The average American knows little or nothing of the great service rendered by Admiral de Grasse, a French admiral, to the cause of American independence in the battle off Cape Henry in 1781. The battle off Cape Henry had ultimate effects more important than those of Waterloo. De Grasse’s action entailed upon the British the final loss of the thirteen colonies in America. This biography by Charles Lee Lewis places this supremely importa ...
This behind-the-scenes look at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s extraordinary skill as a blue-water sailor explores how FDR’s love of the sea shaped his approach to public service and even influenced the course of events in World War II. Family and friends, Secret Service agents, and others reveal never-before-told stories of their days afloat with America’s greatest seafaring president, including how he escaped injury when ...
The second volume of this authoritative biography of America’s first admiral examines the last ten years of David Glasgow Farragut’s life, which included the ever-fascinating period of the Civil War. Farragut was as carefully methodical in preparation for battle as he was fearlessly swift in the execution of his plans. In Our First Admiral, the reader will learn of gross inefficiency and waste in the conduct of war, in the No ...
Rough Rider is a snapshot study of the significant career of President Theodore Roosevelt. Partly biographical sketch and partly analysis, the book provides an overview of his actions, ideals, and written works, highlighting important events from Roosevelt’s early public life, his presidency, and later career. David Key sees Roosevel as a statesman who well understood how to create his own popular image, but equally important was Roose ...
Written by veteran aerospace journalist Bob Ward, who spent years investigating his subject, this biography presents a revealing but even-handed portrait of the father of modern rocketry. As he chronicles Wernher von Braun's life, Ward explodes many myths and misconceptions about the controversial genius who was a hero to some, a villain to others. The picture of von Braun that emerges is of a brilliant scientist with limitless curiosity an ...
After a highly successful career in investment banking with his own firm and a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, J. William Middendorf became restive and looked for new challenges. Having “learned how to make money,” he writes in this memoir, he “wanted to learn how to make a difference.” Thus he became actively involved in politics, first at the local level in Connecticut and then with the presidential c ...
Ben Moreell was the first non-Naval Academy graduate to be awarded the four stars of an Admiral. He is still the only staff corps officer to be promoted to Admiral. The history of the U.S. Navy Seabees and the biography of Admiral Ben Moreell are inseparable. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he began forming the construction units that ultimately became known as the Seabees. The first battalion of Seabees deployed from the ...
This biography completes a trilogy on the three Navy fighter pilots-Jimmie Thach, Butch O'Hare, and Jimmy Flatley-who developed sweeping changes in aerial combat tactics during World War II. While O'Hare and Flatley were instrumental in making the «weave» a success, Thach was its theoretical innovator, and his use of the tactic in combat at Midway documented its practical application. This portrait of the famous pilot provides a memora ...
This biography covers David Glasgow Farragut’s long career in the navy before the Civil War. He was about sixty years old when that war began, and had accordingly lived through that long transitional period from sail to steam. As a lad he had served with Porter in the Essex on her glorious cruise which ended in bloody defeat at Valparaiso; he had repeatedly cruised in the Mediterranean; he hunted pirates in the Caribbean and had almost ...