Two centuries before the daring exploits of Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders captured the public imagination, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were already engaged in similarly perilous missions: raiding pirate camps, attacking enemy ships in the dark of night, and striking enemy facilities and resources on shore. Even John Paul Jones, father of the American navy, saw such irregular operations as critical to naval warfare. With Jones’s own experience as a starting point, Benjamin Armstrong sets out to take irregular naval warfare out of the shadow of the blue-water battles that dominate naval history. This book, the first historical study of its kind, makes a compelling case for raiding and irregular naval warfare as key elements in the story of American sea power. Beginning with the Continental Navy, Small Boats and Daring Men traces maritime missions through the wars of the early republic, from the coast of modern-day Libya to the rivers and inlets of the Chesapeake Bay. At the same time, Armstrong examines the era’s conflicts with nonstate enemies and threats to American peacetime interests along Pacific and Caribbean shores. Armstrong brings a uniquely informed perspective to his subject; and his work—with reference to original naval operational reports, sailors’ memoirs and diaries, and officers’ correspondence—is at once an exciting narrative of danger and combat at sea and a thoroughgoing analysis of how these events fit into concepts of American sea power. Offering a critical new look at the naval history of the Early American era, this book also raises fundamental questions for naval strategy in the twenty-first century.
Many believe that pirates and other water-bound terrorists present a significant threat to international maritime security. Testing the validity of this claim, Martin N. Murphy scrutinizes recent incidents of maritime...
This book examines the US Navy and Marine Corps during the interwar years from a new perspective.
This collection of five of Mahan’s essays, along with Benjamin Armstrong’s informative introductions, illustrates why Mahan’s work remains relevant to the 21st century and how it can help develop our strategic thinking.
This is a fast-paced, uplifting story that puts young readers in the middle of the action. It's a gripping story of heroism and survival with the same intensity as the bestselling book and movie The Perfect Storm.
Able Seaman Irwin, the boatswain's mate, touched his arm. 'I'm to relieve you, Swain.' Pellegrine released thewheel and was surprised just howhardhe hadbeen gripping the spokes. He snapped, 'Southeast. Watch yer 'elm.
Joseph Arthur Simon’s The Greatest of All Leathernecks is the first comprehensive biography of John Archer Lejeune (1867–1942), a Louisiana native and the most innovative and influential leader of the United States Marine Corps in the ...
"The miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history--as told to journalist Jonathan Franklin in dozens of exclusive interviews"--
In the concluding volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick tells the thrilling story of the year that won the Revolutionary War.
Dudley Pope meticulously researches the story of the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy - the butchering of the officers aboard His Majesty's Frigate HERMIONE 32 guns, in the West Indies in 1797.
For Erwin, the marine's story resurrects memories of sailors patrolling narrow rivers and canals, their naive sense of invincibility shattered by Viet Cong patiently waiting in bunkers with rockets.