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FIGHTING SHIPS. From the Ancient World to 1750.By Sam Willis. Hardback,364mm x 440mm, 224 pages, full coulor illustrations.
The figure of the Pharaoh, bow drawn, takes aim across a sea of dead men and discarded weapons. Lion-headed Egyptian vessels repel the last enemy ships, their victory complete.
Beginning with Ramses III's dramatic defeat of the 'sea people' in 1176 BC - the world's earliest visual record of a naval battle - Fighting Ships tells the story of 3000 years of maritime history through 150 glorious images. From the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans to the coming of age of sail, here are breathtaking depictions of ancient triremes and Viking longships, the Santa Maria and the Spanish Armada, as well as Henry VIII's giant carracks, Turkish galleys and the majestic three-decked warships of Louis XIV.
Arranged chronologically, this sumptuous collection of grand-scale images brings together the earliest carvings on templewalls and the world-famous Bayeux tapestry, with exquisite depictions by the greatest artists, including Tintoretto's The Capture of Constantinople, Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus, The Battle of Lepanto by Vasari and Samuel Scott's The Capture of Puerto Bello. Here too are striking portraits of key historical figures, such as Columbus, Drake and Barbarossa, alongside ship plans, drawings, engravings andartefacts rescued from wrecks.
Maritime historian Sam Willis recounts famous battles, voyages of conquest and tales of triumph and defeat at sea. He not only reveals the secrets of naval strategy and ship design, but also sheds fascinating lights on the lives of the great men that commanded their fleets, as well as on the heroism and hardship of life on board for the ordinary sailor.
Dramatic, astonishing and always spectacular, Fighting Ships brings to life three millennia of naval history, from classical galley ships to magnificent men-of-war.
NZ$110.00 + delivery.
SYDNEY CIPHER AND SEARCH.
By Captain Peter Hore. Paperback, 135mm x 215mm, 314 pages, monochrome and full coulor photographs.
In November 1941 the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, with a crew of 645, disappeared off Western Australia. Shipwrecked German sailors told an incredible tale of how their ship, a lighlty armoured merchant raider, had sunk the pride of the Australian navy. Almost at once conspiracy theories sprang up to explain the tragic loss of the ship and so many lives. Based on the author's decryption and interpretation of German coded accounts, interviews with survivors from the raider, Kormoran, and other research, this book tells - insofar as it can ever be known - what really happened in the desperate fight to the death between two ships, whose wrecks were finally located in March 2008.
Captain Peter Hore is a former head of Defence Studies for the Royal Navy and, among other appointments, is chairman of the research committee of the Society for Nautical Research. As a naval historian, he has been researching the loss of HMAS Sydney since 1999. Since completing this book he has been appointed an expert witness to the Australian government's Commission of Inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney.
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
THE SEARCH FOR THE SYDNEY.
By David L. Mearns. Hardback, 240mm x 305mm, 264 pages, monochrome and full coulor photographs and 1 gatefold.
For sixty-six years it was Australia's greatest maritime mystery: what happened to the 'pride of the fleet' HMAS Sydney - was it beaten in a fair fight with the German cruiser Kormoran, or was there treachery invlolved? Could the Kormoran's survivors' account of the battle and it's aftermath be believed? Why were there no survivors from Sydney? And where was the wreck?
David Mearns first heard the story of the Sydney in 1996, and it left an indelible impression in his mind. One of the world's foremost shipwreck hunters, David had successfully located dozens of wrecks in much deeper water. But hunting down the Sydney, a challenge he accepted in 2002, proved his toughest yet, testing his skills as a detective, engineer, marine scientist and navigator. David's quest, which unfolded over six years, took him around the world, from the war archives in Germany, to the homes of Kormoran survivors, and then to Fremantle, Western Australia, and out to the Indian Ocean. He would encounter conspiracy theories, false clues, cyclones and myriad technical problems, but, in 2008, he would finally record the astonishing words, 'HMAS Sydney found!'
Here, for the first time, David tells the full, dramatic story of his search for two ships, Sydney and Kormoran, whose paths crossed one fateful day in 1941. His riveting account answers the questions which have dogged Sydney's disappearance.
Featuring never-seen-before photographs of the wrecks, beautifully detailed maps and a wealth of historical images, this is a book for collectors and general readers alike, an incomparable adventure story set on the high seas.
NZ$60.00 + delivery.
THE BITTER SEA. The Struggle for mastery in the Mediterranean, 1935-1949.By Simon Ball. Paperback, 153mm x 233mm, 380 pages, monochrome and photographs.
The British conceived the Mediterranean as the world's greatest thoroughfare, from Gibraltar in the west to the Suez Canal in the east. For Mussolini, the Mediterranean was Mare Nostrum, the stage for his violent vision of conquest. The French commanded an impressive navy and key ports. The Nazis found willing allies in the lands that encircled the sea. The Americans imagined a new kind of empire in the Mediterranean.
The blue waters of the Mediterranean, and its 'golden pavement' of surrounding nations, witnessed a brutal conflict of unlikely foes and opportunistic alliances. Spaniard fought Spaniard, German fought Italian, Anmerican confronted Arab and Briton killed Frenchman. The Mediterranean struggle was a modern, high intensity war - fought on land, sea and air. Its titanic battles stretched from Malaga to Beirut, from El Alamein to Anzio. It was also a war of propanganda, deception, insurgency and terrorism, where the lines of battle were not clearly defined. As the author demonstrates in sparkling prose, the Mediterranean was indeed the 'bitter sea'.
Based on the most up-to-date research, including newly-released intelligence dossiers, Simon Ball's compelling account untangles the plans and actions of the war's most powerful decision makers, famous and forgotten. The result is exceptionally readable and original.
NZ$35.00 + delivery.
DUNKIRK - RETREAT TO VICTORY.
By Major General Julian Thompson. Paperback, 129mm x 197mm, 338 pages, monochrome photographs.
In May 1940, the small British Expeditionary Force was sent to help the Belgians and French hold back the German army. Ill-equipped and under-trained, they fought hard for three weeks, from the German invasion of France to the rescue of the last British troops from the beaches at Dunkirk. Remarkably, they conducted a successful fighting withdrawal in the face of a formidable foe.
Drawing on previously unpublished and rare material, Major-General Julian Thompson recreates the action from the misunderstandings between the British and French generals to the experiences of the ordinary soldier. He gives full weight to the fighting inland as the BEF found itself in mortal danger thanks to the collapse of the Belgian army on one flank and the failure of the French on the other, and corrects popular myths about the evacuation.
Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory is both a masterly work of military history and a gripping story of heroism.
NZ$28.00 + delivery.
HELL OR HIGH WATER - NEW ZEALAND MERCHANT SEAFARERS REMEMBER THE WAR.
Edited By Neill Atkinson. Paperback, 214mm x 235mm, monochrome photographs.
During World War Two several thousand New Zealanders served in the Merchant Navy. many braved the deadly German U-Boats during the Battle of the Atlantic and sailed in perilous convoys to Arctic Russia and Malta.
Others manned transport and hospital ships for the Allied landings in North Africa, Italy and France, or ferried troops and supplies across the vast Pacific and Indian oceans. Although they were essentially civilians, merchant seafarers often found themselves in the front lines of the war at sea - at least 120 Kiwi seamen were killed, and another 128 were taken prisoner. The vital contribution of this 'fourth' service has never before received the recognition it richly deserves. Drawn from interviews with the men who were there in the darkest days of a bloody and terrible conflict, this books includes stirring accounts of war at sea: the seamen who survived air and submarine attacks, some enduring days adrift in open lifeboats; an 18-year-old awarded the George Cross during the 1942 Pedestal convoy to relieve Malta; and others who spent years in Japanese prisions. Finally, their stories are being told.
NZ$37.00 + delivery.
GUNNER BILLY.By Grant Howard. Paperback, 152mm x 230mm, 193 pages, black and white photographs.
On 30 April 1917, lieutenant William Edward Sanders, a New Zealander serving in the Royal Naval Reserve, and in command of a Sailing Ship, HMS First Prize, fought a German submarine , U-93, in an action since described as one of the greatest minor naval actions of the First World War. For his almost unbelievable bravery that day Sanders was awarded the Victoria Cross, "in recognition of his conspicuous gallantry, consummate coolness, and skill in command of HM Ships in action"
In this book, Grant Howard gives a concise account of the life of such a fine New Zealand Seaman. The portrayal of the incident that resulted in the award of the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant Sanders is excellently conveyed.
No less important though is the variety of background material on Sanders himself, fascinating comments on the social norms of the period and a well researched and balanced presentation of Q-Ship operations.
The author gives a fulsome account of Sanders' childhood on the North Shore of Auckland; how he gained his seamans's eye, first mucking about in boats, and then further afield in coastal waters of New Zealand in both steam and sail including being wrecked on the Hokianga. Clearly his apprenticeship in sail equipped him well for the rigours to come.
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE.By Sam Willis. Hardback, 180mm x 250mm, 323 pages, colour and black and white plates.
H.M.S Temeraire, one of Britain’s most illustrious fighting ships, is known to millions through J.M.W. Turner’s iconic painting The Fighting Temeraire (1839), which portrays the battle-scarred veteran of Britain’s wars with Napoleonic France being ‘tugged to her last berth to be broken up’. Sam Willis tells the extraordinary story of the vessel behind the painting, and of making the painting itself.
The Fighting Temeraire covers every aspect of life in the sailing navy, with particular emphasis on amphibious warfare, disease, victualling, blockade, mutiny and, of course, fleet battle, for it was at Trafalgar that the Temeraire really won her fame.
Crammed with richly evocative detail, and narrated with the pace and gusto of a master storyteller, The Fighting Temeraire is an enthralling and deeply satisfying work of narrative history from one of Britain’s most exciting young historians.
NZ$60.00 + delivery.
WE WERE THERE.By Gerry Wright. Paperback, 188mm x 247mm, 241 pages, monochrome photos.
This book is about the story of New Zealand's involvement in the British nuclear weapons tests at Christmas Island in 1957-58.
This is not the story of nuclear bombs but the story of those who served in Pukaki and Rotoiti during their weather reporting deployments for Operation Grapple in 1957-58.
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
A KIWI ON OUR FUNNEL.By Gerry Wright. Paperback, 145mm x 204mm, 195 pages, monochrome photos.
This is the story of H.M.N.Z. Ships Hickleton and Santon, who served New Zealand well during Operation Confrontation. "Confrontation" was the name given by the Indonesian Foreign Minister in 1963 to his government's undeclared war against the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
MURUROA protest.By Gerry Wright. Paperback, 145mm x 204mm, 248 pages, monochrome photos.
This is the story of the voyages by H.M.N.Z. Ships Otago and Canterbury, to protest against the French atmospheric nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll in 1973.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
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