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showing 354 library results for 'sword'

Key figures aboard RMS Titanic : superstars and scapegoats /Anthony Nicholas. "Titanic. The Marilyn Monroe of ocean liners. A sleek, sultry beauty, taken out way before her time. A kind of 21st century Flying Dutchman, with interiors by Cesar Ritz, still striving to achieve the waters of a port she can never reach. Fuelled by a subtle mixture of horror, fascination and sheer, fatal glamour, she surges heedlessly across the still, starlit calm of our collective subconscious, hell bent on achieving her chilling, near midnight rendezvous with her killer. Titanic is a brilliantly lit stage, carrying her cast of exotic, terminally endangered extras toward an abyss at once both unfathomable and inconceivable. Here's where any similarity with any other tome about the Titanic ends. For the first time ever, a succession of key characters and groups of individuals come to the fore. Centre stage, over seventeen chapters, we meet the men whose decisions, actions and omissions combined like some slow burning powder trail to trigger a final, cataclysmic conclusion; the foundering, in mid Atlantic, of the biggest moving object ever seen on the face of the planet. One by one, a series of individuals take a bow. Seemingly omnipotent owners and hugely experienced ship's officers. Engineers and designers. Would be rescuers and embattled wireless operators. We meet them as individuals, not supermen. Their histories, backgrounds and life experiences are assessed for the first time ever, putting their actions on the night that Titanic sank into a context, a light as stark as that of the distress rockets, arcing into the sky?"--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.9163/
Why the Titanic was doomed : a disaster of circumstance /Bryan Jackson. "Titanic - the most magnificent ocean liner of her time - was doomed and destined for disaster before she ever left the docks at Southampton. Doomed by her owner, doomed by her designers, doomed by the men who sailed her - doomed even by her sister ship. Author Bryan Jackson presents a new and unique look at the many circumstances that came together the night of April 14, 1912 to claim over 1,500 lives and leave Titanic lying in 12,000 feet of water on the bottom of the North Atlantic. Each chapter details how seemingly disconnected pieces served to create a tragedy that remains as significant today as it was over a century ago. They include flawed design decisions, outdated regulations, substandard materials, weather conditions, lookouts left blinded and warnings never acted upon. Perhaps the most fascinating piece is a look at how events involving sister ship Olympic would result in Titanic being placed directly on course to meet the iceberg which would sink her. In addition, Jackson offers a look at the circumstances that saved some from perishing in the tragedy. They range from the rich and famous - to family members traveling in third-class who managed to escape the sinking while the majority of the passengers sailing in those accommodations would not survive. Also provided is a comprehensive Titanic timeline which details the events which lead to her construction - and eventual destruction."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.9163/4
Killing the Bismarck : destroying the pride of Hitler's fleet /Iain Ballantyne. "In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic, to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy's pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eye-witness testimony of veterans, to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers and destroyers involved. He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat and mouse game as they shadow Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battlecruiser Hood, in which all but three of her ship's complement were killed; an event that filled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo-bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas. Finally, the author takes us into the final showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler's fleet. This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called 'ordinary sailors' caught up in extraordinary events. Killing the Bismarck is an outstanding read, conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.82BISMARCK
The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean : the ancient world economy and the kingdoms of Africa, Arabia and India /Raoul McLaughlin. "The ancient evidence suggests that international commerce supplied Roman government with up to a third of the revenues that sustained their empire. In ancient times large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and the seaboard off southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Freighters from the Roman Empire left with bullion and returned with cargo holds filled with valuable trade goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense and eastern spices. This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of south Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra. The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean is the first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study that reveals Rome's impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the Legions that maintained imperial rule. It offers a new international perspective on the Roman Empire and its legacy for modern society."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382(37)
World War Two at sea : the last battleships :rare photopgraphs from wartime archives /Philip Kaplan. "The big-gun battleship served as a symbol of the ultimate power of the world's greatest navies beginning late in the nineteenth century and continuing into the Second World War. So historically important was this vessel that the arms race between Britain and Germany to build navies with larger, more powerful battleships was among the key sources of tension between those nations in the lead up to the First World War. In this book, veteran battleship crew members describe their unforgettable experiences, including those of a young officer in a British battleship at Jutland; tales of the loss of the German warship Scharnhorst in the arctic off the North Cape; the combat experience inside a sixteen-inch gun turret aboard an Iowa-class battleship bombarding Iraq during the Gulf War, and the adventures of HMS Warspite in World War One, in the Mediterranean and on her way to the breaker's yard in 1947. Included too is the story of the great German battleship Bismarck, which sank the pride of the British fleet, the story of HMS Hood, and that of the USS Missouri on whose deck the final surrender document of the Second World War was signed. The text is combined with a compelling selection of historic images representing the era of the great battleships from the early years through the First and Second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the preservation of a handful of these vessels as museum pieces today."--Provided by the publisher. 2014. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 623.82(42)"1939/1945"