Guardian of Guadalcanal

Guardian of Guadalcanal
Author: Gary Williams
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-02
Genre: Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942-1943
ISBN: 9780984835140

"Douglas Munro joined the Coast Guard intending to be a Quartermaster. But the winds of war dictated a higher need for Signalmen, as the Coast Guards operated jointly with the Navy at levels never repeated. There was no eight-week Basic Training course in 1939. A new recruit was indoctrinated, vaccinated, and issued a uniform. Back then, you became a Third Class Petty Officer through regular self-study, practice, and performance. That is how Douglas Munro earned the Signalman Designator while aboard the CGC Spencer." -- From dust jacket.

The Fighting Coast Guard

The Fighting Coast Guard
Author: Mark A. Snell
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2022-12-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700633944

This collection of essays, written by some of the foremost historians in the field of Coast Guard history, highlights the wartime roles played by the United States’ oldest federal maritime service, from its inception through the last decade of the twentieth century. The Fighting Coast Guard features three distinct sections: “Beginnings,” which includes a short overview of the US Revenue Cutter Service (the USCG’s primary forerunner, established in 1790) and two chapters on World War I; “Conflagration,” the role of the USCG during the World War II era; and “The Cold War and Beyond,” an assessment of the Coast Guard’s participation in the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The Fighting Coast Guard is a significant contribution to the limited historiography of the Coast Guard and a critical analysis of various wartime roles undertaken by the Coast Guard during America’s twentieth-century conflicts. Because the Coast Guard operated as part of the Department of the Navy during the two world wars, its service and history is often overlooked or envoloped by the larger service, while the USCG’s limited participation in cold and hot wars since 1945 is often ignored altogether. This anthology provides readers with a solid overview while highlighting some of the service’s most important contributions as a combatant force. This definitive study of the role of the US Coast Guard in wartime, from its modern inception in 1915 through the end of the twentieth century, is long overdue and will shed new light on America’s smallest military service.

The United States Coast Guard in World War II

The United States Coast Guard in World War II
Author: Thomas P. Ostrom
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2009-08-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0786453710

At home and overseas, the United States Coast Guard served a variety of vital functions in World War II, providing service that has been too little recognized in histories of the war. Teaming up with other international forces, the Coast Guard provided crewmembers for Navy and Army vessels as well as its own, carried troops, food, and military supplies overseas, and landed Marine and Army units on distant and dangerous shores. This thorough history details those and other important missions, which included combat engagement with submarines and kamikaze planes, and typhoons. On the home front, port security missions involving search and rescue, fire fighting, explosives, espionage and sabotage presented their own unique dangers and challenges.

SEAL of Honor

SEAL of Honor
Author: Gary L Williams
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011-04-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 161251006X

Lt.Michael Patrick Murphy, a Navy SEAL, earned the Medal of Honor on 28 June 2005 for his bravery during a fierce fight with the Taliban in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The first to receive the nation's highest military honor for service in Afghanistan, Lt. Murphy was also the first naval officer to earn the medal since the Vietnam War, and the first SEAL to be honored posthumously. A young man of great character, he is the subject of Naval Special Warfare courses on character and leadership, and an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, naval base, school, post office, ball park, and hospital emergency room have been named in his honor. A bestselling book by the sole survivor of Operation Red Wings, Marcus Luttrell, has helped make Lt. Murphy's SEAL team's fateful encounter with the Taliban one of the Afghan war's best known engagements. Published on the 5th anniversary of the engagement, SEAL of Honor also tells the story of that fateful battle, but it does so from a very different perspective being focused on the life of Lt. Murphy. This biography uses his heroic action during this deadly firefight in Afghanistan, as a window on his character and attempts to answer why Lt. Murphy readily sacrificed his life for his comrades. SEAL of Honor is the story of a young man, who was noted by his peers for his compassion and for his leadership being guided by an extraordinary sense of duty, responsibility, and moral clarity. In tracing Lt. Murphy's journey from a seemingly ordinary life on New York's Long Island, to that remote mountainside a half a world away, SEAL of Honor will help readers understand how he came to demonstrate the extraordinary heroism and selfless leadership that earned him the nation's highest military honor. Moreover, the book brings the Afghan war back to the home front, focusing on Lt. Murphy's tight knit family and the devastating effect of his death upon them as they watched the story of Operation Red Wings unfold in the news. The book attempts to answer why Lt. Murphy's service to his country and his comrades was a calling faithfully answered, a duty justly upheld, and a life, while all too short, well-lived.

Into the Valley

Into the Valley
Author: John Hersey
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2002-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780803273283

John Hersey (1914?93) was a correspondent for Time and Life magazines when in 1942 he was sent to cover Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific. While there, Hersey observed a small battle upon which Into the Valley is based. While the battle itself was not of great significance, Hersey gives insightful details concerning the jungle environment, recounts conversations among the men before, during, and after battle, and describes how the wounded were evacuated as well as other works of daily heroism.

Into the Valley

Into the Valley
Author: John Hersey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1966
Genre: World War, 1939-1945
ISBN:

Snoqualmie Pass

Snoqualmie Pass
Author: John Kinnick
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780738548098

Situated in the Cascades about 50 miles east of Seattle, Snoqualmie Pass is intersected by the most heavily used route connecting eastern and western Washington. In the 1800s, use of the old Native American trail by explorers, cattlemen, and miners created a need for a wagon road. A railway and highway followed, and Snoqualmie Pass quickly developed into an all-season recreational paradise with over a half million visitors annually. Known for easy access to snow sports and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area, nighttime ski operations, and the world-famous terrain of Alpental, Snoqualmie Pass is also a community of neighborhoods with both full-time and part-time residents who share a unique mountain lifestyle.

The Shark God

The Shark God
Author: Charles Montgomery
Publisher:
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2007
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780226534862

The author analyses and documents the people who had lived on the islands of Melanesia during the late nineteenth century, and chronicles the experiences of his great-grandfather, who was a missionary in the South Pacific.

Forgotten Ally

Forgotten Ally
Author: Rana Mitter
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 054784056X

A history of the Chinese experience in WWII, named a Book of the Year by both the Economist and the Financial Times: “Superb” (The New York Times Book Review). In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very survival. In this book, prize-winning historian Rana Mitter unfurls China’s drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue as never before. Based on groundbreaking research, this gripping narrative focuses on a handful of unforgettable characters, including Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and Chiang’s American chief of staff, “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell—and also recounts the sacrifice and resilience of everyday Chinese people through the horrors of bombings, famines, and the infamous Rape of Nanking. More than any other twentieth-century event, World War II was crucial in shaping China’s worldview, making Forgotten Ally both a definitive work of history and an indispensable guide to today’s China and its relationship with the West.

Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass

Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass
Author: John W. Lundin
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-10-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439663033

Relive the exciting early days of skiing when Snoqualmie Pass was the epicenter of the sport. Ski jumping tournaments attracted world-class competitors to Cle Elum, Beaver Lake on the Summit and the Milwaukee Ski Bowl. The Mountaineers' twenty-mile race from Snoqualmie to Stampede Pass, dubbed "the world's longest and hardest race," was a pinnacle of cross-country skiing. Alpine skiing began in private ski clubs and expanded in 1934 with the country's first municipal ski area, known as the Seattle Municipal Ski Park. And the sport peaked when the Milwaukee Ski Bowl at Hyak opened in 1938. With train access, a modern ski lodge, an overhead cable lift and free ski lessons from the Seattle Times, the Ski Bowl revolutionized local skiing. Lawyer and local ski historian John W. Lundin follows the historic tracks through the genesis of American skiing.