John McCains grandfather, a four-star admiral and one of the navys greatest commanders, led the strongest aircraft carrier force of the Third Fleet during World War II. McCains father, also a four-star admiral, served as commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. It was in Vietnam that John McCain III faced the most difficult challenge of his life. A naval aviator, he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967. Recognized as the son...

The story of John Paul Jones has it all: great battles on the high seas, and high drama at every turn. Children will delight in the stories and history of the Father of the American Navy. Crafted with a wealth of detail and rich illustrations, each biography in this appealing collection offers 32 pages that entice readers to discover the remarkable people who built our great nation. The primary narrative focuses on the childhood, education, motivations,...

Admittedly small and vulnerable, PT boats were, nevertheless, fast-the fastest craft on the water during World War II-and Dick Keresey's account of these tough little fighters throws new light on their contributions to the war effort. As captain of PT 105, the author was in the same battle as John F. Kennedy when Kennedy's PT 109 was rammed and sunk. The famous incident, Keresey says, has often been described inaccurately and the PT boat depicted...

Blazing sea fights and undercurrents of intrigue: these are among the compelling ingredients of a biography that brings to life the most illustrious and formidable figure of the United States Navy. His name is carried by more than two dozen towns and cities. Here at last is a full exploration of Stephen Decatur's complex character. Reckless in youth, cool yet audacious in combat, loved by those who sailed under his command yet plotted against by rivals...

"This is the story of the first women naval aviators and their struggles and triumphs as they earned their Wings of Gold, learned to fly increasingly sophisticated jet fighters and helicopters, mastered aircraft carrier landings, served at sea, and reached heights of command that would have been unthinkable less than a generation before. It is also the story of the legacy they left behind"--

In the mid-nineteen sixties, Harry Constance made a life-altering journey that led him out of Texas and into the jungles of Vietnam. As a young naval officer, he went from UDT training to the U.S. Navy's newly formed SEAL Team Two, then straight into furious action. By 1970, he was already the veteran of three hundred combat missions and the recipient of thirty-two military citations, including three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.Good to Go is Constance's...

Sealab is the underwater Right Stuff: the compelling story of how a US Navy program sought to develop the marine equivalent of the space station-and forever changed man's relationship to the sea. While NASA was trying to put a man on the moon, the US Navy launched a series of daring experiments to prove that divers could live and work from a sea-floor base. When the first underwater "habitat" called Sealab was tested in the early 1960s, conventional...

On August 12, 1944, Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., heir to one of America's most glamorous fortunes, son of the disgraced former ambassador to Great Britain, and big brother to freshly minted PT-109 hero JFK, hoisted himself up into a highly modified B-24 Liberator bomber. The munitions he was carrying that day were fifty percent more powerful than TNT. Kennedy's mission was part of Operation Aphrodite/Project Anvil, a desperate American effort...

The Life of the First Captain of the United States Navy

Finalist for the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Excellence in Naval Literature

"Ashore as well as at sea, Tim McGrath paints an informative, engaging and highly entertaining portrait of this worthy but neglected hero of American independence. The author shows us a man who was a magnificent embodiment of common sense—and uncommon courage and

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"More than the story of a single, savage engagement, Unsinkable traces the individual journeys of five men on one ship from Casablanca in North Africa, to Sicily and Salerno in Italy and then on to Plunkett's defining moment at Anzio, where a dozen-odd German bombers bore down on the ship in an assault so savage, so prolonged, and so deadly that one Navy commander was hard-pressed to think of another destroyer that had endured what Plunkett had. After...