Battle on the Bay

Battle on the Bay PDF

Author: Edward T. Cotham, Jr.

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0292782470

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The Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. As other Southern ports fell to the Union, Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy's only lifelines to the outside world. When the war ended in 1865, Galveston was the only major port still in Confederate hands. In this beautifully written narrative history, Ed Cotham draws upon years of archival and on-site research, as well as rare historical photographs, drawings, and maps, to chronicle the Civil War years in Galveston. His story encompasses all the military engagements that took place in the city and on Galveston Bay, including the dramatic Battle of Galveston, in which Confederate forces retook the city on New Year's Day, 1863. Cotham sets the events in Galveston within the overall conduct of the war, revealing how the city's loss was a great strategic impediment to the North. Through his pages pass major figures of the era, as well as ordinary soldiers, sailors, and citizens of Galveston, whose courage in the face of privation and danger adds an inspiring dimension to the story.

Battle of the Bay

Battle of the Bay PDF

Author: Gary Peterson

Publisher: Triumph Books

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1623688108

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Gary Peterson is a staff writer for the Bay Area News Group. He was previously the sports columnist at the Contra Costa Times for 25 years, during which he covered the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants throughout the 1989 season. During his career, he has covered 13 Super Bowls, five World Series, four Olympic Games, and one Final Four, winning multiple Associated Press Sports Editors awards as a top-10 sports columnist. He lives in Concord, California. A former manager of the Chicago White Sox, Oakland A's, and St. Louis Cardinals, La Russa led teams to three World Series titles. He resides in Alamo, California.

The Battle of Milne Bay 1942

The Battle of Milne Bay 1942 PDF

Author: Nicholas Anderson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-08-05

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1925675688

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By 1942 the formidable Japanese military had conquered swathes of territory across south-east Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Despite its defeat at the Battle of Midway, Japan remained a potent enemy committed to the creation of a defensive arc to shield its captured possessions in the Pacific. The capture of Port Moresby would cement the southern border of this defensive arc and sever the vital lines of communication between Australia and the United States. It was the Japanese plan to seize Moresby that would set the course for the Battle of Milne Bay. Situated on the eastern tip of New Guinea, Milne Bay was a wretched hell-hole: swamp-riddled, a haven for malaria and cursed with torrential rain. It was here that General Douglas MacArthur ordered the secret construction of an Allied base with airfields to protect the maritime approach to Port Moresby. But the Japanese soon discovered the base at Milne Bay and despatched a task force to destroy its garrison and occupy the base. All that stood between the Japanese and their prize was a brigade of regular Australian soldiers untrained in tropical warfare and a brigade of Australian militia with no combat experience whatsoever. While the Kokoda campaign is etched in public memory, its sister battle at Milne Bay has long been neglected. However the bitter fighting over this isolated harbour played an equally important role in protecting Port Moresby and made a valuable contribution to shifting Allied fortunes in the Pacific War.

Battle for the Bay

Battle for the Bay PDF

Author: Joshua M. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2012-05

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9780864927590

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As the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 approaches, a new chapter in the history of the war is being opened for the first time. Although naval battles raged on the Great Lakes, combat between privateers and small government vessels boiled in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. Three small warships - the Provincial sloop Brunswicker, His Majesty's schooner Bream, and His Majesty's brig of war Boxer - played a vital role in defending the eastern waters of British North America in this crucial war. The crews of these hardy ships fought both the Americans and the elements - winter winds, summer fog, and the fierce tidal currents of the Bay of Fundy - enduring the all-too-real threats of shipwreck and possible capture and imprisonment. In peacetime, these patrol craft enforced maritime law. In wartime, they engaged in a guerre de course, attacking the enemy's commercial shipping while protecting their own. Now, for the first time, Joshua Smith tells the full story of the battle for the bay.

The Battle of Quiberon Bay, 1759

The Battle of Quiberon Bay, 1759 PDF

Author: Nicholas Tracy

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2010-08-19

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1844681661

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This authoritative history chronicles the Royal Navy’s decisive yet little-known victory over the French during the Seven Years’ War. In the mid-18th century, with virtually no regular troops at home, Britain was especially vulnerable to the immanent threat of French invasion. In a cunning naval offensive, the British fleet under Admiral Edward Hawke intercepted French ships on their way to rendezvous with invasion troopships gathered at the mouth of the Loire. Unfairly overlook in history books, the Battle of Quiberon Bay not only spoiled the planned French invasion, but also established British naval dominance. Once under attack, the French changed course for Quiberon Bay, assuming the British would not follow them among its treacherous shoals in stormy weather. Yet Hawke pursued them under full sail. The French ships were destroyed, captured, run aground or scattered—while the British only suffered two ships run aground. In this insightful narrative, Nicholas Tracy studies the battle, its strategic consequences, and its effect on the war for North America.

West Wind, Flood Tide

West Wind, Flood Tide PDF

Author: Venetia Friend

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1612513514

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Immortalized by David Farragut's apothegm, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," the Battle of Mobile Bay remains one of history's great naval engagements, a contest between two admirals trained in the same naval tradition who once fought under the same flag. This new study takes a fresh look at the battle—the bloodiest naval battle of the Civil War—examining its genesis, tactics, and political ramifications. If the Confederacy had been able to deny the Union a victory before the presidential election, the South was certain to have won its independence. The North's win, however, not only stopped the blockade-runners in Mobile but insured Lincoln's re-election. Although the Union had an advantage in vessels of eighteen to four and an overwhelming superiority in firepower, it paid dearly for its victory, suffering almost ten times as many casualties as Franklin Buchanan's Confederate fleet. The author traces the evolution of the battle from the time Farragut took command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in February 1862 until the battle was fought on 5 August 1864. He then continues the narrative through the end of the war and explains how the battle influenced ship design and naval tactics for years to come.

Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast

Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast PDF

Author: Andrew W. Hall

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014-06-10

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 1625850247

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In the last months of the American Civil War, the upper Texas coast became a hive of blockade running. Though Texas was often considered an isolated backwater in the conflict, the Union's pervasive and systematic seizure of Southern ports left Galveston as one of the only strongholds of foreign imports in the anemic supply chain to embattled Confederate forces. Long, fast steamships ran in and out of the city's port almost every week, bound to and from Cuba. Join author Andrew W. Hall as he explores the story of Texas's Civil War blockade runners--a story of daring, of desperation and, in many cases, of patriotism turning coat to profiteering.

Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila

Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila PDF

Author: James M. Scott

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2018-10-30

Total Pages: 631

ISBN-13: 0393246957

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“Illuminating.… An eloquent testament to a doomed city and its people.” —The Wall Street Journal In early 1945, General Douglas MacArthur prepared to reclaim Manila, America’s Pearl of the Orient, which had been seized by the Japanese in 1942. Convinced the Japanese would abandon the city, he planned a victory parade down Dewey Boulevard—but the enemy had other plans. The Japanese were determined to fight to the death. The battle to liberate Manila resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the city and a rampage by Japanese forces that brutalized the civilian population, resulting in a massacre as horrific as the Rape of Nanking. Drawing from war-crimes testimony, after-action reports, and survivor interviews, Rampage recounts one of the most heartbreaking chapters of Pacific War history.