Library Results | Royal Museums Greenwich

The merchantmen in action : evacuations and landings by merchant ships in the Second World War /Roy V. Martin. "During World War 2, the Merchant Navy's main task was to run the German blockade, bringing essential food, fuel and materials to a besieged nation. The civilian crews came from all parts of the Empire and beyond - more than one in six were killed. Even less is known about the part played by merchantmen in evacuations from countries that were overrun. They saved over 90,000 troops from Dunkirk and went on to rescue more than 200,000 troops and civilians from other parts of France. When Singapore fell, the Merchant Navy again helped many to escape. They moved men and materials for the landings of Madagascar, North Africa and the Mediterranean coast of Europe. A British government press release reported that 50,000 volunteer British merchant seamen manned over 1,000 ships for D-Day. They also manned salvage ships, rescue tugs and other specialist craft. Merchantmen in Action tells the story of these other achievements. Chapters include Singapore; the Norwegian campaign; Dunkirk; the Channel Islands; Greece and Crete; Sicily and Italy; the Normandy landings; the South of France, Gibraltar, etc, with detailed ship listing and human stories."--From publisher. 2012. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545:656.61

Fighting ships, 1850-1950 / Sam Willis. "Fighting Ships 1850-1950 presents a stunning collection of 150 large-scale paintings, drawings, photographs and ship plans that tell the story of naval warfare from the first iron and steam warships to the deadly U-boats of World War II. Published in partnership with the National Maritime Museum, this new edition includes many updated images. The period's most significant naval engagements are depicted in striking detail - the bombardment of Sveaborg during the Crimean war, the attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as the evacuation of Dunkirk and the D-Day landings - revealing the glory and exhilaration of the last great age of marine warfare. Arranged chronologically, the ships illustrated include HMS Warrior, the first iron-hulled, heavily armoured warship; the battleship Aurora which ignited the Russian revolution; formidable German battle cruiser Bismarck; British aircraft carriers HMS Argus and HMX Illustrious and the Japanese Akagi, among many others. This remarkable collection not only showcases updated images of some of the greatest naval artists of the period but also features powerful photographs, often taken by the sailors themselves. Each image is accompanied by Sam Willis's expert commentary, shedding light on the key naval conflicts of the era and the breathtaking complexity of the modern warship."--Provided by the publisher. [2014]. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 623.82(100)"1850/1950"

Great White Fleet : celebrating Canada Steamship Lines passenger ships /by John Henry ; foreword by the Right Honourable Paul Martin, PC, CC. The inland passenger steamers of the Canada Steamship Lines were collectively known as the Great White Fleet. The ships ranged from day excursion vessels to luxurious cruise ships. The passenger fleet at the company's inception in 1913 comprised 51 steamers and covered the waterways of the Great Lakes from Chicoutimi to Niagara and from Windsor to Duluth, taking passengers travelling for business and pleasure. This book relates the history of the Great White Fleet from 1913-1965. It contains many black and white photographs and colour reproductions of posters and other promotional material. A section on vessel data provides details of the passenger steamers mentioned in the book. [2013] • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 387.2/4309710904

Bligh : William Bligh in the South Seas /Anne Salmond. A biography of William Bligh (1754-1817). The author, an anthropologist, focuses on Bligh's three voyages in the South Seas and the impact of his encounters with the Pacific Islanders. Beginning with Bligh's voyage on the Resolution with Captain Cook (1776-80) during which Cook met his death, the author also examines Bligh's first breadfruit voyage on the Bounty (1787-89) during which the famous mutiny occured and resulted in Bligh's 3,618-mile voyage in an open boat to Timor, and then, finally, his second breadfruit voyage on HMS Providence (1791-93). Detailed notes and a bibliography are provided. 2011. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92BLIGH

Windrush : 75 years of modern Britain /Mike Phillips and Trevor Phillips. "In 1948 the former troop ship Windrush made the 30-day journey across the Atlantic from Jamaica. The arrival of its 500 passengers, the first generation of Caribbean migrants in the UK, was the initial step in the formation of a new identity: the black Briton. Fifty years later, Mike and Trevor Phillips spoke to those on the Windrush itself, as well as those who followed, to tell the story of Britain in the second half of the twentieth century through the eyes of the outsiders who became insiders. Now updated to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the ship's voyage and including reflections on its political and cultural legacy in 2023, Windrush is an essential record of this transformative era in British social history."--Provided by the publisher. 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 305.896041

A world history of the seas : from harbour to horizon /Michael North ; translated by Pamela Selwyn. "Offering an introduction to the world's seas as a platform for global exchanges and connections, Michael North uncovers a rich world history of the seas over more than 3,000 years. Exploring the challenges and dangers of the oceans that humans have struggled with for centuries, he also shows the possibilities and opportunities they have provided from antiquity to the modern day. Written to demonstrate the global connectivity of the seas, but also to highlight regional maritime power during different eras, From Harbour to Horizon takes sailors, merchants and migrants as the protagonists of these histories and explores how their experiences and perceptions were consolidated through trade and cultural exchanges. Bringing together the various maritime historiographies of the world and underlining their unity, this book shows how the ocean has been a vital and natural space of globalization. Carrying goods, creating alliances, linking continents and conveying cultures, the seas have played a central role in creating our modern globalized world and have sat at the forefront of human endeavour and cultural mediation."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 551.4609

Time and the French Revolution : the Republican calendar, 1789-year XIV /Matthew Shaw. "The French Republican Calendar was perhaps the boldest of all the reforms undertaken in Revolutionary France. Introduced in 1793 and used until 1806, the Calendar not only reformed the weeks and months of the year, but decimalised the hours of the day and dated the year from the beginning of the French Republic. This book not only provides a history of the calendar, but places it in the context of eighteenth-century time-consciousness, arguing that the French were adept at working within several systems of time-keeping, whether that of the Church, civil society, or the rhythms of the seasons. Developments in time-keeping technology and changes in working patterns challenged early-modern temporalities, and the new calendar can also be viewed as a step on the path toward a more modern conception of time. In this context, the creation of the calendar is viewed not just as an aspect of the broader republican programme of social, political and cultural reform, but as a reflection of a broader interest in time and the culmination of several generations' concern with how society should be policed."--Publisher's description. 2011. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48"1793/1806"(44):529.5

Knock John ship / James Dodds "As a child in Brightlingsea I always thought that our old German piano came from the wreck on the Knock John. However it is more probable it came from the later wreck of the Hawksdale in 1899, which was said to have had 500 pianos on board. My Great Grandfather William Pannell would have purchased it at the auction of salvaged goods. He even built his house from the stone ballast from another wrecked ship. It would be interesting to know how many items from the Knock John Ship survive in Brightlingsea to this day. Some forty odd years ago my baby-sitter found a bale of military cloth hidden under her floor boards. Could this have come from the Knock John? I learnt to sail on an ex-stowboating smack the Shamrock, and while serving my apprenticeship as a shipwright I illustrated several books for Hervey Benham, a wonderful local marine writer. Hervey's book the Salvagers is were I started my search for the true identity and date of the Knock John Ship, with the idea that she was carrying pianos. Now a professional artist, I am living back in Brightlingsea with my family in a house built by my great grandfather, and first owned and lived in by the Captian of his smack the Waterlily. This book marks the return to my roots and the fascinations of my youth. I hope you will find the story of the Knock John ship as fascinating as I do."--Provided by the Publisher. 2001. • PAMPHLET • 1 copy available. 629.123KNOCKJOHN

The Royal Navy in the age of austerity 1919-22 : naval and foreign policy under Lloyd George /G.H. Bennett. "This book thoroughly explores and analyses naval policy during the period of austerity that followed the First World War. During this post-war period, as the Royal Navy identified Japan its likely opponent in a future naval war, the British Government was forced to 'tighten its belt' and cut back on naval expenditure in the interests of 'National Economy'. G.H. Bennett draws connections between the early 20th century and the present day, showing how the same kind of connections exist between naval and foreign policy, the provision of ships for the Royal Navy, business and regional prosperity and employment. The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919-22 engages with a series of important historiographical debates relating to the history of the Royal Navy, the failures of British Defence policy in the inter-war period and the evolution of British foreign policy after 1919, together with more mundane debates about British economic, industrial, social and political history in the aftermath of the First World War. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of British naval history."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49(42)

William Watkins Ltd : London's First Major Towage Company /John E. Reynolds. ''William Watkins Ltd was founded in 1833 in London by John Rogers Watkins and his son William. Their first tug, Monarch, was said to be the finest on the river. As the tugs got more sophisticated they began towing ever larger ships across the Channel and with increasing range they sought tows in the outer estuary and further afield. By 1875, Anglia carried out tows from St. Helena and Suez, huge distances considering her coal consumption. Watkins proved themselves to be the premier company for ocean towage in this period. They continued to develop and innovate, building their first screw tug, Era, in 1869 and, by the 1880s, the screw tugs were fast replacing the paddle tugs on the Thames. At the outbreak of the First World War the British Government made Watkins an advisor on tugs during the conflict, their vessels ranging far and wide from the White Sea to the Gallipoli landings. They were again on the front line during the Second World War, from the Dunkirk evacuation to the 'D' Day landings. This comprehensive account charts the 140 year history of the Watkins family in towage, details all of the tugs that have been in their fleet through this period and discusses their work on the River Thames, during both world wars and around the world, with many photographs and personal accounts of life aboard.''--Provided by the publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt

Nelson's lost jewel : the extraordinary story of the lost diamond chelengk /Martyn Downer. "Admiral Lord Nelson's diamond Chelengk is one of the most famous and iconic jewels in British history. Presented to Nelson by the Sultan Selim III of Turkey after the Battle of the Nile in 1798, the jewel had thirteen diamond rays to represent the French ships captured or destroyed at the action. A central diamond star on the jewel was powered by clockwork to rotate in wear. Nelson wore the Chelengk on his hat like a turban jewel, sparking a fashion craze for similar jewels in England. The jewel became his trademark to be endlessly copied in portraits and busts to this day. After Trafalgar, the Chelengk was inherited by Nelson's family and worn at the Court of Queen Victoria. Sold at auction in 1895 it eventually found its way to the newly opened National Maritime Museum in Greenwich where it was a star exhibit. In 1951 the jewel was stolen in a daring raid by an infamous cat-burglar and lost forever. For the first time, Martyn Downer tells the extraordinary true story of the Chelengk: from its gift to Nelson by the Sultan of Turkey to its tragic post-war theft, charting the jewel's journey through history and forging sparkling new and intimate portraits of Nelson, of his friends and rivals, and of the woman he loved."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92NELSON

Admiralty despatches : the story of the war from the battlefront 1939-45 /G. H. Bennett. "From at least as early as the eighteenth century it became a tradition that, following operations involving the Royal Navy, the commanding admiral would report to the Admiralty in the form of an official despatch. Following the French wars of 1792-1815 the despatches were published and that set a precedent. After the Second World War the relevant despatches for 1939-45 were published (from 1947 onwards) as supplements to the London Gazette. The despatches reproduced here, introduced and annotated by Professor Bennett, cover events with a huge bearing on the outcome of the war, such as the convoys in the Mediterranean and to Russia, major amphibious operations and raids such as Dieppe, alongside some of the minor operations involving the Royal Navy and, of course, D-Day. These important documents are published here in an accessible form. We are fortunate that they were written in a way designed to be understood by the public at the time. What they reveal, not only about naval operations but about their authors, is fascinating.--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 354.71

The wretched of the earth / Frantz Fanon. "A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon's masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said's Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other. Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world."--Provided by the publisher. [2020]. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 965

Beyond the sea : a Wren at war /Christian Lamb. "Love, duty and true-life adventure in the shadow of the Second World War. Christian Lamb is one of the last surviving Wren Officers to have served her country throughout the whole of WW2. Having joined the Women's Royal Naval Service at nineteen, she quickly rose through the ranks, serving at a degaussing range before being posted to Operations and Radar in Belfast. There she joined the team tracking the movements of the Royal Navy and the dreaded Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic, the biggest sea battle of the war. Plotting the progress of the Royal Navy's ships became an intensely personal mission for Christian when her fiance John's ship HMS Oribi was surrounded by a U Boat 'wolf pack'. Though her colleagues tried to persuade her to cut short her shift, Christian insisted on remaining at her post to mark Oribi's progress as the terrifying attack unfolded. Thankfully, HMS Oribi and John made it to shore. Newly married, Christian was next posted to a vital role back in London COHQ. In a basement office in Whitehall, she worked on top secret maps for the D Day landings, while Winston Churchill paced the floor upstairs. Now in her 101st year, Christian is keen to share her remembrances of duty, danger, love and marriage in war before they are beyond living memory"--Provided by publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545941092

More lives than a ship's cat / Jeremy Stoke. "By any standards Mick Stoke's experiences in the Royal Navy during the Second World War were remarkable. Aged nineteen, he was 'Mentioned in Despatches' and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his courage during incessant bombing during the Siege of Tobruk. He survived multiple torpedo attacks, firstly serving on the cruiser Glasgow, which was hit twice; on the battleship Queen Elizabeth at sea and blown up by human torpedoes at Alexandria; and on HMS Hardy, struck in January 1944, while escorting Russian Arctic Convoy JW56B. In 1942, he was serving on HMS Carlisle during the fiercely fought Malta convoys and took part in the Battle of Sirte. Later that year he was awarded the MBE 'for outstanding bravery, resource and devotion to duty during very heavy bombing' at the port of Bone during Operation TORCH. He went on to serve at D-Day and later in the Pacific on HMS Rajah. It is a privilege to read Mick Stoke's graphic and modest account of his naval service in the Second World War. Readers will appreciate and understand how he became 'The Most Highly Decorated Midshipman in the Royal Navy'." --Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 2 copies available. 92STOKE

The United States Navy in World War II : from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa /Mark E. Stille. "A comprehensive overview of the strategy, operations, and vessels of the United States Navy from 1941 to 1945. Although slowly building its navy while neutral during the early years of World War II, the US was struck a serious blow when its battleships, the lynchpin of US naval doctrine, were the target of the dramatic attack at Pearl Harbor. In the Pacific Theater, the US was thereafter locked into a head to head struggle with the impressive Imperial Japanese Navy, fighting a series of major battles in the Coral Sea, at Midway, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, and Okinawa in the struggle for supremacy over Japan. Having avoided the decisive defeat sought by the IJN, the US increased industrial production and, by the end of the war, the US Navy was larger than any other in the world. Meanwhile in the west, the US Navy operated on a second front, supporting landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and in 1944 played a significant part in the D-Day landings, the largest and most complex amphibious operation of all time. Written by an acknowledged expert and incorporating extensive illustrations including photographs, maps, and color artwork, this book offers a detailed look at the strategy, operations, and vessels of the US Navy in World War II." --Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.5373

The catalogue of shipwrecked books : young Columbus and the quest for a universal library /Edward Wilson-Lee. "Without libraries, what have we? We have no past and no future. This book tells for the first time in English the story of the first great universal library in the age of printing - and of the son of Christopher Columbus who created it. This is the scarcely believable and wholly true story of Christopher Columbus' bastard son Hernando, who sought to equal and surpass his father's achievements by creating a universal library. His father sailed across the ocean to explore the known boundaries of the world for the glory of God, Spain and himself. His son Hernando sought instead to harness the vast powers of the new printing presses to assemble the world's knowledge in one place, his library in Seville. Hernando was one of the first and greatest visionaries of the print age, someone who saw how the scale of available information would entirely change the landscape of thought and society. His was an immensely eventual life. As a youth, he spent years travelling in the New World, and spent one living with his father in a shipwreck off Jamaica. He created a dictionary and a geographical encyclopaedia of Spain, helped to create the first modern maps of the world, spent time in almost every major European capital, and associated with many of the great people of his day, from Ferdinand and Isabel to Erasmus, Thomas More, and Drer. He wrote the first biography of his father, almost single-handedly creating the legend of Columbus that held sway for many hundreds of years, and was highly influential in crafting how Europe saw the world his father reached in 1492. He also amassed the largest collection of printed images and of printed music of the age, started what was perhaps Europe's first botanical garden, and created by far the greatest private library Europe had ever seen, dwarfing with its 15,000 books every other library of the day. Edward Wilson-Lee has written the first major modern biography of Hernando and the first of any kind available in English. In a work of dazzling scholarship, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells an enthralling tale of the age of print and exploration, a story with striking lessons for our own modern experiences of information revolution and Globalisation."--Provided by publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92COLON

Logistics in the Falklands War : a case study in expeditionary warfare /Kenneth L. Privratsky. "While many books have been written on the Falklands War, this is the first to focus on the vital aspect of logistics. The challenges were huge; the lack of preparation time; the urgency; the huge distances involved; the need to requisition ships from trade to name but four. After a brief discussion of events leading to Argentina's invasion the book describes in detail the rush to re-organise and deploy forces, despatch a large task force, the innovative solutions needed to sustain the Task Force, the vital staging base at Ascension Island, the in-theatre resupply, the set-backs and finally the restoring of order after victory. Had the logistics plan failed, victory would have been impossible and humiliation inevitable, with no food for the troops, no ammunition for the guns, no medical support for casualties etc. The lessons learnt have never been more important with increasing numbers of out-of-area operations required in remote trouble spots at short notice. The Falklands experience is crucial for the education of new generations of military planners and fascinating for military buffs and this book fills an important gap."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.48"1982"(829)

Chatham in the great war. "Chatham played a very important part in the nation's Great War effort. It was one of the British Royal Navy's three 'Manning Ports', with more than a third of the town's ships manned by men allocated to the Chatham Division. The war was only 6 weeks old when Chatham felt the affects of war for the first time. On 22 September 1914, three Royal Naval vessels from the Chatham Division, HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, were sunk in quick succession by a German submarine, U-9. A total of 1,459 men lost their lives that day, 1,260 of whom were from the Chatham Division. Two months later, on 26 November, the battleship HMS Bulwark exploded and sunk whilst at anchor off of Sheerness on the Kent coast. There was a loss of 736 men, many of whom were from the Chatham area. On 18 August 1914, Private 6737 Walter Henry Smith, who was nineteen and serving with the 6th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, became the first person to be killed during wartime Chatham. He was on sentry duty with a colleague, who accidentally dropped his loaded rifle, discharging a bullet that strook Private Smith and killed him. It wasn't all doom and gloom, however. Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, visited Chatham early on in the war, on 30 August 1914. On 18 September 1915, two German prisoners of war, Lieutenant Otto Thelen and Lieutenant Hans Keilback, escaped from Donnington Hall in Leicestershire. At first, it was believed they had escaped the country and were on their way back to Germany, but they were re-captured in Chatham four days later. By the end of the war, Chatham and the men who were stationed there had truly played their part in ensuring a historic Allied victory."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 914.223"1914/1918"

Schnellbootwaffe : Adolf Hitler's guerrilla warfare at sea: S-Boote 1939-1945 ; rare photographs from wartime archives /Hrvoje Spajic. "The Schnellbootwaffe was created in the early 1930s, before the Second World War, in concurrence with the regenerated Kriegsmarine, and young officers, most of whom learned their craft in the old Imperial Navy, would take responsibility for the operational use of these revolutionary vessels. Working with the naval engineers of Lurssen Shipyard, the Germans designed combat weapons that were never surpassed by their opponents. After the first series of Schnellboote were launched, constantly improved versions of these vessels would follow. The Schnellbootwaffe would achieve significant victories for the Kriegsmarine at the beginning of the war by using these vessels in high-level strategies, including a style of guerrilla warfare. The British often call German torpedo boats E-boats, and these fast vessels were a genuine threat not only to coastal trade, but also to the movement of Allied ships after D-Day. Indeed, Admiral Rudolf Petersen's flotillas remained combat-ready until the very end, even after the balance of power was in favour of the Allies. Allied air bombardment of German torpedo boat bases from 1944 onwards failed to destroy the offensive potential of the Schnellboote and their crews. The Allied disaster at Lyme Bay at the end of April 1944 shows how this guerrilla war at sea was still dangerous, even at this stage of the war. The Allied invasions plans were not yet known to the Germans, but Eisenhower learned a great deal from Lyme Bay and the Schnellbootwaffe was still potentially dangerous right until the end of the war. This book tells the fascinating story about these special people, whose pirate spirit and guerrilla style of naval combat is reminiscent of the ancient pirates and their own way of warfare."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.545943

Empireland : how imperialism has shaped modern Britain /Sathnam Sanghera. "In his brilliantly illuminating new book Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in our imperial past. In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the Covid crisis. And yet empire is a subject, weirdly hidden from view. The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to understanding Britain. However, even among those who celebrate the empire there seems to be a desire not to look at it too closely - not to include the subject in our school history books, not to emphasize it too much in our favourite museums. At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera's book urges us to address this bewildering contradiction. For, it is only by stepping back and seeing where we really come from, that we can begin to understand who we are, and what unites us."--Provided by publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 941

Voices of the Windrush generation : the real story told by the people themselves /David Matthews. "Voices of the Windrush Generation is a powerful collection of stories from the men, women and children of the Windrush generation - West Indians who emigrated to Britain between 1948 and 1971 in response to labour shortages, and in search of a better life. Edited by journalist and bestselling author David Matthews, this book paints a vivid portrait of what it meant for those who left the Caribbean for Britain during the early days of mass migration. Through his own, and many other stories, Matthews explores: why and how so many people came to Britain after World War II, their hopes and dreams, the communities they formed and the difficulties they faced being separated from family and friends while integrating into an often hostile society. We hear how lives were transformed, and what became of the generations that followed, taking the reader right up to the present day, and the impact of the current Windrush deportation scandal upon everyday people. At once a nostalgic treasure trove of human interest, which unearths the real stories behind the headlines, and a celebration of black British culture, Voices of the Windrush Generation is an absorbing and important book that gives a platform to voices that need to be heard."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 325.14(42:729)

The man who caught Crippen : The amazing life of Henry Kendall /Joe Saward "Captain Henry Kendall was a mariner who lived from 1874 to 1965. He was a hero of his age and in 1910, as captain of the SS Montrose, sent a celebrated wireless message from his ship to Scotland Yard, as he headed out into the Atlantic Ocean: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen, London cellar murderer and accomplice, are among saloon passengers." Inspector Walter Dew of the Metropolitan Police raced to Liverpool and boarded a faster ship to Canada. In the newspapers each day the world watched... as the power of radio communication was proved for the first time, in the most dramatic fashion. The story made Kendall a household name. Four years later, at almost exactly the same spot as Crippen had been arrested, in the St Lawrence Estuary, close to the Father Point lighthouse, the RMS Empress of Ireland, which Kendall was commanding, was hit by a heavily-laden coal frieghter, with an ice-breaking bow. The liner sank in just 14 minutes, killing 1012 people. By a quirk of fate Kendall survived - although he had no desire to do so... Kendall's life reads like a work of fiction. He went to sea as a cabin boy at 15. He survived attempted murder, shipwrecks, torpedoes, icebergs, scorpion bites, cannibals, sharks, fevers, flying bombs and even a marauding leopard. The captain of an Atlantic liner by the age of 32, he played a key role in rescuing 800 refugees when the Germans invaded Belgium in 1914, using one liner to tow another out of Antwerp, despite attempts to stop the two ships leaving. The whole story has been researched in the course of the last 20 years and follows the amazing tale of "The Grand Prix Saboteurs", about the motor racing champions who became British secret agents in Occupied France during WWII."--Provided by the publisher. 2010 • BOOK • 1 copy available.

Red Tobruk : memoirs of a World War II destroyer commander /Frank Gregory-Smith ; edited by Dominic Symons. "Red Tobruk, the war memoir of the Captain of HMS Eridge from late 1940 until August 1942 is a superb account of wartime action at sea. Frank Gregory-Smith's war started on the destroyer Jaguar and he saw actionoff Norway and during the Dunkirk evacuation, when she was hit by enemy air attack with 25 men killed. Command of the new escort destroyer HMS Eridge followed (he was to be her only Captain) and they deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, and so began agruelling 18 months of convoys to Tobruk and Malta under German controlledskies. 'Red Tobruk' was the name for the enemy aircraft warning that the Tobruk radar station put out which all sailors dreaded as it meant yet another attack was imminent. Eridge survived countless such attacks. She fought in the famous Battle of Sirte when the powerful Italian fleet was seen off. She had to pick up survivors, take stricken ships in tow and once had only blanks to fire at attacking enemy aircraft. Among Eridge's achievements was the sinking ofU-568 in May 1942. The author's luck finally ran out in August 1942 when Eridge was torpedoedby an Italian MTB. Under constant air attack, she was towed to Alexandriabut was irreparable. Saddened by the loss of his ship but cheered by the Allies' increasing superiority, Gregory-Smith returned to Britain having been awarded two DSOs and one DSC (a second followed at D-Day). All this and more is told in the most graphic and moving fashion in this exceptional memoir, which will recall to many readers that naval classic The Cruel Sea. The big difference, of course, is that Red Tobruk is a truepersonal account."--Provided by the publisher. 2008. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92GREGORY-SMITH

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