American Naval

 Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives - and the fate of nations - hanging in the balance. 

Regarded as the standard biography of World War II naval hero Adm. Raymond A. Spruance. Spruance, victor of the battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea and commander of the Fifth Fleet in the invasions of the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Marianas, and Okinawa, is one of the towering figures in American naval history. Yet his reserved, cerebral personality did not make "good copy" for correspondents, and until the publication of The Quiet Warrior he remained an elusive figure.

Americans have long been fascinated by the Civil War, marveling at the size of the battles, the leadership of the generals, and the courage of the soldiers. The North managed to have spectacular success jointly coordinating operations between the Army and Navy, thanks in large measure to the leadership of officers like David Farragut. While generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman received the lion’s share of the credit for Union victories, naval forces were instrumental, and Farragut was immediately recognized for his service.

John Paul Jones is more than a great sea story. Jones is a character for the ages. John Adams called him the "most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American Navy." The renewed interest in the Founding Fathers reminds us of the great men who made this country, but John Paul Jones teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones' spirit was classically American.

How history's only five-star admirals triumphed in World War II and made the United States the world's dominant sea power. Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey. These...

Life has dealt him an unfair hand, leaving him with few options. Will a chance encounter with a caring American colonial family provide a poor English boy with a stable home, or will the boy be lost in events that are spiraling out of control? Peter Smith, a boy of humble beginnings, is a testament to the human spirit. Despite his impoverished upbringing, abduction, and mistreatment, he refuses to be defined by his circumstances. Born into poverty and hopelessness on the streets of Portsmouth, England, Peter is forced into a life of crime just to survive. His resilience is tested when he is...

"Absorbing history of an unlikely alliance.” - Kirkus Reviews From the New York Times bestselling authors of Ghosts of Honolulu comes their most harrowing true story yet. It's 1942, and New York City is at war. German U-boats are sinking ships just miles offshore, and Washington, DC, is...

The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no less than 22 navies fighting on five oceans - to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history.

In 1896 Key West, sixteen-year-old Frank Gilbert is already drawn to the hidden engines of the modern world—signal masts, steam pumps, harbor machinery, and the hard discipline of men who keep ships moving. But when his Navy family is transferred to a raw, fast-growing Miami, Frank finds himself caught between old loyalties, new ambitions, and a city being built almost as quickly as he is becoming a man. As war with Spain gathers just ninety miles away, Frank is pulled toward the sea, toward service, and toward the questions that have always followed him: where does he belong, what kind ...

With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the...

Rebellion Brews in Boston Harbor In The Boston Affair, the fifth gripping installment of The Patriot Sailor series, the tides of revolution surge as tea spills and loyalties fracture. When a covert mission entangles our daring sailor in the heart of the Boston Tea Party, secrets surface that could sink the cause. Or ignite it. History collides with high-stakes adventure. Will he navigate betrayal and stormy alliances, or be swept under by the rising tide of war?

An engrossing biography of a Civil War naval hero. Ideal reading for those who have enjoyed the books of William C. Davis, Bruce Catton and Craig L. Symonds. David Dixon Porter was the father of the modern United States Navy. He was son of the distinguished naval leader, Commodore Porter, and his adoptive brother was the famous Union Admiral, David G. Farragut. Yet, it was not through nepotism that David Dixon Porter was able to rise to the top of the US Navy. His seamanship abilities first became apparent during the Mexican-American War when he planned and participated in the assault on ...

Winner of the Gold Medal in the Readers' Choice Awards! In June 1775, amid the Revolutionary War’s early stirrings, Irish Yankee Jeremiah O’Brien, seizes a British armed schooner off the Maine coast to thwart the cargo of lumber she was escorting from reaching British forces in Boston. Inspired by this daring victory, Jeremiah abandons his lumber business to command privateer vessels, relentlessly pursuing British merchant ships across dangerous waters. Defying the British navy’s tightening grip on the Massachusetts coast, he risks his life and his ships to capture many prizes. Yet ...

War is coming. The first blood has been spilled. Jack Horner has always dreamed of an adventure filled life. He spends his afternoons in the Boston Harbor watching ships as they come into port from far flung origins. A life at sea holds the promise of adventure, but Jack is doomed to the constricts of being the son of a lower-class blacksmith. The forge and anvil loom large over his future like an impending wave destined to crash down and topple his dreams of seeing distant shores. But, there is a foul wind blowing over Boston in the spring of 1770. Clashes between local townsfolk and the ...

Grandson of a Signer. Conqueror of California. The Architect of a Divided Empire. Robert Field Stockton was born to the American aristocracy, carrying the weight of his grandfather’s Declaration of Independence into the rigors of the young US Navy. From hunting slavers off the coast of Africa to scattering pirates in the Caribbean, Stockton’s zeal for American expansion knew no bounds. The inventor of the steam battleship, he secured Texas and conquered the California coast for a growing Union. But Stockton’s brilliance was matched only by his contradictions. A man of high Christian ...

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever. In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice.

In his new audiobook Ships of Oak and Guns of Iron: The War of 1812 and the Birth of the American Navy, author Dr. Ronald Utt not only sheds new light on the naval battles of the War of 1812 and how they gave birth to our nation's great navy, but tells the story of the War of 1812 through the portraits of famous American war heroes.

This is the exciting story about how the young American Republic established the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Revenue Cutter Service (the predecessor to the Coast Guard), designed and built the most powerful class of frigate in the world, trained its seamen in gunnery and naval warfare and gained battle experience in the Quasi-War with France in 1798-1800 and the Barbary War ("Shores of Tripoli") in 1801-1805.

They were legalized pirates empowered by the Continental Congress to raid and plunder, at their own considerable risk, as much enemy trade as they could successfully haul back to America's shores. They played a decisive role in America's struggle for independence and later turned their seafaring talents to the slave trade, revealing the conflict between enterprise and morality central to American history.

The definitive and dramatic account of what became known as "Operation Vengeance" -- the targeted kill by U.S. fighter pilots of Japan's larger-than-life military icon, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the naval genius who had devised the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. “AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR...