This memoir is an intimate and sometimes irreverent account of one man's coming of age during World War II. Born a North Carolina farmboy, Jones served as a U.S. Navy sonarman aboard a wooden submarine chaser operating from Africa and Sicily during the Allied invasions at Anzio and Southern France. He also served as sonarman and yeoman on two fleet mine sweepers in the Okinawa, Formosa and China operations. This memoir is drawn not only from memory, but from the author's surviving diaries from the conflicts, daily logs of the three ships upon which he served, and the secret reports of military commanders and other official records.

The title is derived from George Bernard Shaw’s comment that ‘England and America are two countries divided by a common language.’ It is not intended to imply that the two navies were seriously at odds with one another, but rather to suggest, as in the case of language, that common roots and usages varied significantly. And the Second World War is a pertinent moment for comparison. They fought on the same side against a common enemy for nearly four years, but Britain fought the war for the survival of itself and its empire, though in the long term it failed with the latter, while the American government fought to maintain its influence through the balance of power; its people fought for revenge for Pearl Harbor, and out of a sense of justice. In this new book, Brian Lavery describes and analyzes the differences and similarities between the two navies and in doing so sheds fascinating light on how the naval war was fought. For example, both navies had spectacular failures after entering the war – the Royal Navy off Norway, the USN at Pearl Harbor and Savo Island. Paradoxically, both commenced the war with quite amateur performances by professional navies and ended with highly skilled performances by largely amateur manned forces. The training systems for regular officers had flaws in both countries. In Britain, entry was largely dependent on family income, in America, on political influence. But American officers probably had a broader perspective by the time they entered active service. The book covers ships and weapons systems – for instance, the British used too many gun types in the 4 to 6in range, while the Americans concentrated on the well-designed 5in. And the author describes conditions onboard ships. British vessels were awash with alcohol, which had its attractions for Americans when alongside; the Americans offered ice cream in return. These examples represent only a tiny proportion of the subjects covered in this stimulating analysis. Aviation, the marines of both navies, anti-submarine and mine warfare, uniforms, propulsion systems, shipbuilding and building programs, commanders and national leaders, ratings and officers, ship design, geographical environments, naval bases, hammocks and bunks, the deployment of women – these are among the myriad big and small themes that will open the eyes of naval historians and enthusiasts, and show anyone with an interest in the Second World War how these two great allies came together to defeat the Axis forces.

This rollicking and panoramic history of Casablanca during the Second World War sheds light on the city as a key hub for European and American powers, and a place where spies, soldiers, and political agents exchanged secrets and vied for control. In November 1942, as a part of Operation Torch, 33,000 American soldiers sailed undetected across the Atlantic and stormed the beaches of French Morocco. Seventy-four hours later, the Americans controlled the country and one of the most valuable wartime ports: Casablanca. In the years preceding, Casablanca had evolved from an exotic travel destination to a key military target after France's surrender to Germany. Jewish refugees from Europe poured in, hoping to obtain visas and passage to the United States and beyond. Nazi agents and collaborators infiltrated the city in search of power and loyalty. The resistance was not far behind, as shopkeepers, celebrities, former French Foreign Legionnaires, and disgruntled bureaucrats formed a network of Allied spies. But once in American hands, Casablanca became a crucial logistical hub in the fight against Germany -- and the site of Roosevelt and Churchill's demand for "unconditional surrender." Rife with rogue soldiers, power grabs, and diplomatic intrigue, Destination Casablanca is the riveting and untold story of this glamorous city--memorialized in the classic film that was rush-released in 1942 to capitalize on the drama that was unfolding in North Africa at the heart of World War II.

This book is a collection of adventures that defined the cold war. The theme of some of these adventures is about how close we came to World War III with nuclear exchanges between China, Russia, and America. The results of some of those stories might have resulted in a non-nuclear war with Russia and America shooting at each other.Our NSA protagonist and his KGB girlfriend tie many of the stories together.All the adventures are fictional although they were based on

"Miss Smith, the wealthy old lady who died recently near Chapel Hill, and who bequeathed a large sum of money to the State University, did not fail to remember her old slaves, of whom six are now living," read the New York Times, December 6, 1885. But the Times got it wrong: land, not money, was left to the University of North Carolina and five of Mary Ruffin Smith's former slaves. Four were also her nieces--sired by her two bachelor brothers--and all had the same mother, the Smiths' maid Harriet. A spinster, Mary raised the girls, baptized them into the Episcopal Church, married them to respectable biracial men and left each 100 acres in her will. The result of eight years of research, this book tells the story of the Smith family and the fortune that survived the profligacy of Mary's father before being willed to the university and the North Carolina Episcopal diocese. Every "legitimate" member of the family lies in a small cemetery near the former estate. Harriet was buried an unmarked grave somewhere in Orange County. The hundreds of descendants of her daughters have been virtually ignored--this book is for them.

We Fight Back Russia 2003. When it appears that the United States has unleashed its entire nuclear arsenal upon the world, Captain Dmitri Losenko, commander of the nuclear submarine Gorshkov, has no choice but to retaliate. His target? Alaska. Alaska 2018. Fighting for survival in the frozen wilderness, Molly Kookesh struggles to protect her makeshift Resistance cell from the Terminators. Inspired by John Connor’s radio broadcasts and following a brutal encounter with a fearsome machine, she decides it’s time to fight back… An official novel exploring the post-judgment day world of the hit movie Terminator ® Salvation™.

On the same day the Japanese surrender ended World War II, Vietnamese nationalists declared independence from France. Within weeks, France sought to reestablish colonial rule. American merchant seamen arriving in French ports to ship GIs back to the U.S. were dismayed when French troops bound for Vietnam came aboard instead. Many of these seamen objected because American veterans awaited transport home and because they flew in the face of Allied war aims of national self-determination. Later, with the Vietnam War effort dependent on Merchant Marine logistical support, seamen were among the first to protest U.S. involvement. With firsthand recollections, this book tells the story, from deadly encounters with mines, rockets and gunfire to evacuations of refugees and to rescues of "boat people" in the South China Sea.

Submarines had a vital, if often unheralded, role in the superpower navies during the Cold War. Their crews carried out intelligence-collection operations, sought out and stood ready to destroy opposing submarines, and, from the early 1960s, threatened missile attacks on their adversary's homeland, providing in many respects the most survivable nuclear deterrent of the Cold War. For both East and West, the modern submarine originated in German U-boat designs obtained at the end of World War II. Although enjoying a similar technology base, by the 1990s the superpowers had created submarine fleets of radically different designs and capabilities. Written in collaboration with the former Soviet submarine design bureaus, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore authoritatively demonstrate in this landmark study how differing submarine missions, antisubmarine priorities, levels of technical competence, and approaches to submarine design organizations and management caused the divergence.