From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power.Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.

    Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.”Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after September 11th, 2001.Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times.The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

    Anderson and his crew's harrowing top-secret mission aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Bristling with newly classified, never-before-published information and photos from the captain's personal collection, The Ice Diaries takes readers on a dangerous journey beneath the vast, unexplored Arctic ice cap during the height of the Cold War."Captain Anderson and the crew of the USS Nautilus exemplified daring and boldness in taking their boat beneath the Arctic ice to the North Pole. This expertly told story captures the drama, danger, and importance of that monumental achievement." ―Capt. Stanley D. M. Carpenter, Professor of Strategy and Policy, United States Naval War College"Few maritime exploits in history have so startled the world as the silent, secret transpolar voyage of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine Nautilus, and none since the age of Columbus and Vasco da Gama has opened, in one bold stroke, so vast and forbidding an area of the seas." ―Paul O'Neil, Life magazine

    

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

    To counter this problem, Thomas J. Cutler has compiled a history of our naval heritage in the form of A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy. The work is unique in two important ways. First, it is written thematically rather than chronologically. This allows recent history to be blended with more distant (but important) events in ways that will reinforce the timelessness as well as the timeliness of the U.S. Navy, thereby having a greater appeal to today's sailor. There are a number of themes being used--the most obvious are manifested in chapters with the themes of honor, courage, and commitment, but others serve as useful vehicles as well; for example, there is a chapter called What's in a Name? that briefly discusses how ships have been/are named and then uses the many ships that have carried the name Enterprise as the theme for presenting significant portions of the Navy's history.The other unique characteristic of this history is that it focuses wherever possible on the roles of ALL sailors rather than just the officers. That is not to say that Jones and Decatur are not there, but that the emphasis is along the lines of the crew of the Bon Homme Richard fought on into the night... rather than Jones fought... Also, there are plenty of individual sailor heroes who can stand alongside the Perrys and the Farraguts (Boatswain's Mate First Class Williams who won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, Dorie Miller of Pearl Harbor fame, Gunner's Mate Third Class Paul Henry Carr at the battle off Samar, etc.). Some emphasis upon what it was like to be a sailor (working and living conditions) at different times is included as well.

    Navy submarine Tang was legendary-she had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen, and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other Allied submarine in the Pacific. And then, on her fifth patrol, tragedy struck-the Tang was hit by one of her own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive in their submerged “iron coffin” one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface. While the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived a harrowing ascent through the escape hatch. But a far greater ordeal was coming. After being picked up by a Japanese patrol vessel, they were sent to a secret Japanese interrogation camp known as the “Torture Farm.” They were close to death when finally liberated in August, 1945, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese-not even the greatest secret of World War II.With the same heart-pounding narrative drive that made The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter national bestsellers, Alex Kershaw brings to life this incredible story of survival and endurance.

        As Allied ships prepared for the invasion of the Philippine island of Leyte, every available warship, submarine and airplane was placed on alert while Japanese admiral Kurita Takeo stalked Admiral William F. Halsey’s unwitting American armada. It was the beginning of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf—the greatest naval battle in history.   In Storm Over Leyte, acclaimed historian John Prados gives readers an unprecedented look at both sides of this titanic naval clash, demonstrating that, despite the Americans’ overwhelming superiority in firepower and supplies, the Japanese achieved their goal, inflicting grave damage on U.S. forces. And for the first time, readers will have access to the naval intelligence reports that influenced key strategic decisions on both sides.   Drawing upon a wealth of untapped sources—U.S. and Japanese military records, diaries, declassified intelligence reports and postwar interrogation transcripts—Prados offers up a masterful narrative of naval conflict on an epic scale.

    He follows four men throughout: Admiral William ("Bull") Halsey, the macho, gallant, racist American fleet commander; Admiral Takeo Kurita, the Japanese battleship commander charged with making what was, in essence, a suicidal fleet attack against the American invasion of the Philippines; Admiral Matome Ugaki, a self-styled samurai who was the commander of all kamikazes and himself the last kamikaze of the war; and Commander Ernest Evans, a Cherokee Indian and Annapolis graduate who led his destroyer on the last great charge in the last great naval battle in history."Sea of Thunder" climaxes with the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the biggest naval battle ever fought, over four bloody and harrowing days in October 1944. We see Halsey make an epic blunder just as he reaches for true glory; we see the Japanese navy literally sailing in circles, torn between the desire to die heroically and the exhausted, unacceptable realization that death is futile; we sail with Commander Evans and the men of the USS "Johnston" into the jaws of the Japanese fleet and exult and suffer with them as they torpedo a cruiser, bluff and confuse the enemy -- and then, their ship sunk, endure fifty horrific hours in shark-infested water.Thomas, a journalist and historian, traveled to Japan, where he interviewed veterans of the Imperial Japanese Navy who survived the Battle of Leyte Gulf and friends and family of the two Japanese admirals. From new documents and interviews, he was able to piece together and answer mysteries about the Battle of LeyteGulf that have puzzled historians for decades. He writes with a knowing feel for the clash of cultures."Sea of Thunder" is a taut, fast-paced, suspenseful narrative of the last great naval war, an important contribution to the history of the Second World War.

    This volume shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the 20th century created the foundations for most of today's key international conflicts, including the "war on terror." Odd Arne Westad examines the origins and course of Third World revolutions and the ideologies that drove the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. towards interventionism. He focuses on how these interventions gave rise to resentments and resistance that, in the end, helped to topple one and to seriously challenge the other superpower. In addition, he demonstrates how these worldwide interventions determined the international and domestic framework within which political, social and cultural changes took place in such countries as China, Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua. According to Westad, these changes, plus the ideologies, movements and states that interventionism stirred up, constitute the real legacy of the Cold War. Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2004 he was named head of department and co-director of the new LSE Cold War Studies Centre. Professor Westad is the author, or editor, of ten books on contemporary international history including Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (2003) and, with Jussi Hanhimaki, The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (2003). In addition, he is a founding editor of the journal Cold War History.

    Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial Stalingrad as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle. In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost; then, in an astonishing reversal, encircled and trapped their Nazi enemy. This battle for the ruins of a city cost more than a million lives. Stalingrad conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides, fighting in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Antony Beevor has interviewed survivors and discovered completely new material in a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including prisoner interrogations and reports of desertions and executions. As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable.

    For five long years, thousands of men and women fought ferociously in the coldest corner of hell on earth. Some fought for survival, some struggled to help others survive, and some sought to crush their enemies. If man-made death didn't get you, the Arctic's weapons of ice and cold would. These natural weapons killed regardless of whose side you were on or how just was your cause. No one escaped unscathed. Author Mike Walling captures the Arctic convoys’ bitter essence in Forgotten Sacrifice. The story launches in October 1939, when Germany and the Soviet Union began diplomatic maneuvering. The action accelerates with Winston Churchill's decision in 1941 to provide supplies to Soviet forces battling the German invasion. From this point until the closing days of WWII in spring 1945, an unremitting sea battle raged within the confines of the always-lethal, ever-shifting Arctic ice pack and the savage Scandinavian coastline. Nearly 4.5 million tons of supplies were moved in 77 convoys over the course of 5 years in order to help the Soviet war effort. The Allies fought to keep the sea lanes open to Murmansk while the Germans were determined to slaughter every ship which dared to make the attempt. By the end of the convoys, 98 ships had been lost. Forgotten Sacrifice reveals a timeless tale of determination, heroism, sacrifice, and the strength of the human spirit.

    By the end of April she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the Falklands. This is the personal testimony by the ship's captain, describing the bombing & sinking of HMS Coventry.

    The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content

    . . For the Japanese, confident over the easy victory at Pearl Harbor, the Midway operation had one objective; to draw out the U.S. Navy and destroy it. Thus, on June 4, 1942, Admiral Yamamoto launched his attack on the base at Midway Island with the largest fleet yet assembled in the Pacific, including 350 ships and more than 100,000 officers and men.It was a plan for victory . . . that ended in monumental defeat. Only after this crushing loss did the Japanese ask themselves: What should we have done that we did not do? Why did we fail?Now, for the first time, officers from the Japanese Imperial Navy open the sealed archives to tell the authoritative, dramatic story of what really happened at the historic Battle of Midway . . .