Military History

Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink David Bosco’s new book The Poseidon Project provides not only a historical account of the development of the international Law of the Sea from Early Modern times to the present day, but also an easily accessible guide to key legal concepts in this complex area of international law. Comprising eight chapters and a conclusion, the book follows a chronological approach. The first two chapters cover modern history before the outbreak of World War I. The third chapter deals with both World Wars and the interwar period while the fourth chapter deals with the period from 1945 to1970. Chapters five through seven focuses on the period of UNCLOS I…

John H. Maurer and Erik Goldstein (editors), Naval Institute Press, (2022). Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. The editors are well-published senior scholars, well-equipped to undertake the organization and editing of this volume which focuses on the interwar years of two global conflicts. Professor John H. Maurer is the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and served as the Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Erik Goldstein serves as Professor of International Relations and History Boston University; his research interests include diplomacy, formulation of national diplomatic …

John H. Maurer and Erik Goldstein (editors), Naval Institute Press, (2022). Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. The editors are well-published senior scholars, well-equipped to undertake the organization and editing of this volume which focuses on the interwar years of two global conflicts. Professor John H. Maurer is the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and served as the Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Erik Goldstein serves as Professor of International Relations and History Boston University; his research interests include diplomacy, formulation of national diplomatic s…

Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. James G. Stavridis, a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1976, who majored in English and would ultimately rise to four-star admiral, spent 37 years as a surface warfare officer on active service in the U.S. Navy. He commanded destroyers (USS Barry and subsequently Destroyer Squadron 21) and Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, which conducted combat operations in the Persian Gulf in support of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He was the first Navy officer to command the United States Southern Command and became NATO’s 16th Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) 2009-2013. Admiral …

We are joined in our discussion, by Admiral Vern Clark, Admiral Robert Natter, Admiral William Fallon, and Rear Admiral Samuel Cox to address the Navy’s response in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The post Blog first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart This remarkable book is much more than a biography of Lt. Col. Barry B. Bridger; it is also a guide to living life to the fullest. The story is of two parts, Lt. Col. Bridger’s life up and through captivity and his life after leaving the U.S. Air Force. His time as a POW started on January 23, 1967, when his F-4 Phantom fighter was shot down by a SAM over North Vietnam and ended 8 years later when he was repatriated home. One of the points that Lt. Col. Bridger makes in the book is that while PTSD affected 31 percent of those who served in Vietnam, it affected less than 5 percent of those held POW. This difference, he holds, was of the re…

Reviewed by Major Chris Ketcherside, USMC (Ret.) The Ten Thousand-Day War at Sea is a companion book to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum’s exhibit of the same name, though it does hold up well enough on its own as a short summation of all U.S. Naval operations during the conflict in Vietnam. The book is relatively short at 101 pages, and most of these are given over to photographs of Naval actions in Vietnam and the related exhibits at the museum. It is organized by topic, covering every facet of Naval operations during the war, including special forces, logistics, gunfire support, surface actions, aviation, and so on. Also covered in their own sections are exceptio…

The following speech was delivered by RADM Joseph F. Callo, USNR (Ret), to the Society of the War of 1812 in the State of New Jersey and Jamestowne Society at the Nassau Club of Princeton, New Jersey on 29 October 2011. It also appears in the Fall 2011/Winter 2012 issue of “Pull Together.” The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is approaching, and after 200 years it’s time to change how we think about that war. To support that proposal, I’m going to explore what I believe the narrative of that war has been and how we might change it to make it more accurate and more relevant to our own lives and times. http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/NH-43575-KN-e…

Reviewed by Tyler Robinson The War of Jenkins’ Ear is Robert Gaudi’s second book in the genre of military history. At a glance it seems quite different from its predecessor, African Kaiser, which focuses on German military operations in Africa in the First World War. However, the two works have certain themes in common. Both focus on conflicts between European powers over distant colonial interests, prosecuted by unprecedentedly diverse units. Moreover, both feature extraordinary feats of navigation and recognize the unglamorous role of sanitation and disease prevention in averting military casualties. A quote from J.H. Powell lamenting his inability to write his…

By Richard L. Wright, Xlibris (2022) Reviewed By: Michael Romero, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Following the end of the American Revolution, the fledgling United States immediately found itself in dire financial straits. With no funds available to maintain them, the handful of surviving Continental Navy vessels were sold, and the service disbanded. The ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 empowered Congress “To provide and maintain a Navy,” but what exactly does that process entail? Captain Richard Wright’s To Provide and Maintain a Navy: 1775-1945 shows how that question has been answered from the time of the U.S. Navy’s founding through the end o…

By Phil Keith with Tom Clavin, Hanover Square Press [HarperCollins], (2022) Reviewed by John Grady “To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth” is one of the best works aimed at a general audience on the naval aspects of the Civil War. Phil Keith and Tom Clavin have brought back to life one of the most rakish figures of the war, Raphael Semmes, the Maryland-born Confederate raider and given much needed attention to John Winslow, the North Carolinian and relentless hunter of his former shipmate who was then commanding CSS Alabama. The CSS Alabama’s record of taking more than 60 vessels registered in the United States during its cruising of the world’s oceans remai…

Hear how, in only 60 days, founder of the Top Gun program Dan Pedersen assembled his team and created a legacy which lasts to this day. View the full webinar HERE. The post Blog first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart If small boat action is of any interest to you, this book is a must read. While thousands of books have been written about the fight to the death between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine during World War II, almost all of these books have concentrated on the convoy battles in the waters of the North Atlantic. There was, however, another series of convoy battles fought between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine. In these battles, it was the Royal Navy who was the attacker and the Kriegsmarine the defender. These battles were fought in the coastal waters of Europe. It is noted in the book’s preface that Royal Navy motor torpedo boats fi…

Reviewed by Dr. Joseph Moretz In Turret Versus Broadside, Howard J. Fuller, a Reader in War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton in Great Britain, relates the history of the Royal Navy’s struggle to retain maritime supremacy in the face of ironclad warships innovated by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. The engagement between ironclads in April 1862 off Hampton Roads might have ended in a tactical draw, but the strategic effects of the encounter between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia were of an altogether higher order. It represented a continuance of the Union Navy’s blockade against the Confederacy to be sure, but also across the sea there was a rea…

By Staff Historian Dr. Dave Winkler It was an honor back in 2011 to meet Tom Hudner who toured the Cold War Gallery that the Naval Historical Foundation had raised funds for. Ten years earlier the NHF hosted a symposium about the Korean War to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War and the Hudner rescue attempt to save Ens. Jessie Brown was discussed in detail and retired Vice Adm. Gerald Miller stood up in the back of the Navy Memorial theater to state he had been on the bridge of Leyte when radio transmissions of the loss of Brown’s aircraft and Hudner’s subsequent ditching of his aircraft to attempt to extract Brown were received. Miller recalled Le…

By Staff Historian Dr. Dave Winkler It was an honor back in 2011 to meet Tom Hudner who toured the Cold War Gallery that the Naval Historical Foundation had raised funds for. Ten years earlier the NHF hosted a symposium about the Korean War to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War and the Hudner rescue attempt to save Ens. Jessie Brown was discussed in detail and retired Vice Adm. Gerald Miller stood up in the back of the Navy Memorial theater to state he had been on the bridge of Leyte when radio transmissions of the loss of Brown’s aircraft and Hudner’s subsequent ditching of his aircraft to attempt to extract Brown were received. Miller recalled Le…

Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. Published twenty years after the death of the author, Franz Kurowski, the book focuses on U-48, the most successful U-Boat in World War 2. During the war, the author served as a Luftwaffe paratrooper with the Afrika Korps. After the war, he worked as a freelance journalist and wrote over one hundred books, including Panzer Aces: German Tank Commanders in World War II. U-48 provides a look into naval operations in World War 2 from the perspective of the Germans prior to the entry of the United States into the conflict. The book gives readers a detailed description of how the commanders of U-48 proved incredibly successful by si…

Reviewed by CAPT Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) U.S. Aircraft Carriers 1939-45 is an excellent 2021 addition to the Casemate Illustrated Specials series. This slim volume offers a surprisingly comprehensive overview of American carriers that served in World War II as well as those that belonged to wartime classes but were completed only in the aftermath of the war. Author Ingo Bauernfeind also reviews aircraft developments starting in World War I and then goes deeper in describing the development of fleet carriers and naval aircraft from USS Langley (CV-1), through the conversions of USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Saratoga (CV-3), to interwar carrier designs. He contrasts wor…

By Ken W. Sayers, McFarland Publishing (2021). Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Ken Sayers’s U.S. Navy Patrol Vessels: A History and Directory from World War I to Today provides a thorough look at the multitude of patrol vessels from the mid-19th century USS Michigan to the modern Cyclone-class which have served the United States Navy in varying capacities since World War I across many oceans and waterways. Sayers, a former USN officer who served on a Pacific Fleet destroyer, at the Pentagon, and later worked for IBM, assembled this 550-page tribute to the lesser US Navy surface combatants from the World Wars, into the Cold War conflicts and even the modern day. Sayer…

Reviewed by CAPT Derick R. Fix, USN Unlike Anything That Ever Floated is one of the newest additions to the Savas Beattie Emerging Civil War Series, which offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important battles and stories. Author Dwight Sturtevant Hughes provides a captivating narrative of the Battle of Hampton Roads and the clash of the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. Hughes, a United States Naval Academy graduate, retired surface warfare officer, and Civil War naval historian is well-suited to this task, having previously published A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah and currently serving as a cont…