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As readable as fiction, as timely as today's headlines, this authoritative, concise history of the U.S. Navy traces the development of American seapower from the raggle-taggle Continental Navy of 1775 to current efforts to deploy strategic and tactical naval innovations for the twenty-first century. Originally published in 1977 and revised and updated twice, this book has come to be recognized as the standard history of the Navy, treasured by midshipmen at the Naval Academy and valued by general readers looking for a brief but inclusive study. In telling the story of the Navy, author Nathan Miller describes not only its ships and weapons but the role played by its men and women in the creation and protection of the United States. This new third edition includes enhanced coverage of the Marine Corps.

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A character study of the German submarine force that challenges traditional and revisionist views of the service.

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Colonel Frank Kowalski served as the Chief of Staff of the American military advisory group that helped establish the National Police Reserve, the predecessor to the Japan Self-Defense Forces, and provided daily guidance to it during its first two years of existence. In this book, Kowalski provides, with great care, a detailed account of the manning, logistics, and personalities involved in standing up, on short notice, of a force of approximately 75,000, while sharing insights about the diplomatic, political, legal, and constitutional challenges his headquarters and his Japanese counterparts faced in navigating this new course for Japan in the wake of the sudden outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950. In light of these limitations, the path for rearmament had to be slow and “inoffensive” while psychologically and materially contributing to Japan’s defense. His account is balanced, a blend of both criticism and praise, of all of those involved, including himself. Kowalski, who later served in Congress, was a highly intelligent Army officer who was expecting to be deployed to Korea in the summer of 1950, after serving in local military governments in western Japan, when he was tapped for the above secret mission to make a new Japanese army while having to call it a police reserve. An honorable man, he was pained by the subterfuge he and his government, working hand in hand with the Japanese government, had to play in order to establish this needed organization and believes many things were mishandled, but also viewed the “quiet and reasonable approach” of the rearmament program as successful and allowing the NPR to “adequately and effectively” provide for the urgent defense needs of the Japan and the United States, with its quarter million dependents left to fend for themselves in Japan in 1950. Kowalski notes that there has always been a tension in the postwar U.S.-Japan relationship over Japan not doing enough to contribute to the bilateral alliance and international security. This book will not end that debate, but it provides greater context and historical understanding of what factors existed at the time. This is a particularly important topic as Japan is re-examining its defense posture today, both for its own needs as well as to strengthen its still complicated relationship with the United States, its only alliance partner. Written in the mid-1960s, and published in Japanese in 1969, this is the first time this edited book has appeared in English.

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Brave, energetic, intensely patriotic, Stephen Decatur is America's first great naval hero after John Paul Jones. His short and dramatic life is a story of triumph and tragedy told by the noted historian and author of some twenty books, Spencer Tucker. Decatur's raid into Tripoli Harbor in 1804 to burn the Philadelphia, a prized U.S. warship captured when it ran aground during the Barbary Wars, earned him international fame. An admiring Horatio Nelson described the feat as «the most bold and daring act of the age.» Explaining the tremendous impact Decatur's action had on the early U.S. Navy, the author notes that it set a standard of audacity and courage for generations of future naval officers. At the age of twenty-five, Decatur was promoted to captain, becoming the youngest naval officer ever to attain that rank in the U.S. Navy. The book fully examines Decatur's astonishing achievements as it chronicles his rapid rise in the Navy, including his command of the Constitution and the United States, during the War of 1812, when he captured the British frigate Macedonian off the Azores. The book also recounts the cruise that many call his greatest triumph: Decatur sailed into the Mediterranean with a nine-ship American squadron to punish the dey of Algiers for taking American merchant shipping, securing peace with Algiers and keeping other Barbary states quiescent. Lionized by a grateful American public upon his return, Decatur offered a toast at a reception in his honor that is now legendary, «Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!» In describing Decatur's life, the author also examines Decatur's relationshipwith James Barron, a Navy captain who fatally shot Decatur during a 1820 duel.

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With Commodore Perry to Japan offers a personable account of Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old purser’s clerk of the Mississippi. The National Historic Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC) -endorsed documentary edition provides excellent coverage of both the political mission of the Perry expedition – the opening of relations with Japan – and of the social history of a naval warship as well. Speiden kept entries on a regular basis, although not always daily, and he filled more than three hundred, closely written pages dating from 9 March 1852 to 16 February 1855. Adding significantly to the interest of Speiden’s account are nearly seventy illustrations ranging from hand drawn, pen-and-ink scenes of everyday life sketched by Speiden and other members of the crew to exquisitely colored and detailed pith paintings by Chinese artists.Before its departure for Japan, the Mississippi made calls at several ports on the East Coast and also devoted more than a month to investigating problems involving fishing rights in Canadian waters. On 24 November 1852, following a visit from President Millard Fillmore, the Mississippi headed across the Atlantic Ocean. After a brief stop at Madeira and a visit ashore at St. Helena, where Napoleon’s gravesite was described and sketched, the Mississippi headed for the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town was reached on 24 January 1853, and after a stay of ten days, where Speiden visited the countryside remarking on the turmoil between the English and the Xhosa tribes, the voyage was continued across the Indian Ocean by way of Mauritius, Ceylon, Malacca, and Singapore to Macao and Hong Kong.On 31 March 1854, Speiden was among the few select officers in the landing party on the great occasion, the signing of the treaty between the United States and Japan. As a young purser’s clerk Speiden played only a minor role in these historic undertakings but he was enthusiastic and alert, and made the most of his situation and the opportunities it presented. A return visit, occupying most of June, was made to Shimoda before sailing for Hong Kong by way of the Loo Choo Islands. On 12 September 1854, Speiden and the Mississippi went to sea the following day, and the remainder of his journal, filling thirty-two pages, recounts visits to Honolulu, San Francisco (including a trip to the gold fields near Sacramento), and Valparaiso.

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When the nuclear-powered submarine USS Triton was commissioned in November 1959, its commanding officer, Captain Edward L. Beach, planned a 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 total distance.This is Beach's gripping firsthand account of what went on during the 36,000 nautical-mile voyage whose record for speed and endurance still stands today. It brings to life the many tense events in the historic journey: the malfunction of the essential fathometer that indicated the location of undersea mountains and shallow waters, the sudden agonizing illness of a senior petty officer, and the serious problems with the ship's main hydraulic oil system. Intensely dramatic, Beach's chronicle also describes the psychological stresses of the journey and some touching moments shared by the crew. A skillful story teller, he recounts the experience in such detail that readers feel they have been along for the ride of a lifetime.

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The main theme of Fire on the Water is that conventional measures of military balance, employed by both the general public and many policy experts, underestimate the threat that China’s military modernization poses to the U.S. position in the Asia-Pacific region. Within a decade, China’s leaders will have the military power to hold at risk U.S. interest in East Asia. The U.S. needs to fashion a new and competitive strategy, one that better matches the strengths of the U.S. and its allies against China’s vulnerabilities, in order to maintain a balance of power in the region and convince China’s leaders to pursue a cooperative course.It is not obvious to many observers why a conflict in the region is plausible, or why the U.S. should bear the responsibility for maintaining a forward military presence in the region. China has rapidly emerged as a great power and by doing so, has acquired many vital interests around the world. Following the pattern set by other such episodes in history, China is also acquiring the military means to protect its new interests, a development that puts at risk the interests of China’s neighbors and the United States. The U.S. forward military presence in the region is an increasingly difficult burden to sustain. But in the long run, this approach will be less costly and less risky than encouraging China’s neighbors to balance China by themselves, an alternative that will very likely result in an unstable arms race and a conflict that will damage America’s interests.While it will be in America’s interest to maintain its position in the Asia-Pacific region, China’s military modernization is making it much more difficult for the U.S. to do so. China’s military strategy, centered on its rapidly-expanding land-based and anti-ship missile forces, is exploiting weaknesses in long-standing U.S. force structure and doctrine. Due to a variety of institutional barriers, the U.S. has been slow to adapt to China’s military modernization. Current efforts to respond are impractical, in that they expend U.S. resources against China’s strengths rather than its vulnerabilities. The U.S. needs a new and competitive strategy that will strengthen its alliances in the region and convince China’s leaders that cooperation, rather than military expansion and an attempt at regional hegemony, will be China’s best course. Fire on the Water proposes reforms to U.S. diplomacy, military programs, and strategy that will offer a better chance at preserving stability. The goal of these reforms is to thwart China’s well-designed military modernization plan, bolster the confidence and credibility of U.S. alliances in the region, and thus persuade China’s leaders that China’s best course is cooperation rather than conflict, the outcome that has usually occurred in history when a new great power has rapidly emerged.

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Just as Thomas Cutler's The Bluejacket's Manual serves as the standard introduction and continuing reference guide for American sailors, this new handbook provides a basic reference guide for civilians working for the U.S. Navy. It will acquaint them with the Navy's world of acronyms, n-codes, uniforms, and customs. The author explains that a big step toward fitting in has always been learning how to talk the talk and walk the walk, and this guide provides new employees and veteran workers alike with the words and steps needed to succeed in the Navy.

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This book looks at an allegation of betrayal made against a young Foreign Office clerk, Victor Buckley, who, it was claimed, leaked privileged information to agents of the Southern States during the American Civil War. As a consequence, the CSS Alabama narrowly escaped seizure by the British Government and proceeded to wage war on American shipping. Victor Buckley’s background is examined against the hitherto erroneous belief that he was an insignificant member of the Foreign Office staff.The American minister Charles Francis Adams oversees a network of spies endeavoring to prove contravention of The Foreign Enlistment Act. The South’s agents, Captain James D. Bulloch and Major Caleb Huse, are the prime targets, and a battle of wits ensues as Bulloch oversees construction of his ships on Merseyside.A member of a prominent City family offers to enlist the help of a relative who, he claims, holds a confidential position in the Foreign Office. The Confederate agents are soon receiving information about the status of Anglo-American diplomacy and are able to outwit the Union spies and dispatch arms and supplies to the South. Their coup d'état is achieved with the arrival of a message that hurries the Confederate’s most formidable warship out of British waters.After the escape of the Alabama, the Government moves to curtail Bulloch’s operations. When the war ends in 1865, investigations begin into the circumstances surrounding the Alabama’s departure. As America demands reparation, evidence apparently incriminating Victor Buckley is acquired, but before the claim reaches its hearing in Geneva, diplomatic moves (some involving Anglo-American Masonic influence) result in a treaty and ensure that no allegation is made against any individual member of Foreign Office staff. Queen Victoria, anxious to see the Alabama Claims settled, is spared embarrassment.A scandal erupts in the Foreign Office in 1878 as a freelance clerk, Charles Marvin, leaks sensitive information to the press and subsequently writes of his experiences, revealing much of the ethos of the office pertinent to Buckley’s story. The writer Arthur Conan Doyle becomes fascinated by Anglo-American diplomacy and the Alabama question, and, soon after joining a London gentlemen’s club where Buckley’s alleged contact is a member, writes a Sherlock Holmes story involving a Foreign Office clerk’s apparent betrayal.For historians, it is important to know that the book explores the mindset of the Foreign Office during the American Civil War and prior to the Geneva Arbitration in greater depth than has been achieved before.It addresses previously unsolved mysteries that have puzzled historians for over 150 years and reveals the truth behind the success of Confederate naval activities in Britain. Consequently, it challenges some of the perceived views of the events that have been repeated in successive generations of books on the subject.For the general reader, it should be shown that the book provides an insight into nineteenth century Anglo-American politics, the subtleties of the British class system, and the fragile relationship between Britain and the United States at that time, each still conscious of their fractured past. In solving the stubbornly elusive mysteries surrounding the infamous CSS Alabama it shows how close Britain and America came to war, and how the resolution gave rise to the ‘Special Relationship.’

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Naval aviation historian William F. Trimble provides a clear and detailed portrait of the man who took on the challenge of forming an aeronautical bureau within the U.S. Navy in 1921 and then nurtured the early development of naval aviation. Describing Admiral William A. Moffett as one of the first high-ranking naval officers to appreciate the importance of the airplane and the effect it would have on the fleet, the author contends that the admiral's strong background as a surface officer gave him a credibility and trust with his superiors that others could not match. The author attributes Moffett's desire to keep aviation as part of the fleet, along with his diplomacy, tenacity, and political and military savvy, to the success of the infant air arm during its formative years. In striking contrast to the tactics of Army General Billy Mitchell, Moffett's handling of the loyalty issue and other politically sensitive topics saved the Navy's air arm, according to Trimble. The book is equally candid about the admiral's shortcomings, including his heavy-handed support for airships, a technological dead end that squandered millions and led to Moffett's death in 1933 when he went down with the airship Akron during a storm.

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