| ID | Description | Categories | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4674 | GAFFNEY, Patrick. Sons of the Seas: Royal Naval Stories and Tales of Foreign Seaports, from 1910-1966. iv, 205p., illus. Kibworth Beauchamp: Matador, 2016. ISBN: 9781784624347. A rather curious book in which the author tries to describe the naval career of a father he never met thanks to the complicated domestic life of his parents. It covers his father’s service in World War I and his service in WW2 in paddle minesweepers and LSTs, the latter mainly in the Mediterranean. It then covers his brother’s war service in the FAA, while the second half of the book covers his own peacetime service in the RN. Poorly organised and edited, it does however give a real feeling for the impact of war on individuals and on family life and the strains this caused on relationships. |
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| 4675 | WINGATE, John. Sinclair in Command. A Submariner Sinclair Story. London: Newnes, 1961. |
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| 4676 | MASEFIELD, John. The Twenty Five Days. London: Heinemann, 1972. ISBN: 0434452378. Dunkirk seen by the Poet Laureate. Instant and one-sided history of the nine days from May 26, with some poems included. The full, original, uncensored version was published in 1972 as The Twenty-Five Days, ISBN: 0434452378. |
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| 4677 | BERRYMAN, Nick. In the Nick of Time. 214p., illus. Bognor Regis: Woodfield, 2000. ISBN: 190395312X. An enjoyable autobiography focused on his RAF career in air sea rescue. He joined up in 1942, aged 18. He trained in the USA. In early 1943 he joined 276 Air Sea Rescue squadron in Dorset and became a Walrus pilot. In 1944 he moved to Egypt in the same role with 294 squadron. He returned to the UK at the end of the year and took up a role as a flying instructor in Scotland. |
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| 4678 | YOUNG, Douglas. The Dangerous Sea and the Sky. 248p. London: Avon Books, 1994. ISBN: 1897960360. The engaging biography of a young insurance clerk who volunteered for the RAF in 1940. After over two years of training in the UK and Canada first as a wireless operator then as a navigator he joined 489 New Zealand Squadron at Leuchars in November 1943 in the new Beaufighter Mark X. They operated in the North Sea on anti-shipping strikes. The squadron then moved to Norfolk and operated off the Dutch Coast during and after the Normandy invasion. After a brief spell based near the Moray Firth, promotion brought him a role as a navigation instructor based at East Fortune until demobbed in February 1946. |
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| 4679 | HALPERN, Paul G. (ed.) The Mediterranean Fleet 1930-1939 (Publications of the Navy Records Society, 163). xxv, 589p., maps. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. ISBN: 9781472475978. The usual collection of relevant documents, with a commentary by a major expert in the field. |
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| 4680 | EDNEY, W. P. Scuppers to Skipper: Life in the Royal Navy 1934-1958. c.105p., illus. [author: Kindle e-book, 2015]. ISBN: 9781508548669. He joined the RN as a boy sailor aged fifteen in 1934 and retired as a Lieutenant Commander commanding a minesweeper based at Malta in 1958. This interesting but bland autobiography charts his steady rise through the ranks. About half concerns his wartime service, notably on the destroyer Vanoc in the Battle of the Atlantic. He later served with shore parties setting up communications in newly liberated ports. |
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| 4681 | HOBBS, David. HMS Jackdaw: Royal Naval Air Station Crail. 36p., illus. Crail: Crail Museum Trust, 2014. The base was commissioned in 1940 as a torpedo-bomber training base. The base, the training courses and the aircraft are well, if briefly, described. |
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| 4682 | HENDRIE, Andrew W. A. The Cinderella Service: Coastal Command 1939-1945. 272p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2006. ISBN: 1844153460. He served in Coastal Command and published several books on the service. This rigorously researched history is based on a PhD thesis completed just before his death. It demonstrates just how much Coastal contributed to the war effort. |
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| 4683 | DAVIS, Wes. The Ariadne Objective: the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis. xx, 329p., bibliog., illus, index. New York: Crown, 2013. ISBN: 9780307460134; London, Bantam Press, 2014. ISBN: 0593072804. An American account of the adventures of the swashbuckling group who worked with the partisans on irregular warfare against the German occupying forces. The English edition is subtitled Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis. |
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| 4684 | DOWNES, Michael. Oundle’s War: Memories of a Northamptonshire Town, 1939-45. xiii, 321p., illus. Oundle: Nene Press, 1995. ISBN: 0952671409. A former teacher from Oundle School has collected wartime reminiscences ranging from the town at war, to the war service of local people to the fate of POWs. This broad approach, including many naval reminiscences, builds a telling picture of how war affected the entire community. |
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| 4685 | BEARDOW, Keith. Sailors in the RAF: the story of the Marine branch of the Royal Air Force. 240p., bibliog., illus., index. Sparkford, Patrick Stephens, 1993. ISBN: 1852604077. The story of the Marine Branch of the Royal Air Force which, over nearly 70 years, provided waterborne support and rescue services for the RAF. |
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| 4686 | DE BOLSTER, Marc. 47 Royal Marine Commando: An Inside Story 1943-1946. 232p., illus. Stroud: Fonthill, 2014. ISBN: 1781552975. Based on personal accounts written by veterans who served in the conflict. From the D-Day landings to fierce battles in Holland, young men were taken prisoner and sent to camps until freed at the end of the war in 1945. |
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| 4687 | MILLER, David. Special Operations South-East Asia 1942-1945: Minerva, Baldhead & Longshanks Creek. xx, 220p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2015. ISBN: 9781783400638. The first detailed accounts of raids on Sumatra , the Andamans and Goa carried out in 1942-43 by Special Forces. |
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| 4689 | JACKSON, Ashley. The British Empire and the Second World War. xvii, 604 p., bibliog., illus., index. London; New York: Hambledon Continuum 2006. ISBN: 1852854170. An impressive and substantial study with much naval material. Notably well documented. |
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| 4690 | MAYO, Jonathon. D-Day Minute by Minute. 304p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Short Books, 2014. ISBN: 9781780722153. A chronological account which consists of a whole series of personal reminiscences of particular events. Some naval material. |
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| 4691 | KENNEDY, Paul. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War. xxvi, 436p., bibliog., illus., index. London: Allen Lane; New York: Random House, 2013. ISBN: 9781846141126. The role of the middle managers is highlighted in this volume by a major historian which uses specific cases to make a general case. The naval material is focused on convoy tactics and assaults on enemy held shores. |
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| 4693 | SKEELS, Fred. The Java Rabble: A Story of a Ship, Slavery and Survival. viii, 151p., illus. Perth: Hesperian, 2008. ISBN: 0859054195. Skeels joined the navy in 1941 at the age of eighteen, and a year later was in the great battles of the Java Sea and Sunda Straits in which the Perth and its allies were sunk. Held in the Japanese death camps until the war’s end, he was shipped as a slave labourer from Java to Malaya, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and finally Japan. |
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| 4695 | DANIEL, R. J. The End of an Era: The Memoirs of a Naval Constructor. 370p., illus. Penzance: Periscope, 2003. ISBN: 1904381189. The author served in the Eastern and Pacific Fleets during World War Two. At the end of the war, he landed in Japan and prepared a report on the atomic bomb damage to Nagasaki and was seconded to the Manhattan Project for the Bikini A-bomb tests. Also covers his post-war career. |
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| 4696 | MACKAY, Ron. Britain’s Fleet Air Arm in World War II. 311p., bibliog., illus., index. Schiffer: Atglen, PA., 2005. ISBN: 0764321315. A well illustrated and competent general history. |
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