Bluejacket books

The nuclear-powered USS Skate was the first submarine to break the surface of the North Pole. Author James Calvert captained the Skate and his book details a series of exploratory underwater voyages north before he and his crew finally found a way to the top and triumphantly smashed through the polar ice-cap on 17 March 1959.

"In quiet voices they tell their stories: small dramas filled with scenes of heartbreak, frustration, heroism, hope, and triumph. Their stage is the sweeping panorama of the naval war in the Pacific. They were actors then, both known and unknown, thirty participants in the turbulent epic that began with the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor and ended with the signing of the surrender documents in Tokyo Harbor. Their remembrances, carefully culled from a vast collection of oral history interviews conducted by John T. Mason over the past twenty-five years, are personal, poignant, and incisive. And because the men were participants in historic events, they often reveal new perspectives and facts not included in traditional works of history." --Jacket flap.

"When the nuclear-powered submarine USS Triton was commissioned in November 1959, its commanding officer, Capt. Edward L. Beach, planned a lengthy but otherwise routine shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic. Two weeks before the scheduled cruise, however, Beach was summoned to Washington and told of the immediate necessity to prove the reliability of the Rickover-conceived submarine. His new secret orders were to take the Triton around the world, entirely submerged the whole time. When asked if his new ship could do this, he responded simply "Yes, sir!"" "Here is Captain Beach's firsthand account of the thirty-six-thousand-nautical-mile voyage whose records for speed and endurance still stand today. It brings to life the many tense events in the historic journey: the malfunction of the fathometer, an instrument essential to locating undersea mountains and shallow waters; the agonizing illness of a senior petty officer; and the serious problem that suddenly overtook the ship's main hydraulic oil system. But with the stress came frequent moments of humor and poignancy, which, as described by Beach, make readers feel as if they had been along on the ride of a lifetime."--Jacket.

For centuries, four nations along the northern rim of Africa then known as the Barbary Coast had been terrorizing merchant shippers, capturing and looting their vessels and imprisoning their crews for ransom. With a vital lifeline of the infant United States threatened by the Barbary pirates, President Thomas Jefferson faced one of the first major challenges to U.S. foreign policy: He could continue trading arms for hostages with the Barbary Coast rulers or he could meet force with force.

Story of the Philippine campaign as told by four officers of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3.

Hailed as heart stopping and almost unbearably suspenseful, Edward L. Beach's third novel is set fifteen years after the end of World War II as the US Navy converts its fleet of conventional submarines to nuclear-powered ships. The book focuses on the USS Cushing, whose sixteen missile silos carry more explosive power than all the munitions used in both world wars. The submarine is on a secret mission to the Arctic Ocean to determine whether her missiles are effective when fired from beneath the ice. When the Cushing is incapacitated with a suspicious Russian sub lurking in the vicinity, the scene is set for a dramatic novel rich in all the technical detail and submarine lore that have entertained millions of readers of Captain Beach's other fictional works.

Few American presidents have exercised the constitutional authority of Commander in Chief with such determination and in such detail as Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. Commander in Chief is the story of FDR's war as it has never been told before -- a full-size picture of how he ran it, picked his key military leaders, and arranged events so that the Grand Alliance was directed from Washington. Individual chapters describe Roosevelt's relations with George C. Marshall, Ernest Joseph King, Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold, Archer Vandegrift, Douglas MacArthur, Chester W. Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Joseph Warren Stilwell, and Curtis E. LeMay. - Publisher.