One of only two survivors of the famous Cockleshell Hero raid, Bill Sparks' war and postwar career has never before been told in full. In this gripping book, he describes not only his part in Operation FRANKTON, the daring Gironde raid, and his escape back to Britain, but how he fought with the Greek Sacred Squadron thereafter. Operating in small groups they raided and liberated islands in the Aegean Sea. After the war, bored with life as a bus driver, he joined the Malayan Police and saw action aplenty during the Emergency. Always something of a military maverick, Bill's memoir is truly action-packed. The book benefits from the inclusion of the official German investigation report into the Cockleshell Raid.

Cockleshell Commando: The Memoirs of Bill Sparks

Biographies & Memoirs

Sparks, Bill

Historical

Pen and Sword Maritime

The Rescue Ships and the Convoys: Saving Lives During The Second World War

History

Schofield, Victoria

Schofield, Vice Admiral B.B.

Military

"Goulty tells the story from the perspective of the ordinary sailor or officer who was there."―The Northern Mariner\nAlthough 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.\nThroughout 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.\nA 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.

Naval Eyewitnesses: The Experience of War at Sea, 1939–1945

Goulty, James

Leaders & Notable People

The battle of Lepanto has long been considered one of the decisive naval battles of history. Yet, the savage fighting on Sunday, 7 October 1571 left the strategic map unchanged and the defeated Ottoman Turks were able to replace their losses and launch a new fleet the following year. Nic Fields reexamines the battle and concludes that, while it merely confirmed a strategic reality that had already emerged during the 16th century (i.e. that naval supremacy lay with the Sublime Porte in the eastern Mediterranean, and with Habsburg Spain and its Catholic allies in the western Mediterranean), it's vital importance was psychological. It sank the perception of Ottoman dominance and the inevitability of Islam's westward encroachment beyond the Balkans.With over 200 ships per side, it was the largest naval battle in sixteen centuries and the last major fight between fleets composed entirely of the muscle-driven galley. These slender ships were the direct descendants of the Classical trireme but carried cannon and marines bearing firearms, although massed archery and cold steel still played a major rôle on the fateful day. Nic Fields gives an excellent account of this fascinating and spectacular battle.

Lepanto 1571: The Madonna's Victory

Fields, Nic

Ancient Civilizations

Warships named HMS London have been associated with some of the most controversial episodes in British naval history, from the bungled sea battle that lost King George III his American colonies, to the shambles of Gallipoli in WW1, and the notorious decision by the Admiralty to abandon convoy PQ17 in WW2.The WW2 cruiser HMS London was also tasked with hunting down the German battleship Bismarck's supply ships, using information provided by Bletchley Park after it cracked Enigma. Post-WW2, the same HMS London made a brave attempt to rescue HMS Amethyst during the famous Yangtse Incident. The last HMS London, a Type 22 frigate, was flagship of the British fleet's task group in the Gulf War of 1991.Iain Ballantyne's fascinating and lively account of the lives of British warships named London is illustrated throughout with photographs, many of them never published before. London looks at history from the perspective of the men who were there and among the people Iain has interviewed are veterans of the grim Arctic convoys of WW2, the Yangtse Incident, and warriors of the Cold War and Gulf War. It all adds up to a thoroughly researched and exciting narrative of naval history.

HMS London: From Fighting Sail to the Arctic Convoys & Tomorrow's Wars

Ballantyne, Iain

Europe

Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel.\nIn addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as ‘the worst journey in the world’.\nFortunately, Charlie, who served on two destroyers, HMS Milne and Savage, kept a record of his experiences and is alive today to describe them. His story, published to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the first convoy, is more than one man’s account. It is an inspiring tribute to his colleagues, many of whom were killed in action. No-one reading Surviving The Arctic Convoys could fail to be moved by the bravery and endurance of these outstanding men.

Surviving the Arctic Convoys: The Wartime Memoirs of Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell

McKay, John R

Erswell, Charlie

On 16 March 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. In the following year the Royal Navy's African Squadron was formed, its mission to stop and search ships at sea suspected of carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Middle East. With typical thoroughness, the Royal Navy went further, and took the fight to the enemy, sailing boldly up uncharted rivers and creeks to attack the barracoon's where the slaves were assembled ready for shipment. For much of its long campaign against the evil of slavery Britain's Navy fought alone and unrecognised. Its enemies were many and formidable. Ranged against it were the African chiefs, who sold their own people into slavery, the Arabs, who rode shotgun on the slave caravans to the coast, and the slave ships of the rest of the world, heavily armed, and prepared to do battle to protect their right to traffic in the forbidden black ivory. The war was long and bitter and the cost to the Royal Navy in ships and men heavy, but the result was worthy of the sacrifices made. The abolition of the slave trade led to a scramble for empires and, in place of slaves, Africa began to export cocoa, coffee, timber, palm oil, cotton and ores, all very much in demand in the West.

Royal Navy Versus the Slave Traders: Enforcing Abolition at Sea 1808–1898

Edwards,Bernard

One hundred and fifty years ago the Royal Navy fought a daring campaign against ruthless pirates and won. On West African shores they killed The King of the Pirates, Bartholomew Roberts and captured his fleet. Scores of his men were executed by the Admiralty Court.On the Barbary Coast of North Africa pirates preyed on shipping in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic as they had done for centuries and they terrorized the populations of the coastal towns. To them, piracy was a way of life, and the great sea-powers of the day couldnt stop them. Then, in one of the most remarkable and neglected anti-piracy operations in maritime history, the Royal Navy confronted them, defeated them and made the seas safe for trade.This is the subject of Graham A. Thomass compelling new study of one of the most pernicious episodes in the history of African piracy. As he tells this compelling story, he uncovers the long tradition of piracy and privateering along the African shore. Vividly he describes attacks not only in the Mediterranean but also on the other side of the continent, along the shores of West Africa and around Madagascar. But perhaps the most telling sections of his narrative concern critical engagements that stand out from the story the daring rescue of the British merchant ship The Three Sisters by HMS Polyphemus in 1848 and the actions of the battleship HMS Prometheus against the Rif pirates a few years later.His account is based on documents held at the National Archives and other original sources. It gives a fascinating inside view into the way in which the Royal Navy responded to the menace of piracy in the nineteenth century.

Pirate Killers: The Royal Navy and the African Pirates

Thomas, Graham A.

Africa

Edward Teach Blackbeard is one of the legends of the so-called golden age of piracy. There have been so many accounts of his short, bloody career that it is hard to see him and his times in a clear historical light. This new study looks for the man behind the legend, and it gives a vivid insight into the nature of piracy and the naval operations that were launched against it.The narrative focuses on the roles played by the Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood who masterminded the pursuit of Blackbeard, and Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl who led the pursuit and finally cornered Teach and his crew and, after a vicious fight, saw him killed.In vivid detail it reveals how the hunt for Blackbeard was orchestrated, how he was tracked down, and the parts played in the drama by the larger-than-life leading characters in this extraordinary story.This freshly researched study of the pursuit of the notorious pirate and his crew - and of the final fight in which Blackbeard lost his life - makes compelling reading.

Blackbeard: The Hunt for the World's Most Notorious Pirate

CABELL, CRAIG

Richards, Allan

Review\n“…(those) who enjoy traditional naval history will appreciate the depth of Tracy’s knowledge of naval strategies and tactics…expertly contextualizes the battle…” 
Nautical Research Journal\n“…a number of maps and illustrations…firmly grounded…definitive study…” 
International Journal of Maritime History\nRevered naval theorist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, thought the Battle of Quiberon Bay (20 Nov 1759) was as significant as Nelson's victory in 1805, calling it "the Trafalgar of this war [the Seven Years War]." Arguably it was even more vital. Britain in 1759 was much less well-defended, with virtually no regular troops at home, and the threat of French invasion was both more realistic and more imminent. When the British fleet under Admiral Hawke fell upon them, the French ships of the line under Admiral Conflans were actually on their way to rendezvous with the invasion troopships gathered at the mouth of the Loire. Yet the battle and the admiral remain relatively obscure - there is no Quiberon Square or Hawke's column.\nThe battle itself was fought in terrible weather, the French attempting to exploit their local knowledge by heading for Quiberon Bay, assuming the British would not follow them among its treacherous shoals in such conditions. Hawke, however, pursued them under full sail and the French ships were destroyed, captured, run aground, or scattered for the loss of only two British ships which ran aground. The invasion was thwarted.\nProfessor Nicholas Tracy studies the battle and its strategic consequences, particularly upon the war for North America.

The Battle of Quiberon Bay, 1759: Britain's Other Trafalgar

Tracy, Nicholas

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