Naval Eyewitnesses

"Goulty tells the story from the perspective of the ordinary sailor or officer who was there."—The Northern Mariner Although many books have been written about naval actions during the Second World War – histories and memoirs in particular – few books have attempted to encompass the extraordinary variety of the experience of the war at sea. That is why James Goulty’s vivid survey is of such value. Sailors in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy experienced a war fought on a massive scale, on every ocean of the world, in a diverse range of vessels, from battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines to merchant ships and fishing boats. Their recollections are as varied as the ships they served in, and they take the reader through the entire maritime war, as it was perceived at the time by those who had direct, personal knowledge of it. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the experience of individuals – their recruitment and training, their expectations and the reality they encountered on active service in many different offensive and defensive roles including convoy duty and coastal de-fence, amphibious operations, hunting U-boats and surface raiders, mine sweeping and manning landing and rescue craft. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the sailors themselves, what action against the enemy felt like and the impact of casualties – seamen who were wounded or killed on board or were lost when their ships sank. A fascinating inside view of the maritime warfare emerges which may be less heroic than the image created by some post-war accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic impression of the whole gamut of wartime life at sea.

"Goulty tells the story from the perspective of the ordinary sailor or officer who was there."—The Northern Mariner Although many books have been written about naval actions during the Second World War – histories and memoirs in particular – few books have attempted to encompass the extraordinary variety of the experience of the war at sea. That is why James Goulty’s vivid survey is of such value. Sailors in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy experienced a war fought on a massive scale, on every ocean of the world, in a diverse range of vessels, from battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines to merchant ships and fishing boats. Their recollections are as varied as the ships they served in, and they take the reader through the entire maritime war, as it was perceived at the time by those who had direct, personal knowledge of it. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the experience of individuals – their recruitment and training, their expectations and the reality they encountered on active service in many different offensive and defensive roles including convoy duty and coastal de-fence, amphibious operations, hunting U-boats and surface raiders, mine sweeping and manning landing and rescue craft. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the sailors themselves, what action against the enemy felt like and the impact of casualties – seamen who were wounded or killed on board or were lost when their ships sank. A fascinating inside view of the maritime warfare emerges which may be less heroic than the image created by some post-war accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic impression of the whole gamut of wartime life at sea.

A blow-by-blow eye-witness account of the British Pacific Fleets participation in the invasion of Okinawa and the attacks on the Japanese homeland.

Shares dramatic eyewitness accounts from more than 2,500 years of naval history, from the Battle of Salamis as recorded by Thucydides in 378 B.C., to the endeavors of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, to the carrier operations of the 1991 Gulf War. Original.

What lesson will America draw from the present Great War? Must she see the heads of her own children at the foot of the guillotine to realize that it will cut, or will she accept the evidence of the thousands which have lain there before? Will she heed the lesson of all time, that national unpreparedness means national downfall, or will she profit from the experience and misfortunes of others and take those needed measures of preparedness which prudence and wisdom dictate. In a word, will she draw any valuable lessons from the Great War? This is the question which is so often asked. As yet there is no answer. It is the question uppermost in the minds of all those who are intelligently interested in our country's welfare and safety. It is the question which vitally concerns all of us, as it concerns the defense and possibly the very existence of our nation. The answer must be "Preparedness." If we are to live, preparedness to oppose the force of wrong with the strength of right. Will it be? That's the question! Or will America drift on blind to the lessons of the world tragedy, heedless of consequences, concerned with the accumulation of wealth, satiated with a sense of moral worth which the world does not so fully recognize, planning to capture the commerce of the warring nations, and expecting at the same time to retain their friendship and regard. Let us hope that, in the light of what is, and as a preparation against what may be, the answer will be characteristic of a great people, peaceful but prudent and foreseeing; that it will be thorough, carefully thought-out preparedness; preparedness against war. A preparedness which if it is to be lasting and secure must be founded upon the moral organization of our people; an organization which will create and keep alive in the heart of every citizen a sense not only of obligation for service to the nation in time of war or trouble, but also of obligation to so prepare himself as to render this service effective. An organization which will recognize that the basic principle upon which a free democracy or representative government rests, and must rest, if they are to survive the day of stress and trouble, is, that with manhood suffrage goes manhood obligation for service, not necessarily with arms in hand, but for service somewhere in that great complex mass which constitutes the organization of a nation's might and resources for defense; organization which will make us think in terms of the nation and not those of city, State, or personal interest; organization which will result in all performing service for the nation with singleness of purpose in a common cause—preparedness for defense: preparedness to discharge our plain duty whatever it may be. Such service will make for national solidarity, the doing away with petty distinctions of class and creed, and fuse the various elements of this people into one homogeneous mass of real Americans, and leave us a better and a stronger people. Once such a moral organization is accomplished, the remaining organization will be simple. This will include an organization of transportation, on land and sea, and of communications. An organization of the nation's industrial resources so that the energy of its great manufacturing plants may be promptly turned into making what they can best make to supply the military needs of the nation. By military needs we mean all the complex requirements of a nation engaged in war, requirements which are, many of them, requirements of peace as well as of war. It will also include a thorough organization of the country's chemical resources and the development thereof, so that we may be as little dependent as possible upon materials from oversea. At present many important and essential elements come from oversea nations and would not be available in case of loss of sea control.