traces the decades-long evolution of Sino-American relations in Asia, and how this pivotal relationship has been central to prosperity and stability in one of the most dynamics regions of the world. It also looks at how middle powers – from Japan and Australia to India and South Korea – have joined the fray, trying to shape the trajectory of the territorial disputes in the Western Pacific, which can, in turn, alter the future of Asia – and ignite an international war that could re-configure the global order. The book examines how the maritime disputes have become a litmus test of China’s rise, whether it has and will be peaceful or not, and how smaller powers such as Vietnam and the Philippines have been resisting Beijing’s territorial ambitions. Drawing on extensive discussions and interviews with experts and policy-makers across the Asia-Pacific region, the book highlights the growing geopolitical significance of the East and South China Sea disputes to the future of Asia – providing insights into how the so-called Pacific century will shape up.
Book Synopsis Blue-Water Empire by : Robert Holland
Download or read book Blue-Water Empire written by Robert Holland and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blue-Water Empire is Robert Holland's magnificent narrative of Britain's military and cultural ties with the Mediterranean Sea, in the style of the epic naval histories of N. A. M. Rodger. Britain has been a major presence in the Mediterranean from the Battle of the Nile to the end of empire, as both a military and a colonising force on the islands and coastlines of the sea. Robert Holland traces the fascinating story of that presence, from its legacies in culture, language and law to the Mediterranean's own influence on Britain. Evoking the conflicts and contrasts between British and local societies caught up in dramatic events, as well as their mutual resilience under pressure, Blue Water Empire charts with vigour, flair and clarity the British experience in the Mediterranean in the age of empire. Reviews: 'An important corrective to current historical amnesia ... the definitive account of Anglo-Mediterranean history for years to come' Amanda Foreman, New Statesman 'A rich and readable account of the British in the Middle Sea ... As Holland's learned, lucid and enjoyable work makes clear, many British politicians saw the Mediterranean as the pre-eminent global strategic arena, representing the key to victory in Europe and Asia' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'This is an important subject, and it has never before been drawn together into a single coherent narrative ... Blue-Water Empire puts the land, not the sea, at the heart of the story' Literary Review 'Robert Holland's masterly history of the Mediterranean is a pleasure to read. Blue-Water Empire shows how Britain's mastery of the Middle Sea shaped the modern world, whilst reminding us how profoundly the Mediterranean has influenced the British' Simon Ball (author of The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean, 1935-1949) 'Lively and absorbing' Philip Mansel, Spectator About the author: Robert Holland is one of the world's leading historians of the Mediterranean and the author of Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954-59, and (with Diana Markides) The British and the Hellenes: Struggles for Mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1850-1960. He holds professorial positions at the Centre for Hellenic Studies in King's College London and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in the same University.
Book Synopsis My Struggle: Book 3 by : Karl Ove Knausgaard
Download or read book My Struggle: Book 3 written by Karl Ove Knausgaard and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The provocative, audacious, brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel that has unquestionably been the main event of contemporary European literature. It has earned favorable comparisons to its obvious literary forebears "A la recherche du temps perdu" and "Mein Kampf" but has been celebrated as the rare magnum opus that is intensely, addictively readable.
Book Synopsis Strangling the Axis by : Richard Hammond
Download or read book Strangling the Axis written by Richard Hammond and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major reassessment of the causes of Allied victory in the Second World War in the Mediterranean region. Drawing on a unique range of multinational source material, Richard Hammond demonstrates how the Allies' ability to gain control of the key routes across the sea and sink large quantities of enemy shipping denied the Axis forces in North Africa crucial supplies and proved vital to securing ultimate victory there. Furthermore, the sheer scale of attrition to Axis shipping outstripped their industrial capacity to compensate, leading to the collapse of the Axis position across key territories maintained by seaborne supply, such as Sardinia, Corsica and the Aegean islands. As such, Hammond demonstrates how the anti-shipping campaign in the Mediterranean was the fulcrum about which strategy in the theatre pivoted, and the vital enabling factor ultimately leading to Allied victory in the region.
Book Synopsis Mussolini Warlord by : H. James Burgwyn
Download or read book Mussolini Warlord written by H. James Burgwyn and published by Enigma Books. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study of Benito Mussolini's failure as a war leader.
Book Synopsis Mediterranean Naval Battles That Changed the World by : Quentin Russell
Download or read book Mediterranean Naval Battles That Changed the World written by Quentin Russell and published by Pen and Sword Maritime. This book was released on 2021-03-03 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This epic naval history examines seven pivotal Mediterranean conflicts, from the Battle of Salamis in the fifth century BC to the Siege of Malta during WWII. This book tells the story of the Mediterranean as a theater of war at sea. Historian Quentin Russell covers seven major battles or campaigns, each of which changed the balance of power and shape the course of history. Chronicling each battle in vivid detail, Russell also provides essential background, covering the history of naval power in the Mediterranean and the effect of the development of naval architecture and design on the outcomes. Readers will learn that the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was the last major battle fought between galleys; the Battle of Navarino in 1827 was the last to be fought entirely by sailing ships; and the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941—where a young Duke of Edinburgh saw action—was the first operation to exploit the breaking of the Italian naval Enigma codes. The battles included are: Salamis (480 BC), Actium (31 BC), Lepanto (1571), the Nile (aka Aboukir Bay, 1798), Navarino (1827), Cape Matapan (1941), and the Siege of Malta (1940-42).
Download or read book Operation C3 written by John Burtt and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-05-04 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Burtt offers an account of how an invasion might have unfolded and its consequences, by drawing on parallel events at other times and places...Definitely worth a read." â The NYMAS Review When writing his memoirs after World War II, German Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring stated, âItalyâs missing her chance to occupy the island [of Malta] at the start of hostilities will go down in history as a fundamental blunder.â Itâs easy to see why this tiny 95 square mile island held such a prominent place in the warâs Mediterranean Theater. Located almost halfway between the British bases of Gibraltar and Alexandria, Egypt, and just 60 miles south of Sicily, her airfields and naval base stood directly in the path of Italyâs (and her German partnerâs) line of communication from Europe to North Africa. Operation C3 is a detailed study of the Axis 1942 plan to invade and take the island of Malta. The book examines the future combatants up to the Axis capture of Tobruk, in June 1942. The book then provides a realistic assessment of what would have had to happen if the Axis had decided to launch the invasion. Operation C3 then provides a day-by-day battle narrative of the invasion as if it had occurred on Saturday, August 15, 1942. The battle narrative is based on the combatantâs actual plans from the Italian and Maltese archives. and the realistic appraisal of what could have happened when those plans collide. A Reality & Analysis section is added after the battle narrative to discuss what really happened after Tobruk fell and why Operation C3 was never attempted.
Book Synopsis The Mediterranean Air War by : Robert S. Ehlers, Jr.
Download or read book The Mediterranean Air War written by Robert S. Ehlers, Jr. and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without what the Allies learned in the Mediterranean air war in 1942–1944, the Normandy landings—and so, perhaps, the Second World War II—would have ended differently. This is one of many lessons of The Mediterranean Air War, the first one-volume history of the vital role of airpower during the three-year struggle for control of the Mediterranean Basin in World War II—and of its significance for the Allied successes in the war's last two years. Airpower historian Robert S. Ehlers opens his account with an assessment of the pre-war Mediterranean theater, highlighting the ways in which the players' strategic choices, strengths, and shortcomings set the stage for and ultimately shaped the air campaigns over the Middle Sea. Beginning with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Ehlers reprises the developing international crisis—initially between Britain and Italy, and finally encompassing France, Germany, the US, other members of the British Commonwealth, and the Balkan countries. He then explores the Mediterranean air war in detail, with close attention to turning points, joint and combined operations, and the campaign's contribution to the larger Allied effort. In particular, his analysis shows how and why the success of Allied airpower in the Mediterranean laid the groundwork for combined-arms victories in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean area, North Africa, and the Atlantic, northwest Europe. Of grand-strategic importance from the days of Ancient Rome to the Great-Power rivalries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Middle Sea was no less crucial to the Allied forces and their foes. Here, in the successful offensives in North Africa in 1942 and 1943, the US and the British learned to conduct a coalition air and combined-arms war. Here, in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and 1944, the Allies mastered the logistics of providing air support for huge naval landings and opened a vital second aerial front against the Third Reich, bombing critical oil and transportation targets with great effectiveness. The first full examination of the Mediterranean theater in these critical roles—as a strategic and tactical testing ground for the Allies and as a vital theater of operations in its own right—The Mediterranean Air War fills in a long-missing but vital dimension of the history of World War II.
Download or read book The Convoy written by Angus Konstam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Convoy represents a fresh approach to the story of the Battle of the Atlantic. It is also the first to deal with the more spectacular story of HG-76, a major turning point in the naval war. HG-76 sailed from Gibraltar to Britain in December 1941 and was specially targeted by the Germans. A wolfpack of U-boats was sent against it, and the Luftwaffe was heavily committed too in a rare example of German inter-service cooperation. German intelligence agents in Gibraltar and Spain also knew every detail of HG-76 before it had even sailed, seemingly stacking the odds in favour of the Kriegsmarine. Despite this the convoy fought its way through. Improved radar and sonar gave the convoy's escorts a slight edge over their opponents, while the escort group was led by Commander Walker, an anti-submarine expert who had developed new, aggressive U-boat hunting tactics. Previous Gibraltar convoys had been mauled by Luftwaffe bombers operating from French airfields. This time, though, HG-76 would be accompanied by HMS Audacity, the Royal Navy's first escort carrier – a new type of warship purpose-built to defend convoys from enemy aircraft and U-boats. Following seven days and nights of relentless attack, the horrors of which are brought home through a series of first-hand accounts, the convoy finally reached the safety of a British port for the loss of only two merchant ships. Its arrival was seen as the first real convoy victory of the war. Brought to life by expert naval historian Angus Konstam, The Convoy combines the story of the technical and tactical developments that won the Battle of the Atlantic for the Allies along with a narrative that reveals both the terror and the stubborn determination that defined the experiences of those that served on convoy duties.
