- Warship
Bone yards - Just as the U.S. Air Force sends obsolete
warbirds to the Arizona desert for storage and disassembly,
the U.S. Navy maintains a number of harbors for its obsolete
vessels. This collection gives enthusiasts an admiral's tour
of the naval storage harbors in Philadelphia, Norfolk, Pearl
Harbor, and Bremerton, Washington, as well as the once-proud
fighting vessels awaiting reassignment, sale, or the cutting
torch. Author Kermit Bonner takes readers through the entire
disassembly process from start to finish, describing in detail
how these surplus cruisers, submarines, destroyers, and aircraft
carriers are scrapped, including more complex processes involving
nuclear submarines.
- Forgotten
Fleet: The Mothball Navy - A handsomely illustrated history
of the U.S. Navy's mothball fleet, this book takes a rare
look at the so-called fleet behind the fleet, from the end
of World War II to the present. Through brief ship histories
and photographs of the ships and shipyards where they
were laid up, the author tells the story of how these warships
were paid off and preserved, how some were reactivated, and
how most left the reserve fleet to be broken up. Additional
photos of the ships in action remind readers that forgotten
though they were while in mothballs, many had made their marks
on history."
- Wooden
Ships and Iron Men: The U.S. Navy's Ocean Minesweepers, 1953-1994
- From 1953-1994, sixty-five U.S. Navy ocean minesweepers
(MSOs) swept mines; searched the sea floor for downed aircraft,
sunken ships, and lost munitions; showed the flag¿
throughout the world, even sailing up the Congo and Mekong
Rivers, calling at dozens of the world's seaports; and carried
out patrols and special tasks off strife-torn or hostile countries.
Some participated in the 1962 nuclear test program in the
Pacific and in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs.
Others, as part of a U.S. armada of military and civilian
research ships at Palomares, located a nuclear bomb lost on
the sea floor off Spain as a result of a midair collision
between two U.S. Air Force aircraft. Iron men in wooden ships
were with the Fleet in hotspots around the world, including
Lebanon and the Quemoy-Matsu Islands of Taiwan in 1958; the
Dominican Republic in 1961 and 1965; and the Cuban Missile
Crisis and Haiti in 1962. During the Vietnam War, minesweepers
participated in Operation Market Time, to prevent the infiltration
of North Vietnamese soldiers and munitions into South Vietnam.
Leader received the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary
heroism in Operation Sea Lords; Endurance engaged in close
gun action with and helped destroy an enemy armed coastal
freighter in a sea battle; and MSOs cleared mines in Haiphong
Harbor, which aided in the negotiations in progress for the
return of U.S. prisoners of war. During the twilight of their
service in the late 1980s and early 1990s, aging sweeps cleared
Iranian and Iraqi laid mines in the Persian Gulf.
- Minesweepers
of the Royal Canadian Navy 1938-1945 - The minesweepers
of the Royal Canadian Navy toiled in comparative obscurity,
unlike their more celebrated cousins, the corvettes and frigates.
In devoting a book to minesweepers, Ken Macpherson makes amends
for what he considers a long ignored oversight.
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