Run Silent Run Deep

This is a story of the silent service—the submarine crews which destroyed the Japanese merchant marine. A narrative taut with drama, told with the intimacy of a confession, it deals with two strong-headed men: their loves, their jealousies, and their destinies in the lonely and desperate struggle between the hunter and the hunted. Few war novels will rival Run Silent, Run Deep in the naked realism of its action. None will surpass its rising excitement and brilliant descriptions of men in combat. Unlike many war novels, here is a story that deals with war from the perspective of command. Edward Beach re-creates with fidelity the anguish, agony, and triumphs of command decisions. In Commander Richardson, he has created a character who embodies all that is fine, all that is human, in an excellent naval officer. In a sense, Run Silent, Run Deep is a monument, not to the misfits and the mistakes, but to those men who rose to greatness under the sometimes unbearable tensions of action.

“A great submarine story, on a par with The Hunt for Red October.”—Nelson DeMille Shattered by surprise attack, the U.S. rebuilds its fleet at Pearl Harbor. And the badly damaged Submarine Division Seven holds the line against the Japanese Navy. Every enemy ship that slips through means more lives lost. Now it’s up to Lt. Commander Jack Tremain to whip into shape a hardluck boat that’s returned from what may be the worst patrol in history. The loss of even one more American sub could be devastating. But Tremain is determined to make the Japanese pay. Even if this is his last patrol ever.

The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.

'The Ministry of Defence does not comment upon submarine operations' is the standard response of officialdom to enquiries about the most secretive and mysterious of Britain's armed forces, the Royal Navy Submarine Service. Written with unprecedented co-operation from the Service itself and privileged access to documents and personnel, The Silent Deep is the first authoritative history of the Submarine Service from the end of the Second World War to the present. It gives the most complete account yet published of the development of Britain's submarine fleet, its capabilities, its weapons, its infrastructure, its operations and above all - from the testimony of many submariners and the first-hand witness of the authors - what life is like on board for the denizens of the silent deep. Dramatic episodes are revealed for the first time: how HMS Warspite gathered intelligence against the Soviet Navy's latest ballistic-missile-carrying submarine in the late 1960s; how HMS Sovereign made what is probably the longest-ever trail of a Soviet (or Russian) submarine in 1978; how HMS Trafalgar followed an exceptionally quiet Soviet 'Victor III', probably commanded by a Captain known as 'the Prince of Darkness', in 1986. It also includes the first full account of submarine activities during the Falklands War. But it was not all victories: confrontations with Soviet submarines led to collisions, and the extent of losses to UK and NATO submarine technology from Cold War spy scandals are also made more plain here than ever before. In 1990 the Cold War ended - but not for the Submarine Service. Since June 1969, it has been the last line of national defence, with the awesome responsibility of carrying Britain's nuclear deterrent. The story from Polaris to Trident - and now 'Successor' - is a central theme of the book. In the year that it is published, Russian submarines have once again been detected off the UK's shores. As Britain comes to decide whether to renew its submarine-carried nuclear deterrent, The Silent Deep provides an essential historical perspective.

Lt. Charlie Harrison survived the horrors of Rabaul and the midnight battle with the Mizukaze. When he reports to Sabertooth at Pearl, he must contend with a crew that isn't quite welcoming and an officer protecting a dire secret. While underway, the captain reveals the submarine's mission--travel to the Japanese-occupied Philippines, deliver supplies to the Filipino guerillas, and bring American refugees home. When Sabertooth runs into Yosai, one of the aircraft carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, the mission changes. As disaster strikes, Charlie must take command and make the ultimate decision--get the refugees home, or risk everything on an all-or-nothing attack. "Adventure in the grand tradition: high stakes on the high seas, a gripping story that moves at frenetic pace without sacrificing character or detail. I read Silent Running in two sittings, literally on the edge of my seat." -John Dixon, author of Phoenix Island

From the national bestselling author of Final Patrol comes a gripping story of heroism under the sea. In November 1943, while on war patrol in the Makassar Strait, the USS Billfish submarine was spotted by the Japanese, who launched a vicious depth charge attack. Explosions wracked the sub for fifteen straight hours. With his senior officers incapacitated, diving officer Charlie Rush boldly assumed command and led key members of the crew in a heroic effort to keep their ship intact as they tried to escape. Now, in War Beneath the Waves, this intense story is finally told in all its harrowing detail. It is an inspiring tale of one man's leadership and courage under fire, and of the remarkable efforts of a submarine crew to do their duty and save their ship.

In 1972, following the huge success of Run Silent, Run Deep, Edward L. Beach's second novel of submarine warfare was published to great acclaim. Like its predecessor, Dust on the Sea was lauded for its authentic portrayal of what it meant to be a submariner during the desperate years of World War II. Tense, dramatic and rich in technical and tactical detail, the book draws on Beach's experience as a submariner in the US Navy to describe the commander and crew of the fictitious USS Eel as they battle overwhelming odds to destroy Japanese ships and save American lives. With no margin for error, the men withstand storms, depth charges and even hand-to-hand combat to defend their boat and themselves. Mistakes, as the title reminds us, result in the debris which serves as a brief grave maker for sunken ships: dust on the sea.