Search results for U-Boats.

When the Navy Took to the Air: The Experimental Seaplane Stations of the Royal Naval Air Service

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Reviewed by Niall Ferguson. Those hoping to read of the exploits of the RNAS on the Western Front will be disappointed since the secondary title of this volume provides a better description of the contents than the primary. While there is some description of aerial action, it reflects only on the culmination of research and experimentation at plac…


Relearning the Lessons. John Terraine’s 1984 WFA Address

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Relearning the Lessons. John Terraine’s 1984 WFA Address (This article, a transcript of John Terraine's 1984 Address first appeared in Stand To! 1985 No.13  pp4-7) "Mr. Chairman, fellow-members of The Western Front Association: I hope you will forgive me if today - contrary to my usual practice - I strike a personal note in my address to you. B…


‘The U-Boat Wars, 1916-1945’ The Presidential Address delivered by the Honorary President John Terraine

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(This article first appeared in Stand To! 28 Spring 1990 pp7-11) As some of you will know, but others may not, the book that I have been working on for the last four years came out in September. Its title is Business in Great Waters, from Psalm 107 (the Seamen's psalm), which tells us: They go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great …


'Passchendaele' The 1992 Presidential Address delivered by the Honorary President John Terraine

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(This article first appears in Stand To! 37 Spring 1993  pp6 - 10 This year, 8 November was Remembrance Day—remembrance of the two World Wars, this century's two great catastrophes. For the first quarter-century of my life, Remembrance Day was always 11 November, the anniversary of Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, marking the end of the First Worl…


When and Why the Doughboys Finally Joined the War in 1917

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When the First World War began in August 1914, none of the 48 autonomous states that then made up the United States of America (USA) supported the taking of sides with either the Entente Powers (Britain, France and Russia) nor the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). The USA had a professional regular army of 100,000, nearly half of which …


The Raid on Yarmouth : 3 November 1914

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The raid took place on 3 November 1914, and was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British North Sea port and town of Great Yarmouth by the German battlecruiser squadron under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper. The intention was to lay mines off the coast of Yarmouth and Lowestoft and to shell Yarmouth. Little damage was done to th…


The Lusitania, the Life, Loss and Legacy of an Ocean Legend by Daniel Allen Butler

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Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg,  PA, 2000, 291 pp. $29.95.  ISBN 0 8117 989 2.  Even at this late date, the Lusitania continues to intrigue. A single, unreliable bronze torpedo from a German unterseeboot sank the mammoth British liner in May 1915, some three months after the Germans had announced an unrestricted U-boat attack of merchantmen of a…


Sons of Freedom: The forgotten American Soldiers who defeated Germany in World War One by Geofrey Wawro

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Basic Books. £13.81 (on Amazon special at the time of the book’s review). HB 596 pp. 14 maps. Ills throughout. Bibliog: Notes. Index. ISBN: Currently not published in the UK. Available via online shops. £20 from Abebooks.  Professor Wawro is the director of the Centre for Military History at the University of North Texas and joint editor, with…


HYBRID ONLINE/LIVE MEETING: The U-Boat Campaign and Experiences 1914-18 by Graham Kemp

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This is an experimental hybrid meeting which will be 'live' and 'online' at the same time. It will be streamed live into zoom from the branch event which will be taking place in York on Saturday 14 August at 2.30pm UK time.  This presentation by Graham Kemp begins with essential differences between U-boats and Submarines, as different conceptions …


U-36 and the Prince Charles

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SM U-36 was a type U 31 submarine, commissioned on 14 November 1914 under the command of Kapitanleutnant Ernst Graeff. Above: U Boat (U-38) of the U 31 type Her first war patrol in Heligoland Bight was at the end of March 1915, with no sinkings of ships reported. Above: U-36 pictured in April 1915 By the end of April that would change, with…


Pantomime at Sea: Q-ships in the First World War

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The use of deception in warfare at sea was not new to the First World War – as an example, in 1681, HMS Kingfisher was designed to counter the attack of pirates by masquerading as a merchant ship, with her armaments hidden behind false bulkheads, and with various means of changing her appearance.  Conversely, the tactic of making merchant ships loo…