Navy, and a crazy billionaire spent six years and nearly a billion dollars to steal the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine K-129 after it had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean; all while the Russians were watching.In the early hours of February 25, 1968, a Russian submarine armed with three nuclear ballistic missiles set sail from its base in Siberia on a routine combat patrol to Hawaii. It never arrived. As the Soviet Navy searched in vain for the lost vessel, a top-secret American operation using sophisticated deep-sea spy equipment found it—wrecked on the sea floor at a depth of 16,800 feet, far beyond the capabilities of any salvage that existed. But the potential intelligence assets onboard the ship—the nuclear warheads, battle orders, and cryptological machines—justified going to extreme lengths to find a way to raise the submarine.So began Project Azorian, a top-secret mission that took six years, cost an estimated $800 million, and would become the largest and most daring covert operation in CIA history. After the U.S. Navy declared retrieving the sub “impossible,” the mission fell to the CIA's burgeoning Directorate of Science and Technology, the little-known division responsible for the legendary U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. Working with Global Marine Systems, the country's foremost maker of exotic, deep-sea drill ships, the CIA commissioned the most expensive ship ever built and told the world that it belonged to the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, who would use the mammoth vessel to mine rare minerals from the ocean floor. In reality, a complex network of spies, scientists, and politicians attempted a project even crazier than Hughes’s reputation: raising the sub directly under the watchful eyes of the Russians. The Taking of K-129 is a riveting, almost unbelievable true-life tale of military history, engineering genius, and high-stakes spy-craft set during the height of the Cold War, when nuclear annihilation was a constant fear, and the opportunity to gain even the slightest advantage over your enemy was worth massive risk.

    Photographs and maps.

    On May 11, 1945, McKinney returned fire on the Japanese attacking his unit, using every available weapon-even his fists-standing alone against wave after wave of dedicated Japanese soldiers. At the end, John McKinney was alive-with over forty Japanese bodies before him. This is the story of an extraordinary man whose courage and fortitude in battle saved many American lives, and whose legacy has been sadly forgotten by all but a few. Here, the proud legacy of John McKinney lives on.

    In the vein of his other phenomenal compendiums of amazing battlefield blunders, How to Lose a Battle and How to Lose a War, Fawcett focuses on some amazing catastrophic missteps of Axis and Allies alike.

    Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 that included six sailing vessels and a crew of hundreds who set out to map the Pacific Ocean.

     In 1740, George Anson and his fleet set off to harass Spanish commerce in the Pacific and attack towns on the coasts of Chile and Peru. Four years later, over half the men had died and of the seven ships which left Portsmouth only the Centurion had completed its objective of attacking Spanish possessions around the globe. Although this journey came at the cost of numerous lives and ships, the Centurion had succeeded in capturing the biggest prize of all time, the Acapulco galleon. Captain Philip Saumarez kept a daily record of the voyage around the world in his four log books, which along with a wealth of letters and documents give brilliant insight into life aboard these ships. Leo Heaps has compiled and edited these manuscripts to provide a complete chronicle of the expedition which saw men decimated by scurvy, mutinies among marooned sailors, ships battered by mountainous waves around Cape Horn and eventual glory in the capture of the gold-laden Nuestra Señora de la Covadonga. Log of the Centurion is a unique account of a daring maritime expedition across the high seas of the globe in the mid-eighteenth century. “It is a tribute to her officers that she not only captured the greatest prize at sea, but that she returned at all.” Christopher Lloyd, former Professor of History at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich “It is an absorbing tale … The merit of this book lies in its realistic evocation of the mid-18th century. We have fine descriptions of China and the delicate negotiations conducted with the Manchus for supplies and repairs. Patagonia, Juan Fernandez (Crusoe’s island), Madeira, and other exotic places are vividly described.” Regis A. Courtemanche, History: Reviews of New Books

    After serving in Iraq, she was back on the front lines—and this time, she found, the situation was even worse.    Rooms were filthy, nurses were lax with sanitation measures, and hospital-acquired cases of COVID-19 were spreading like wildfire.   Worse, people who had tested negative multiple times for COVID-19 were being labeled as COVID-confirmed and put on COVID-only floors. Put on ventilators and drugged up with sedatives, these patients quickly deteriorated—even though they did not have coronavirus when they checked in.   Doctors-in-training were refusing to perform CPR—and banning nurses from doing it—on dying patients whose families had not consented to “Do Not Resuscitate” orders.   Erin wasn’t about to stand by and let her patients keep dying on her watch, but she knew that if she told the truth, people wouldn’t believe her. It was just too shocking. Willing to go to battle for her patients, Erin made the decision to go deep undercover, recording conversations with other nurses, videos of malpractice, and more. She began to share what she found on social media. Unsurprisingly, she was fired for it.   Now, Erin is standing up to tell the whole horrifying story of what happened inside Elmhurst Hospital to demand justice for those who fell victim to the hospital’s greed. Not only must the staff be held accountable for their unethical actions; but also, this kind of corruption must be destroyed so that future Americans are not put at risks. The deaths have to end, and Erin won’t rest until the bad actors are exposed.   Undercover Epicenter Nurse: How Fraud, Negligence, and Greed Led to Unnecessary Deaths at Elmhurst Hospital is a shocking and infuriating inside exposé of the American healthcare system gone wrong. At the same time, it’s the story of a woman who traveled from the small-town streets of Wisconsin, to the battlefields of Iraq, to the mean streets of Queens, on a quest to help fight for her country. With this book, the real battle has begun.

     Fast and heavy-gunned, the battle-cruiser could overhaul and destroy anything at sea except the battleship. The brain child of Admiral Jacky Fisher, the battle-cruiser was intended to be light, fast, and able to avoid action with ships-of-the-line. However, the battle-cruisers came to be treated as fast battleships …And expected to fight as a battleship. But their design rendered them vulnerable and left them outmatched. This weakness was cruelly exposed at the battle of Jutland in 1916, where three of the battle-cruisers exploded. Known as the ‘Splendid Cats’ for their speed and viciousness, battle cruisers fought at Heligoland Bight, the Falkland’s Islands, Dogger Bank and Jutland. Following the First World War the battle-cruisers biggest enemy was the scrapyard. Once more the world was plunged into war, and four battle-cruisers would be lost during the Second World War. The most famous is perhaps the Hood, following the action against the Bismark. Only the Renown survived both world wars, yet she was condemned to the breaker’s yard in the summer of 1948. From the far side of the world to home waters, the battle-cruisers played a vital part in the British war effort. Combining meticulous research with a novelist’s flair for storytelling, Battle-Cruisers vividly describes the life and times of the sixteen battle-cruisers built for the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. Yet ships do not fight on their own. This is also the story of the men who served, lived, fought and faced adversity in these floating worlds. Ronald Bassett (1924-1996) was born in Chelsea. During the Munich crisis, at age fourteen, he falsified enlistment papers to become a Rifleman of the King's Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles). Following active service, he was exposed and discharged. In his records, his colonel noted, ‘A good soldier. I am sorry to lose him.' Undismayed, he immediately entered the Royal Navy, in which he remained for fourteen years, serving in the Arctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, the Far East and, later, Korea. He died in Surrey.

    The author made more than 12 escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where 50 of the 76 escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler's orders.On re-capture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where, undeterred, he tunneled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story.Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.

    A fifth of the ship's crew were killed and many others horribly burned or wounded. This event jumpstarted one of the most mysterious conflicts in American history: "The Tanker War," waged against Iran for control of the Persian Gulf.This quasi-war took place at the climax of the mammoth Iran-Iraq War, during the last years of the Reagan administration. Losing on the battlefield, Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran had decided to close the Persian Gulf against shipping from Iraq's oil-rich backers, the emirate of Kuwait. The Kuwaitis appealed for help and America sent a fleet to the Gulf, raising the Stars and Stripes over Kuwait's commercial tankers.The result was a free-for-all, as the Iranians laid mines throughout the narrow passage and launched attack boats against both tankers and US warships. The sixth largest ship in the world, the tanker Bridgeton, hit an Iranian mine and flooded. The US Navy fought its largest surface battle since World War II against the Ayatollah's assault boats.Meanwhile, US Navy Seals had arrived in the Gulf, setting up shop aboard a mobile platform from which they would sally out in fast craft to combat the Iranians. As Saddam Hussein, who had instigated the conflict, looked on, Iranian gunners fired shore-based Silkworm missiles against US ships, actions which, if made known at the time, would have required the US Congress to declare war against Iran.In July 1988, nervous sailors aboard the cruiser USS Vincennes shot an Iranian airliner out of the sky, killing 300 civilians. This event came one month before the end of the war, and may have been the final straw to influence the Ayatollah to finally drink from his "poisoned chalice."In Tanker War, Lee Allen Zatarain, employing recently released Pentagon documents, firsthand interviews, and a determination to get to the truth, has revealed a conflict that few recognized at the time, but which may have presaged further battles to come.

    Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey. These four men were the best and the brightest the navy produced, and together they led the U.S. navy to victory in World War II, establishing the United States as the world's greatest fleet. In THE ADMIRALS, award-winning historian Walter R. Borneman tells their story in full detail for the first time. Drawing upon journals, ship logs, and other primary sources, he brings an incredible historical moment to life, showing us how the four admirals revolutionized naval warfare forever with submarines and aircraft carriers, and how these men-who were both friends and rivals-worked together to ensure that the Axis fleets lay destroyed on the ocean floor at the end of World War II.

    David W. Shaw, who brings decades of experience as a seaman to his writing, has based this riveting tale on the firsthand testimony of the few who survived the wreck, including its heroic captain, James C. Luce. It is the story of the brave and dutiful Luce fighting his mutinous crew as they take the lifeboats, leaving hundreds of men, women, and children to suffer a cruel and painful death. It is also the story of those who survived the frigid waters and those who perished -- including Luce's own frail son, who died as the grief-stricken captain helplessly watched. Not only did 400 people die by daybreak, the wreck brought to an end the domination of the seas by the American maritime fleet.Utterly compelling, beautifully written, and a fascinating, heretofore little-known slice of American history, "The Sea Shall Embrace Them" is a stirring narrative that puts the reader on the deck as a shipful of men, women, and children do battle both with a mighty ocean and with their own baser instincts to survive.

    Indianapolis had just delivered a secret cargo that would trigger the end of World War II. Heading westward, she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In twelve minutes, some 300 men went down with her. More than 900 other spent four horrific days and five nights in the ocean with no water to drink, savaged by a pitiless sun and swarms of sharks. Incredibly, no one knew they were there until a Navy patrol plane accidentally discovered them. In the end, only 316 crewmen survived.How could this have happened -- and why? This updated edition of Abandon Ship!, with an Introduction and Afterword by Peter Maas, supplies the chilling answer. A harrowing account of military malfeasance and human tragedy, Abandon Ship! also scrutinizes the role of the U.S. Navy in the disaster, especially the court-martial of the ship's captain, Charles Butler McVay III. Maas reveals facts previously unavailable to Richard Newcomb and chronicles a forty-year crusade to right a wrong, a crusade Abandon Ship! inspired.

    The best of the best, these elite units have frequently been immortalised on the big screen, and in computer games, for their daring deeds. Whether it be fighting on the battlefield, storming forts and castles, rescuing hostages, high stakes reconnaissance missions or the dramatic assassination of enemy leaders, these are the men who are relied upon to undertake dangerous missions of the highest stakes. While celebrating the heroics of groups such as the SAS and Navy Seals, Sir Ranulph also reveals the true stories of infamous organisations such as The Assassins and Templar Knights. Uncovering their origins, and examining their weapons and tactics, Sir Ranulph showcases these units most famous missions, and reveals the men behind them. Showing incredible courage, often in the face of impossible odds, these units have also changed the course of history along the way. Sir Ranulph discusses the reasons behind their success and failures, with many notorious conflicts often being decided by these elite units facing off against each other, with the victor not only evolving warfare, but also consigning their opponent to history. While these units traditionally prefer to operate in the shadows, Sir Ranulph brings their remarkable histories to the fore, told with his trademark ability to weave a story which has seen him become one of Britain’s most beloved bestselling authors.

    A vivid portrayal of the officers and sailors of the fictional amphibious transport USS Belinda in the Pacific of World War II.