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"More than 900 illustrations - including 679 photographs and 227 line drawings - depict the might of the US Navy at height of the Second World War.
Reproduced from the official publication first published in 1943, it presents a comprehensive portrait of the US Fleet at the period where it was beginning to expand into the vast armada that ultimately overwhelmed the enemy forces at sea. In mid-war, the ships showed the advances in equipment and protection prompted by early combat experience, yet they still betrayed their pre-war elegance of design, having not yet had their symmetry destroyed by crowds of anti-aircraft guns and director tubs or by complex thickets of radar and counter measures antennas.
The photographs were selected from a Naval Intelligence Division collection that at the time was approaching some 50,000 prints. The views incorporated were intended to enable the user to recognize as friendly the hundreds of classes of US Navy ships from virtually any angle. Scaled and shaded line drawings were prepared (usually by trained architects, who found themselves at drafting boards for the duration of the war) either from General Arrangement Booklet plans or from simplified, smaller scale recognition plans done by the builder's yards or repair yards each time a ship was completed or altered. There is also basic data on each ship or class and notes on salient recognition features or differences between units within a class.
The excellent selection of photographs and the scrupulously accurate plans will make this mini-encyclopedia of immense value to historians, enthusiasts and model-builders. Especially useful is the fact that the book contains the complete range of ships then in service with the US Navy - from 800-foot battleships to quarter-ton amphibious jeeps."

Annapolis, Maryland, Naval Institute Press:1986, ISBN 0-87021-724-0 (hardcover) courtesy San Antonio Public Library

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"In an era when satellite photographs chart even the most remote land masses in astonishing detail, the vast majority of our planet lies unrevealed beneath the ocean. In this watery wilderness, an environment every bit as inaccessible as space, Dr. Robert Ballard has pursued an extraordinary dual career as a marine scientist and a pioneering discoverer.
One of our leading oceanographers and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Ballard describes plunging 12,000 feet to the floor of the Atlantic, finding new life in the superheated water around hydrothermal vents on the Pacific seabed, and locating scores of wrecks, from Phoenician galleys to the Nazi battleship Bismarck. We peer from the cramped cabin of a research submarine at bioluminescent fish glowing in the sunless depths, gasp for air as the bathyscaphe Archimede fills with acrid smoke a mile beneath the surface of the sea, and join a crack team of technicians on the bridge of a research ship as they 'fly' a state-of-the-art unmanned submersible over the Titanic's ghostly hull.
But this lavishly illustrated book does much more than chronicle Ballard's own unique experiences: Intertwined with his vivid first-person narrative is a concise history of humankind's age-old relationship with the oceans. Along with the giants of modern undersea exploration - Cousteau, Beebe, Piccard - he introduces the fabled seamen of the past, from ancient Phoenician, Polynesian, and Chinese sailors to such great names as Magellan, Columbus, Drake, and Cook. He explains how ships evolved from simple coastal craft to the most complex machines known to man, and shows how the search for new trade routes and the sheer love of adventure led captains ever farther over the horizon. He traces the development of navigation, naval warfare, marine science, and much more.
Capturing all the irresistible lure of the sea in nearly 200 vivid illustrations and a lively text that spans thousands of years of seafaring and oceanography, this is a book as expansive as its subject and filled with fascinating information, stirring history, and a full measure of the infectious excitement of discovery Robert Ballard knows so well."

Washington, D.C./Willard, Ohio, National Geographic/R. R. Donnelley & Sons:2001, ISBN 0-7922-7908-5 (hardcover)

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"Dr. Robert Ballard is the world's most renowned and accomplished oceanographer - a scientist and adventurer whose feats of exploration and discovery have enraptured the world.
Now, for the first time, Dr. Ballard tells the entire story of his fascinating undersea career - a career marked with scientific breakthroughs, awe-inspiring revelations, and personal triumphs and tragedies.
We journey with him on treacherous bathyscaphes and tiny deep submersible vehicles as he uncovers the magnificent beauty and awesome wonders of the natural deep - from his team's momentous discovery of the giant clams, worms, and other exotic life forms thriving at depths previously believed unlivable, to his undersea geological proof of the theory of plate tectonics, and his discovery of the super-hot hydrothermal vents that may well be the source point of all life on Earth.
But we also travel with him as he uncovers the secrets of mankind that have been hidden by the crushing depths and pure darkness that exist on the ocean's floors. We share the triumph and the wonder of the discovery of the remains of the Titanic - the majesty of inching down the 'unsinkable' liner's grand staircase and the heartbreak of finding the porcelain head of a child's doll - all at twelve thousand feet below the sea. We learn the secrets that the great Nazi warship Bismarck carried with her to her undersea grave. And for the first time ever, Dr. Ballard tells us of previously classified expeditions to uncover the wrecks of Cold War nuclear submarines, to try to ascertain why they were lost, and what dangers they still carry.
Explorations is a book of scientific discovery and breathtaking adventure - told by one of the great living explorers of our times."

New York, N.Y., Hyperion:1995, ISBN 0-7868-6042-1 (hardcover)

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"It's been more than half a century since the greatest naval battles in history raged across the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Japan, but as this dramatic, informative, often poignant, and compelling volume proves, their memories are very much alive. And who better to steer us through these stormy seas than National Geographic's Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the drowned remains of Titanic, Bismarck, Yorktown, and any number of other famed and historically priceless sunken ships.
Lavishly illustrated with more than 150 photographs, illustrations, and maps, Graveyards of the Pacfic revisits the scenes and tells the vivid stories of all the momentous engagements: Pearl Harbor, the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Leyte Gulf, and more, including even the post-war A-tests at Bikini Atoll. Featuring an introduction by Stephen Ambrose, along with dramatic wartime images, this is a full-dress naval history. As one of the world's foremost undersea explorers, Ballard actually plunges us into the ocean's ghostly depths to view the battered hulks of some of the most powerful vessels ever to sail the seas, each now a hallowed and haunting tomb, often for hundreds or even thousands of men.
At the entrance to Pearl Harbor we seek the wreck of a Japanese midget submarine, perhaps the first casualty of the Pacific War. Near Savo Island we explore Iron Bottom Sound, so named because of the many warships that met violent ends during the months of bitter combat on Guadalcanal. From the bridge of a research vessel tossing on the waves northeast of Midway we watch as the majestic wreck of the Yorktown takes shape on a television screen, an image unseen for six decades, ever since the grim afternoon in 1942 when an enemy torpedo sent her to the bottom 17,000 feet below.
And as we relive those brave and bloody years, often in the company of men who served in these very vessels and survived their destruction, we also get a fascinating glimpse of modern undersea historians at work in a challenging field where state-of-the-art equipment, meticulous research, and sheer instinct can come together into a single, unforgettable moment of discovery that both reveals and revitalizes the past.
Capturing the tragedy and triumph of battles decided 60 years ago, Graveyards of the Pacific is at once a remarkable chronicle of history's greatest war at sea and a moving, evocative memorial to the ships and sailors who fought it."

Washington, D.Chttp://i572.photobucket.com/albums/ss162/RustyBill/website/Willard, Ohio, National Geographic/R. R. Donnelley & Sons:2001, ISBN 0-7922-6366-9 (hardcover)

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"It has been called 'the greatest naval battle since Trafalgar.' On June 4, 1942, near a tiny island 1,500 miles from Hawaii, the course of the Pacific War changed dramatically. Before the battle of Midway the forces of Imperial Japan seemed unstoppable. After Midway the Japanese would never again take the offensive.
Fifty-six years later, famed underwater explorer Robert Ballard embarked on a search for the lost ships that had sunk in that historic battle. Accompanying him were a group of Japanese and American veterans who had once faced each other as enemies. Their memories of the epic conflict act as an affecting counterpoint to the story of the high-tech hunt for this great sunken battlefield.
Dr. Ballard's search area was enormous and his targets - the Yorktown and four Japanese carriers - lay over three miles down, far deeper than the Titanic or the Bismarck. Equipment failures and time constraints kept working against him, and it often seemed that he might return with nothing. But finally, on May 19, 1998, Robert Ballard and his team located the remains of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.
Astonishing underwater photographs of the Yorktown by David Doubilet and Ken Marschall's haunting paintings of the nearly intact carrier are among the visual highlights of this richly illustrated book. In addition, archival and modern images and paintings by leading aviation and maritime illustrators complement this gripping account of one of history's great air-and-sea encounters and the mission to document the lost ships that today bear witness to it."

Washington, D.C., National Geographic/Madison Press:1999, ISBN 0-7922-7500-4 (hardcover)

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"They Also Served is a fascinating collection of over 500 condensed military biographies of extraordinary Americans. The people profiled are known for their achievements outside the military. Prominent in their fields, whether it be law, medicine, or the arts, their one commonality is that when our country called, they answered. Many interesting stories, facts and trivia fill this wonderful, patriotic book."

Spartanburg, North Carolina, MIE Publishing:1998, ISBN 1-877639-37-0 (trade paperback)

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New York, New York, Harper & Rowe:1975, ISBN 0-06-010278-0 courtesy San Antonio Public Library

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"The Encyclopedia of World Military Power is a lavishly illustrated encyclopedia of the weapons of modern warfare. It describes the developments and operations of each family of weapons and how they fit in to the overall military spectrum. Within each family, the major types are discussed and illustrated with superb color photographs showing them in their combat environment and with full-color drawings displaying their technical details. Specifications are provided for the major types to allow comparison of their combat capabilities. The encyclopedia is organized in four major parts.
The first section discusses the strategic weapons that are so often the subject of heated debate. Principal among these are nuclear weapons, which are described here, from small free-fall weapons to multiple warhead ballistic missiles. Other areas under scrutiny include chemical and biological warfare, and the current and projected use of space as a battle zone.
The section covering military aircraft and their weapons describes all families of aircraft involved in combat operations from nuclear bombers to armed lightplanes, from secret strategic reconnaissance types to assault transports. The avionics that allow the modern combat aircraft to perform its functions are also discussed, as well as the abundance of weapons that are available to today's combat pilot.
The naval weapons section describes the world's warships and analyzes how each class of vessel is used in wartime. Every facet of naval warfare is covered, from the mighty aircraft carriers to naval radars and guns, each with an expert appraisal of the family's unique position in the battle for the seas.
The final section on land weapons discusses and analyzes the massive selection of weapons available to the land forces commander. At one end of the scale are the tanks, missile systems and heavy artillery deployed by the 'top brass' commanders; at the other are the rifles and pistols used by the individual soldier. Every group of weapons to be found on the modern battlefield is covered in this comprehensive section.
The four sections of The Encyclopedia of World Military Power form a complete overview of the weapons in use by the world's armed forces, from the captured assault rifles of the guerilla in Afghanistan to the mighty carrier battle groups of the United States Navy. Each has its place in the military spectrum and is described in full detail within the pages of this comprehensive volume."

New York, N.Y., Military Press:1986, ISBN 0-517-49597-X (hardcover)

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"Clay Blair's bestselling naval classic, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, is regarded as the definitive account of that decisive phase of the war in the Pacific. Nine years in the making, Hitler's U-boat War is destined to become the definitive account of the German submarine war against the Allies, or the Battle of the Atlantic.
It is an epic sea story, the most arduous and prolonged naval battle in all history. For a period of nearly six years, the German U-boat force attempted to blockade and isolate the British Isles in hopes of forcing the British out of the war, thereby thwarting both the Allied strategic air assault on German cities and Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Occupied France. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat force failed to achieve either of these objectives, but in the attempt they sank 2,800 Allied merchant ships, while the Allies sank nearly 800 U-boats. On both sides, tens of thousands of sailors perished.
The top-secret Allied penetration of German naval codes and, conversely, the top-secret German penetration of Allied naval codes played important roles in the Atlantic naval battle. In order to safeguard the secrets of codebreaking in the postwar years, London and Washington agreed to withhold all official code-breaking and U-boat records. Thus, for decade upon decade, an authoritative and definitive history of the Battle of the Atlantic could not be attempted. The accounts that did appear were incomplete and full of errors of fact and false interpretations and conclusions, often leaving the entirely wrong impression that the German U-boats came within a whisker of defeating the Allies, a myth that persists.
When London and Washington finally began to release the official records in the 1980s, Clay Blair and his wife, Joan, commenced work on this history in Washington, London, and Germany. They relied on the official records as well as the work of German, British, American, and Canadian naval scholars who published studies of bits and pieces of the story. The end result is this magnificent and monumental work, crammed with vivid and dramatic scenes of naval actions and dispassionate but startling new revelations, interpretations, and conclusions about all aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Blair history will be published in two volumes. This first volume, The Hunters, covers the opening three years of the war, August 1939 to August 1942. Told chronologically, it is subdivided into two major sections, the War Against the British Empire. and the War Against the Americas. Volume II, The Hunted, to follow in 1997, will cover the last years of the naval war in Europe, August 1941 to May 1945, when the Allies finally overcame the U-boat threat.
Never before has Hitler's U-boat war been chronicled with such authority, fidelity, objectivity, and detail. Nothing is omitted. Even those who fought the Battle of the Atlantic will find no end of surprises. Later generations will benefit by having at hand an account of this important phase of World War II, free of bias and mythology."

New York, N.Y., Random House:1996, ISBN 0-394-58839-8

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"The first volume of Clay Blair's magisterial, highly praised narrative history of the German submarine war against Allied shipping in World War II, The Hunters, 1939-1942, described the Battle of the Atlantic waged first against the British Empire and then against the Americas. This second and concluding volume, The Hunted, 1942-1945, covers the period when the fortunes of the German Navy were completely reversed, and it suffered perhaps the most devastating defeat of any of the German forces.
In unprecedented detail and drawing on sources never used before, Clay Blair continues the dramatic and authoritative story of the failures and fortunes of the German U-boat campaign against the United States and Great Britain. All the major patrols and sorties made by the Germans are described in detail and with considerable human interest: the Peleus and Laconia affairs; the capture at sea of U-505; the crisis of German command; the futile operations against the Americas; and the mounting and devastating losses that, in effect, entirely destroyed the German submarine service.
Amid the riveting accounts of battles at sea in Volume I, military historian Blair, who served on an American submarine in the Pacific against Japan, postulates that the German U-boat peril in the Atlantic has been 'vastly overblown' in previously published histories and memoirs of that naval struggle, as well as in films. As a consequence, Blair writes, a false mythology about the effectiveness of U-boats has taken root and in order to clearly and fully understand World War II, one must put the U-boat threat into proper perspective.
Although neither volume is intended to be technical in nature. Blair does not neglect the scientific developments of the U-boat war. These include radar and radar detectors, active and passive sonar, Axis encoding machines and exotic Allied decoding machines. high-frequency direction finding (Huff Duff), Hedgehogs, depth charges, and sophisticated U-boat torpedoes. He describes how these devices worked and how they influenced the course of the naval battle.
The remarkable story of Hitler's U-Boat War has been one of the last World War II subjects without a conclusive treatment. Now, thanks to Clay Blair, this has been brilliantly remedied."

New York, N.Y., Random House:1996, ISBN 0-679-45742-9

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"From Germany's initial clashes with Great Britain in the Pacific to Japan's surrender on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, World War II was waged largely at sea. In the tradition of his history of airpower during World War II, Clash of Wings, Walter J. Boyne in Clash of Titans recounts all of the famous sea battles of the war, weaving them together into a gripping narrative that illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of each navy. Thoroughly researched and vividly written, Clash of Titans is a comprehensive and insightful history of the strategies, technological advances, and heroism of naval warfare in World War II."

New York, N.Y., Simon & Schuster:1995, ISBN 0-684-83914-8 (softcover)
New York, N.Y., Simon & Schuster:1995, ISBN 0-684-80196-5 (hardcover)

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"In Clash of Wings, Col. Walter J. Boyne, USAF (Ret.), has focused his aviation expertise on air combat in World War II to create a readable, comprehensive history of the war waged in the skies over land and sea. Boyne masterfully recounts the decisive battles waged on all fronts and elucidates the strategies of each commander. He also gives critical evaluations of the machines themselves and the technological advances that made airpower such a key element in the war, making Clash of Wings an indispensable volume for anyone interested in the history of warfare or aviation."

New York, N.Y., Simon & Schuster:1994, ISBN 0-684-83915-6 (softcover)

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"Aircraft Carrier is intensely interesting and is fascinating reading. I have spent over four years in carriers, as Commanding Officer and as a Flag Officer. These included the original Saratoga, Lexington and the still extant and justly famous Enterprise. The first six months of World War II I had my flag on the Enterprise.
How vividly this remarkable book by Joe Bryan, my good friend, brought before me things blurred and half forgotten, due to the passage of time. His descriptions excellently portray events that were of almost daily occurrence.
While in command of the Third Fleet, I had many carriers serving under me and I was in close touch with them for days on end. I saw them hit with Kamikaze planes, I saw them burn. I saw the clouds of smoke and flames ascending high in the air above their decks. I saw them keep going, finally controlling the fires and damage, and these magnificent ships brought into port. They were repaired and returned to fight again.
This yarn in diary form contains an almost blow by blow account of the youngsters, the magnificent youngsters, who flew and fought our planes from the Fleet. Joe Bryan gives you an insight into their daily lives, their thoughts, their superstitions, their reactions. When reading remember that almost daily they faced death. Aircraft Carrier portrays how they met this threat. It gives a vivid picture of the United States secret weapon, the youth of America. What a debt of gratitude we owe them! It equally portrays the shipboard men who faced the Kamikaze threat, and all phases of shipboard life under war conditions.
The intimate glimpses of the daily lives of these men show they were neither saints nor sinners, just good average American boys, who were tried and found not wanting under the acid test of war. They had mental, moral and, yes, spiritual qualities of high order. When evening prayers were held daily through the ship's loudspeakers it was an inspiring sight to see the reverent attitude of men throughout the ship.
At times it was my misfortune to have to force these men almost to the point of exhaustion. They showed the stuff they were made of. Of course, being good sailormen they groused a bit, but always bounced back. They realized that although they were near the breaking point, the Japs were being pushed beyond the breaking point, and they kept pouring on the pressure. As an old Navy man I am proud of each and every one of them.
This is one of the best stories of the human side of shipboard life during war conditions that has been published. Every good American should read it. To the wartime sailor it will bring back vividly many memories. To those who know little about shipboard life, it will afford a chance to renew their faith and pride in the U. S. Navy. - Admiral William F. Halsey"

New York, N.Y., Ballentine:1954 (paperback)

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