Conflict in the Late-Sixteenth Century Mediterranean II

The square-rigged Dutch bertone depicted above slicing into an oared galley. The pirates owed much of their success to new technology. They brought with them into the Mediterranean high-sided sailing ships that the Italians called bertoni. They looked fairly similar to the galleons that were coming into fashion in the Spanish and Venetian navies, but […]

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Kido Butai in the Indian Ocean – 1942 Part I

Akagi leaving Celebes Island for the attack on Colombo, 26 March 1942. In the background are other carriers and battleships of the carrier striking force. Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi in April 1942 during the Indian Ocean Raid as seen from an aircraft that has just taken off from her deck. A Grumman Martlet fighter about […]

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Kido Butai in the Indian Ocean – 1942 Part II

The Japanese strike force advancing to the Indian Ocean. Ships shown from left to right are: Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu, Hiei, Kirishima, Haruna, and Kongo. Churchill was very nearly right in his own panicky assessment of Japanese intentions and capabilities. As historians H. P. Willmott and Hans-Joachim Krug and his team have demonstrated, the warlords of […]

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Crisis of the Submarine War, 1917 Part I

Claimed effectiveness: Artist’s conception of a U-boat commander’s periscope view of a merchant ship in dazzle camouflage (left) and the same ship uncamouflaged (right), Encyclopædia Britannica, 1922. The conspicuous markings obscure the ship’s heading. On 1 February 1917, Germany announced a full resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, not only in the war zone around the […]

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Crisis of the Submarine War, 1917 Part II

All the hard work proved a worthwhile investment. By the end of September some eighty-three inward convoys had arrived, totalling 1,306 merchantmen. Only eighteen ships had been sunk, eight of which had been lost after dropping out of their convoys. Similarly just two ships were sunk in the fifty-five outward-bound convoys. There was a further […]

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First U-Boat Of WWI Sunk

A painting depicting the final moments of U-15. 9 AUGUST 1914 On 8 August 1914, the First Light Cruiser Squadron, part of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow, had set out on a patrol. Comprising HMS Southampton, HMS Birmingham, HMS Liverpool, HMS Falmouth, and the recently joined HMS Nottingham, the First Light […]

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Late-1943 in the Pacific I

It was time for MacArthur to take the initiative once again in New Guinea. On 1 September 1943 the US VII Amphibious Force under the command of Rear-Admiral Daniel Barbey left Milne Bay on the extreme southeast coast with three brigades of Australian troops in a convoy of ninety-seven vessels escorted by nine destroyers. He […]

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