In the 1950s and early 1960s a small fraternity of daring, brilliant men made the first exploratory trips into the upper stratosphere, reaching the edge of outer space in tiny capsules suspended beneath plastic balloons. This book tells the story of these tenacious men as they labored on the cusp of a new age, seeing things that no one had ever seen and experiencing conditions no one was sure they could survive.

Mostly U.S. Air Force and Navy officers, among them doctors, physicists, meteorologists, engineers, astronomers, and test pilots, they struggled with meager budgets, bureaucratic politics, and one another. It is a thrilling story of tremendous personal sacrifice and great risk for the promise of adventure and the opportunity to uncover a few precious aspects of the universe. Capt. Joseph Kittinger, for example, rode a balloon up to 103,000 feet in an open gondola and then stepped out and freefell to Earth, becoming the only person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Lt. Col. David Simons stayed aloft for a full day and night in a primitive pressurized capsule to become one of the first to see the curvature of the planet. In this work, Craig Ryan masterfully captures the drama of their spectacular achievements and those of many of the other space pioneers who made America’s stratospheric balloon programs possible.

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Learn all about the ocean in this 3D pop-up book! 3D Theatre: Oceans – by Kathryn Jewitt, illustrated by Fiametta Dogi – uses stunning pop-up 3D scenes to take the reader into the very heart of the seas. Whether it’s exploring a coral reef, meeting all the creatures that inhabit a rock pool, travelling down from the surface to the different ocean zones or discovering a shipwreck and its fabulous treasure, this enticing book will enthrall children and parents alike. Backed up with fascinating reference spreads, this is a book to enchant.

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Birdwatching as we know it emerged sometime in the late eighteenth century, and a lively literature about birds and bird behavior positively erupted in the decades that followed. In An Exhilaration of Wings, Jen Hill has for the first time gathered together the most vital and engaging of these writings, which, while historically specific, are timeless in their evocation of what the passion for birds is all about.

As Hill remarks in her introduction, birdwatching is “an experience of the ears and intellect as much as it is of the eye,” all of which comes across clearly in the instructive, revealing, and beautifully written excerpts she has culled for this book. Over seventy-five writers, famous and unknown–from John Muir, John James Audubon, and William Wordsworth to the largely forgotten ornithologists Florence Merriam and Olive Thorne Miller and the English country poet John Clare–share their infectious observations about bird song, migration, nests, raptors, sea birds, hummingbirds, and much more. The entries are by turns practical, lyrical, humorous, literary, scientific–on occasion even mystical–as they illuminate the magical and occasionally unexpected ways in which birding connects us both to the history of the natural world and to that of human experience. This charming compendium is certain to delight birdwatchers and natural history lovers alike.

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Little more than huge gun mountings fitted on simple, self-propelled rafts, the Royal Navy’s big gun monitors were designed and built rapidly to fulfill an urgent need for heavy shore bombardment during World War I. They were largely forgotten when this short-lived requirement was over until Buxton produced the first edition of this book in 1978. Now completely revised, expanded, and redesigned to a larger format, the book provides a top-notch technical and operational history, supported by more than 200 illustrations of the ship. A final class, built in World War II, along with new material on the heavier monitors, is included in this revised and expanded edition of a classic work.

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Award-winning journalist Tedd Thomey tells the poignant stories of the two photographers who took the pictures of the flag-raising sent around the world in 1945. Joe Rosenthal, a combat photographer for the Associated Press, became well known for his work, but when accusations surfaced that his famous photo was staged, he endured years of abuse and humiliation. Thomey also highlights the tragic story of the second photographer, Sgt. Bill Genaust, a Marine killed in battle just nine days after the flag went up. Genaust was not acknowledged for his immortal motion picture until a fellow cameraman mounted a decades-long campaign that resulted in a plaque in his honor being placed atop Mount Suribachi in 1995.

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Bill Lawrence served his country for thirty-seven years in a remarkable naval career filled with triumphs and adversities. A naval aviator and test pilot who commanded a fighter squadron in the Vietnam War, he was shot down in combat and held by the North Vietnamese at the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison for six years. During his imprisonment he became a hero among heroes, demonstrating superior qualities of leadership, physical strength, and mental acumen, tap-coding messages to keep his sanity while withstanding solitary confinement and regular torture sessions. Upon release from captivity, Lawrence learned that his wife and the mother of their children had divorced him and remarried. Although these events had a severe emotional impact on him, he resumed his distinguished naval career, rising swiftly through the ranks, remarrying, and being named to such prestigious positions as Commander of the Third Fleet, Superintendent of the Naval Academy, and Chief of Naval Personnel.

In this autobiography, Lawrence credits much of his resolve and ability to overcome difficulties to his strong and nurturing parents, his youth in Nashville, Tennessee, his experiences at the U.S. Naval Academy (where he served as brigade commander and earned letters in three varsity sports), and to the love and support of his wife Diane. With the help of his friend and writer Zip Rausa, the admiral tells his story without glossing over the darker elements. This recounting of his path on an extraordinary journey through life is uniquely American and filled with lessons for us all.

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Gifted storyteller Kemp Tolley guides readers through the lively world of a young naval attaché in Moscow from 1942 to 1944. His absorbing tale describes the adventures of a thirty-day journey on a trans-Siberian train, the success of a long-sought-after inspection of a Soviet warship viewed through the haze of innumerable Vodka toasts, and the unease of state banquets with Stalin and Churchill. It also provides dramatic evidence of the contrasts of Soviet life with descriptions of elegant nights at the ballet accompanied by a beautiful agente provocatrice and memories of starving stevedores wolfing down scraps of raw meat thrown out by American ships. Filled with clever one-liners and complemented by numerous period photographs culled from the author’s own collection, this reminiscence has enjoyed great appeal, since first published on 1983, with readers who like adventure and have an interest in the behind-the-scenes activities of the U.S. Navy and Soviet Union in the early 1940s.

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Despite racial discrimination and second-class status within the enlisted corps, the U.S. Navy’s mess attendants, officer’s cooks, and stewards compiled a proud legacy of combat service in World War II. The heroism of a few like “Dorie” Miller became well known to the American public, but most have long been forgotten. This book tells the story of those thousands of unheralded sailors of African descent who served in frontline combat with fellow “messmen” of Filipino, Guamanian, and Chinese ancestry from the first day of war to the last. Their story begins with recruit training in the racially segregated confines of Norfolk, Virginia’s Units K-West and B-East during the 1930s and proceeds through the perilous early months of war. Though long disparaged as “seagoing chambermaids” and worse, they gallantly upheld the honor of their race while shedding their blood in full proportion in some of history’s greatest naval battles.

For this first major study of the subject, Richard E. Miller draws on a wealth of previously untapped primary documents and more than forty oral history interviews that he conducted. The men he interviewed served at the Naval Academy and aboard ships of all types prior to their wartime service. Miller focuses on the period from late 1932, when the Navy reopened its doors to black men, to 1943, when the ranks of the re-named “steward’s branch” had grown and become transformed by the influx of wartime inductees. Collectively, the interviews cover nearly every naval campaign in the first two years of war. This unexplored perspective of the U.S. Navy puts a face on the “greatest generation’s” last overlooked heroes while making a significant contribution to the operational, social, and cultural history of the U.S. Navy.

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This collection of oral histories is the first book to bring together eyewitness accounts from almost every navy that deployed submarines in World War II. With self-deprecating modesty, humor, pride, sadness, and sometimes bitterness, submariners from Great Britain, Germany, the United States, Italy, France, the former USSR and Yugoslavia, Norway, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, and Japan describe submarine life. From landing agents in enemy territory, laying mines, and being depth-charged, to distilling illicit alcohol, rescuing a cat, and treating appendicitis, the stories add an important personal dimension to the official operational record of WWII submarines. Arranged chronologically, the stories are given background and context by the editor for a full understanding of the contributions made by those who served beneath the waves.

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First Across is the exciting story of the first transatlantic flight. The flight, made in 1919, took a six-man crew nearly three weeks to complete. This book describes in detail the entire operation: the planning, the men and their aircraft, the primitive radio communication, and method of air navigation.

In First Across Richard K. Smith has used photographs, cartoons, and even advertisements of the era to help evoke that spring of 1919, an important moment in the history of transportation.

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An award-winning aviation historian chronicles the Navy’s efforts to develop a powerful sea-based strike force through the use of long-range attack seaplanes supported by surface ships and submarines. William Trimble traces the concept back to the early 1930s when American strategic planners sought ways to mount an assault across the Pacific with minimum air support. But it was not until 1950, when the Navy was threatened with losing its big carriers and long-range aircraft, that the idea of a Seaplane Striking Force was resurrected. Lured by breakthroughs in seaplane performance and the promise of the turbojet-powered Convair Sea Dart fighter and the Martin Sea Master attack flying boat, the Navy believed it could challenge the Air Force in the strategic role, the author explains, but found that the technology did not live up to expectations.

This book investigates the difficulties of weapon system procurement within the context of strategic realities, interservice rivalry, and constrained defense budgets. It also looks at an alternative weapon system that the Navy saw as a means of extending its conventional reach and as a complement to the carrier and land-based bomber used for nuclear deterrence. That weapon, however, proved unsuccessful in the end. The author helps the reader understand that while conceptual and operational flaws kept the Seaplane Striking Force from achieving the goals set for it, the idea of a mobile weapon system capable of long-range attacks from the sea remains valid. Other books touch briefly on the subject, but this is the first to examine the concept in depth.

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Despite being heavily outnumbered by the navies of Great Britain and the United States, the German navy proved to be a serious adversary. Its major warships posed a constant threat to the Allied shipping lanes, and its U-boats in the North Atlantic threatened the very liberation of Europe. This important work explains why Hitler’s navy was such a potent force. An indispensable guide to the ships, organization, command and rank structure, and leaders of the Kriegsmarine, the book’s detailed text studies the navy from World War I to the collapse of the U-boat offensive and the demise of the Third Reich. More than 350 photos, many never before published, along with maps and diagrams, story updates and expands the author’s 1979 title, The German Navy in World War Two, for a new generation of readers.

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The authors deliver a stirring account of one of the greatest David-and-Goliath stories in the annals of sea fights: the sacrificial defense of a British convoy by its escort Jervis Bay against Admiral Scheer, one of Germany’s most feared warships. The extraordinary engagement received front-page treatment when it occurred in November 1940, but tales like this are often lost in the great kaleidoscope of World War II, where watershed events tend to overshadow smaller encounters. This is a story of such courage and resourcefulness, however, that it deserves to be remembered by today’s history buffs.

The book combines an incredible amount of facts with gripping prose to recapture what happened in the North Atlantic when a convoy, escorted by an old cargo ship with a few obsolete guns bolted to her decks, was suddenly confronted by a mighty pocket battleship. It dramatically recounts how the Jervis Bay captain signaled his thirty-seven freighters and tankers to scatter and aimed his ship at full speed straight for the Scheer with its six big guns. It explains how this charge-of-the-light-brigade tactic allowed most of the other ships to escape into the deepening twilight and mounting winter storm and how sixty-five of the 256 men aboard the Jervis Bay managed to survive on rafts. For a full appreciation of the significance of what took place, battle scenes cover the action aboard several ships, including Admiral Scheer, and separate chapters put the battle in context with contemporary naval and political events. For his valor, the captain was posthumously awarded Britain’s only Victoria Cross for convoy defense.

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In 1881, a little girl was born in Turkey to an Armenian father and a French mother. Her life’s journey would eventually lead her to immigrate to America, marry, and run a training camp in Chatham Township, New Jersey, that would host twelve world heavyweight champions and no fewer than seventy-eight International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees.

In a well-researched biography, boxing enthusiast Gene Pantalone shares the story of Madame Bey—a remarkable and fiery pioneer of women in business—who stood tall in a sport of men. Pantalone details the history of boxing and the life of Bey as she demanded exemplary behavior from the toughest of men. He shines a light on her ability to connect with people without preconceived notions, her roots in government and opera, and her friendship with President William McKinley. Included are bios of the notable boxers during Madame Bey’s era.

Madame Bey’s: Home to Boxing Legends shares the fascinating story of an aristocratic woman who managed a training camp for world champion boxers during the early twentieth century.

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In this policy study of the U.S. Navy’s expansion from 1939 through the end of the war, the author details some of the political and strategic complexities involved when a nation allocates finite resources to seemingly endless needs.

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The sea chart was one of the key tools by which ships of trade, transport and conquest navigated their course across the oceans. John Blake looks at the history and development of the chart and the related nautical map, in both scientific and aesthetic terms, as a means of safe and accurate seaborne navigation. This handsome work contains 150 color illustrations including the earliest charts of the Mediterranean made by early thirteenth-century Italian merchant adventurers, as well as eighteenth-century charts that became strategic naval and commercial requirements and led to Cook’s voyages in the Pacific, the search for the Northwest Passage, and races to the Arctic and Antarctic.

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In an action-filled narrative, the authors tell the remarkable story of the Victorian Royal Navy’s fleet of small warships used to enforce the Pax Britannica around the world for half a century. Frequently acting without orders and largely beyond the reach of Admiralty interference, the gunboats’ young commanding officers intervened to stamp out the slave trade and stop local rulers from interfering with legitimate trade. Explaining that gunboats fought as far afield as Borneo, China, Japan, Jamaica, the Baltic, the Black Sea, Africa, the Great Lakes, the Red Sea, and Egypt, Antony Preston and John Major trace the history of gunboats from the time they were built to fight the Russians in the Baltic in 1850 and the early skirmishes of 1857 that led to the Second China War right through to the role they played at the outbreak of the World War I. Supported by a wealth of illustrations, this classic reference ends with a complete listing of the gunboats that served with the Royal Navy between 1855 and 1914 along with their career histories. First published more than three decades ago and long out of print, the book has been revised for this new edition and an introduction has been added by the distinguished naval historian Andrew Lambert.

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Naval aviation historian William F. Trimble provides a clear and detailed portrait of the man who took on the challenge of forming an aeronautical bureau within the U.S. Navy in 1921 and then nurtured the early development of naval aviation. Describing Admiral William A. Moffett as one of the first high-ranking naval officers to appreciate the importance of the airplane and the effect it would have on the fleet, the author contends that the admiral’s strong background as a surface officer gave him a credibility and trust with his superiors that others could not match. The author attributes Moffett’s desire to keep aviation as part of the fleet, along with his diplomacy, tenacity, and political and military savvy, to the success of the infant air arm during its formative years. In striking contrast to the tactics of Army Gen. Billy Mitchell, Moffett’s handling of the loyalty issue and other politically sensitive topics saved the Navy’s air arm, according to Trimble. The book is equally candid about the admiral’s shortcomings, including his heavy-handed support for airships, a technological dead end that squandered millions and led to Moffett’s death in 1933 when he went down with the airship Akron during a storm.

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This colorful guide to the world of Scooby-Doo is packed with fantastic facts about Scooby-Doo and the gang, including their scariest adventures, creepiest moments, and deepest secrets. Find out what is inside a haunted house, who’s in the Doo family tree, and what exactly the gang keeps in the Mystery Machine. Specially commissioned artworks, stills from all 25 original episodes and the live-action movies, and classic images of the gang and their ghostliest villains make this a unique insight into the spooky world of Scooby-Doo.

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Desperate for junior officers to meet the wartime demands of its rapid expansion and to replace the mounting casualties in its Pacific battles, the U.S. Marine Corps convened a Special Officer Candidate School (SOCS) at Camp Lejeune in 1944. This special class was to augment the regular Officer Candidates School (OCS) at Quantico, which was operating at full capacity. The young candidates had been enlisted in the V-12 officers procurement program and called to active duty from colleges and universities across the country. Destined to fight in some of the bloodiest battles of the war then answer the call to arms again in Korea, the Marines of this special class, who called themselves the “SOCS 400,” served in the Minuteman tradition established at Lexington and Concord nearly two centuries earlier. Their compelling story is told for the first time by a former Marine and reporter for some of the nation’s best news organizations. He chronicles their experiences from induction through training and combat to the lives they later led.

Eliminating some of the traditional training of young Marine officers, this special OCS curriculum concentrated on infantry tactics and weapons, and ninety percent of the class wound up as platoon leaders on Iwo and Okinawa. Forty-eight of them were killed, 168 wounded, for a casualty rate of some 58 per cent. For their heroic actions they earned a host of decorations, including five Navy Crosses. Eight more were wounded in Korea and one more earned a Navy Cross. Many believe they had the highest casualty and decoration rates of any Marine OCS class in World War II. This book focuses on ten men representing all six Marine divisions and nearly every section of the country and all types of colleges and universities. The story’s appeal bridges professional and general interests.

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This handsome, large-format book takes the reader on an illustrated tour of the U.S. Army’s hard-hitting airborne forces, from the original Parachute Test Platoon of 1940 to the multiple global commitment of the twenty-first century. Featuring more than 150 photographs, some rare or seldom seen and many in color, the work highlights the extraordinary history of the airborne units as they added new dimensions to national power and military operations, arriving from the sky by parachute and aircraft and compressing time by their swift deployment and flight to objectives thousands of miles distant. Airborne operations of World War II in the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Pacific begin an inspiring story that leads through Korea, Vietnam, and into the twenty-first century. The operations take a prominent place in the story, along with the paratroopers who received the nation s highest award for heroism, the Medal of Honor.
The esprit de corps of the airborne volunteers and their sacrifices in peace and war are consistent themes throughout the book. Whether operating as small groups of paratroopers scattered about the countryside or as powerful parachute infantry regiments, brigades, or divisions, the airborne spirit is always evident. Coauthors John Greenwood and Robert K. Wright, Jr. highlight key leaders and crucial battles spanning more than six decades to help tell this exciting story. Through skillful integration of photographs and text, they show how lessons learned in combat led to improved doctrine and the development of equipment that enhanced the mobility and striking power of these versatile units. This book is published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army.

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Richard K. Smith was curious about the big rigid airships of the 1920s and 1930s. He wondered why they had disappeared from the scene of aeronautics. Two of them, the Akron and the Macon, had actually hangared airplanes. Why had such an airplane-carrying airship not been accepted? His inability to find answers to his questions in existing airship literature prompted his extensive research on the subject. As a result, this book is primarily an examination of the rigid airship’s place in naval operations in the period 1919–1940, with specific focus on the flying aircraft carrier’s development and performance during 1931–1935.

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Most professions have their own languages, and the U.S. Navy with its labored acronyms is certainly no exception. Those in and out of the naval profession will find this dictionary an essential tool in deciphering their unique language, which has its origins in the days of sail and continues to mutate in the ever-growing vocabulary of technology. For this completely revised and fully updated edition, Deborah Cutler and Thomas Cutler identify and clearly define a vast array of acronyms and abbreviations that can make documents and conversations with naval professionals so bewildering. Highly qualified “NAVSPEAK” linguists, the Cutlers have built upon the original work, culling, adding, and bringing the entries up to date for the twenty-first century. Official abbreviations like NGA are included as well as such colorful, unofficial vocabulary as SNAFU. Helpful notations of word origins for the very old and very new make definitions even clearer.

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An award-winning study of the Franco-American undeclared naval war at the turn of the nineteenth century, this history of the nearly forgotten struggle is filled with the dramatic actions of such frigates as the Constellation and her capture of l’Insurgente, as well as the sundry operations that protected American commerce from the depredations of the French corsairs in the Caribbean. First published in 1987, the book avoids the parochialism of earlier studies by placing the American war within a European context. It takes a critical look at the command and operations of the first secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Stoddert, and how under his direction the Navy proved itself ship for ship as?if not more?effective against French privateers than the Royal Navy.

The book also examines how the Navy served the nation’s commercial and diplomatic interests, a pattern of activity that would become known as gunboat diplomacy, and how the Navy’s successes assured it a permanency that had eluded the Continental Navy. Awarded prizes from the American Revolution Round Table of New York and other organizations, the respected work answers penetrating questions about what happened and why, and the author’s judicious evaluations of participants and their policies make an important contribution to the literature. This new Classics edition is introduced by the author, chair of the maritime history department at East Carolina University and author of three other books, including Origins of Maritime Strategy.

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Fans of Edward L. Beach Jr.’s books, including his classic submarine novel Run Silent, Run Deep and his 200-year history of the U.S. Navy, will be drawn to this memoir by his late father, a U.S. Navy Captain, who was a popular novelist of his era. Not only was Beach Sr. a good storyteller but he also was an astute observer of history in the making, and his naval career spanned the sailing and steam navies. Written in the 1930s but never before published, the book is as much about the U.S. Navy as it is about Beach. In his early days Beach served with Civil War veterans aboard wooden ships, while late in his service his shipmates were the future naval leaders of World War II. His account of the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, the Philippine Insurrection of the early 1900s, Haiti in 1915, the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1918, and the wreck of the Memphis, a cruiser under Beach’s command that was destroyed by a 1916 tsunami in Santo Domingo Harbor, is eyewitness reporting at its best. As Beach describes the growth of the Navy, he tells not only what happened but how and why things happened. Beach Jr. puts his father’s writing in historical context for today’s readers and offers insights into his father’s feelings. Rarely does a valuable primary source like this come to light so many years after it was written.

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In the mid-1800s, the United States needed a better way to protect the great flood of immigrants, pioneers, and settlers headed west along the southern route from Indian attacks, thieves, and murderers. Sending more cavalry wasn’t the answer. The land known as the great American Desert was inhospitable to horses and mules. Only one animal “stood the test” in the southwest, and it wasn’t a horse. The Great Camel Experiment of the Old West chronicles the journey of that noble beast from the Middle East to the deserts of the American Southwest.

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A further venture into the world of static-model ships, this book offers additional information to both beginners and more-experienced modelmakers. The bulk of the book describes the construction of ten models, rach with something different to offer. All the models described are made from kits.

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In November 1941 the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, with a crew of 645, disappeared off the coast of Western Australia. When German sailors picked up from lifeboats claimed that their ship, the Kormoran?a lightly armed merchant raider?had sunk the pride of the Australian navy theories sprang up to explain the loss. Had a second German warship been involved, or a Japanese submarine, even though Japan was not yet in the war? Based on the German coded accounts and interviews with German survivors, this book pieces together what really happened in the desperate fight between the two ships, whose wrecks were finally located 10,000 feet down on the floor of the Indian Ocean in March 2008.

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