The British Royal Navy was as big as the rest of the world's fleets combined. But in the summer of 1812, that didn't stop a handful of American sloops and frigates from challenging it yardarm to yardarm. this is the stirring story of how, in one dramatic ship duel after another, they broke the spell of British invincibility at sea, which marked the coming-of-age of the U.S. Navy.

"When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, the new German luxury ocean liner SS Vaterland was interned in New York Harbor, where it remained docked for nearly three years--until the United States officially entered the fight to turn the tide of the war. Seized by authorities for the US Navy once war was declared in April 1917, the liner was renamed the USS Leviathan by President Woodrow Wilson, and converted into an armed troop carrier that transported...

"As the shadows of World War II gather, the SS Lichenfield is westbound across the Pacific carrying eighty thousand barrels of highly explosive naphtha. The cargo alone makes the journey perilous, with the entire crew aware that one careless moment could lead to disaster. But yet another sort of peril haunts the Lichenfield. Even beyond their day-to-day coexistence, the lives of the crew are mysteriously intertwined. Though each has his own history,...

How Carriers Fought explores how aircraft carriers were used, particularly by the U.S. Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy, during World War II. It offers a uniquely detailed insight into carrier operations and reassessment of a number of carrier battles, busting a number of myths about carriers and naval aviation along the way.

"The final volume of the magisterial Pacific War Trilogy from acclaimed historian Ian W. Toll, "one of the great storytellers of war" (Evan Thomas). Twilight of the Gods is a riveting account of the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the U.S. Navy won the largest naval battle in history; Douglas MacArthur made good his pledge to return to the Philippines; waves of kamikazes attacked the Allied fleets; the Japanese fought to the...

The story of the Battle of Samar and the sacrifice of the USS Samuel B. Roberts documents how the destroyer and its small unit confronted formidable Japanese forces to secure the region for MacArthur's transports inside Leyte Gulf, in an account that also describes the harrowing three days endured in the sea by the ship's survivors.

"Based on a true story--P.T. Deutermann's Trial by Fire is a dramatic WWII novel of attack, survival, and triumph on board an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. March 19, 1945: The war in the Pacific approaches its apocalyptic climax. The largest wartime armada ever assembled, Task Force 58, is closing in on Okinawa; once taken, it will finally put American B-29 bombers in range of the home islands of Japan--and victory. At the heart of the fleet are...

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US entered World War II in December 1941 with only 44 Naval submarines -- many of them dating from the 1920s. With the Pacific battleship fleet decimated after Pearl Harbor, it was up to the feisty and heroic sailors aboard the US submarines to stop the Japanese invasion across the Pacific.