Submarines history

 Submarines The history and evolution of underwater fighting vessels by Antony Preston

Buy Submarines - The history and evolution of underwater fighting vessels by Antony Preston for R195.00

Buy The First Submarines - Purnell`s History of the World Wars for R50.00

Buy Strike From Beneath the Sea - History of Aircraft-carrying Submarines - Terry C Treadwell for R130.00

                  LA.RGE SOFTCOVER:22.5X29.5:PUBLISHED IN 2007 BY HERMES HOUSE:256 PAGES OF A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UNDERWATER VESSELS THROUGHOUT HISTORY,FROM THE NAUTILUS AND HUNLEY TO THE NUCLEAR-POWERED SUBMARINES OF TODAY AND FEATURING OVER 140 SUBMARINES WITH 700 HISTORICAL AND MODERN PHOTOGRAPHS.THE BOOK IS IN A VERY GOOD CONDITION AND INTERNALLY CLEAN.PLEASE NOTE POSTAGE IS R40 IN THE RSA.

This is the story of the sinking of the SS Mendi during WW1, the bravery of the men on board and the ensuing inquiry conducted by the Board of Trade in London. The story follows the small band of survivors to France where they complete their tour of duty. The First World War rages in Europe, it is a white mans war, but when the British government calls for 10 000 black soldiers to be sent to France as a labour force, men from around South Africa volunteer for service. In the foothills of the Drakensberg, Kula Hlongwane, an amaNgwane prince steps forward, followed by a group of his tribesmen. Madondo is ordered to accompany them. For him it is a nightmare from which there is no escape. When crossing the English Channel on the troopship, the SS Mendi, lights loom out of the thick black fog, then a siren blasts. With no time to avoid the collision, the Mendi is struck a devastating blow on the starboard side where Kula and his men lie sleeping. Within minutes, the Mendi begins to sink. The book makes use of various historical documents and the transcripts from the inquiry held in London by the Board of Trade to establish causality for the large loss of life. On conclusion of the inquiry, these transcripts were declared secret and concealed from view for the next 50 years. Men of the Mendi gives an in depth account of the inquiry and the apparent reason for the cover-up.  At 5 am on 21 February 1917, in thick fog about 10 nautical miles (19 km) south of St. Catherine's Point on the Isle of Wight, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company cargo ship Darro accidentally rammed Mendi's starboard quarter, breaching her forward hold. Darro was an 11,484 GRT ship, much larger than Mendi, sailing in ballast to Argentina to load meat. Darro survived the collision but Mendi sank, killing 616 South Africans (607 of them black troops) and 30 crew. Some men were killed outright in the collision; others were trapped below decks. Many others gathered on Mendi's deck as she listed and sank. Oral history records that the men met their fate with great dignity. An interpreter, Isaac Williams Wauchope, who had previously served as a Minister in the Congregational Native Church of Fort Beaufort and Blinkwater, is reported to have calmed the panicked men by raising his arms aloft and crying out in a loud voice: "Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do...you are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers...Swazis, Pondos, Basotho...so let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal, our voices are left with our bodies." The damaged Darro did not stay to assist. But Brisk lowered her boats, whose crews then rescued survivors. The investigation into the accident led to a formal hearing in summer 1917, held in Caxton Hall, Westminster. It opened on 24 July, sat for five days spread over the next fortnight, and concluded on 8 August. The court found Darro's Master, Henry W Stump, guilty of "having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals." It suspended Stump's licence for a year. Stump's decision not to help Mendi's survivors has been a source of controversy. One source states that it was because of the risk of attack by enemy submarines. Certainly Darro was vulnerable, both as a large merchant ship and having sustained damage that put her out of action for up to three months. But some historians have suggested that racial prejudice influenced Stump's decision, and others hold that he merely lost his nerve. Softcover, 320 pages. First published: February 2017

In 1945, as the Allied forces approached the German border having fought so bravely following the successful Normandy landings, it was decided that an elite unit was needed to work alongside the frontline soldiers as they headed east: they were called Target-Force. Until now their story has never appeared in any histories of the period. Through extensive archival work and after interviewing many of the soldiers who tell their story here for the first time, historian Sean Longden can finally reveal the previously unknown story of the men who were sent into Germany to seize and secure highly developed Nazi military technology, key factories and scientists.T-Force was born out of the chaos of war torn Europe in 1945, and it is no wonder the story reads like a spy thriller: the unit was top secret and originated from a plan belonging to the Naval intelligence officer, Ian Fleming, later the creator of James Bond. The unit was selected from the remnants of the infantry after Normandy and included drivers, sappers, bomb disposal experts, commandos and teams of expert scientists, specialists and engineers. What they discovered would not only shock the allied army but also play a huge role in the opening years of the Cold War. Between March and summer 1945, the unit was constantly at work seizing targets in towns such as Bremen, Celle, Hamburg and Hanover, where they uncovered a secret laboratory hidden beneath a straw covered floor of a barn, vast blast furnaces in Ruhr Valley steel works that were dismantled and shipped back to England, and a fully functioning aircraft factory operating in two miles of underground tunnels. They went in search of codebooks that could decrypt the enemys signals; new technology such as jet propelled engines, and mini submarines. They also hunted down the men behind these extraordinary feats: nearly 1,000 top scientists, some smuggled out of the Soviet Zone in unmarked lorries, including Werner Von Braun, the brains behind the V1 and V2 rockets who was to become a key figure in the American space race, Otto Hahn, Germanys foremost expert in nuclear fission and Helmut Walther, the man who inspired Ian Flemings Moonraker.Sean Longdens riveting history will change the story of how the second World War was won and how the first battles of the Cold War were fought; it reads like the finest espionage thriller of the era.