Books by Naval Historical Center

This authoritative reference work is the ideal reading companion to help readers evaluate ships referred to in a battle accounts; it also offers a sense of the size of the CSA's navy; and its encyclopedic entries on each vessel are interesting in and of themselves. This is a hardcopy edition of the online-only publication found on the U.S. Navy's history website. (The Navy created it by abstracting CSA entries from its Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.) The website and this book supply an alphabetical look-up of CSS ship names followed by technical description and service history. Multiple entries show under a heading where different vessels bore the same name, helping readers to identify (for instance) which CSS Beauregard is being referred to in an account of some naval action. The editors have added more pictures of ships and two new ship entries to bring the volume up-to-date.

History of the Navy at China Lake, California, V. 3. Tells the story of the creative military/civilian team who worked at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) China Lake from 1948 to 1958.

William S. Dudley, Editor, Michael J. Crawford, Associate Editor. Provides a detailed chronology of events leading to and various battles during the War of 1812. Introductory material describes the early development of the American Navy from 1775 through 1811. The chapters that follow include battle by battle descriptions of the war in the Atlantic, the Northern Lakes (Great Lakes), and the Gulf Coast. The document concludes with the USS Constitution's victory over the HMS Java on Dec. 29, 1812. This is a superior quality reprint of this volume originally published in 1985 by the Navy Historical Center, U.S. Department of the Navy.

Originally published in 1986 by the Naval Historical Center, United States Department of the Navy. 608 pages. maps. ill.

The third of a four-volume documentary history on the naval and maritime aspects of the War of 1821, this publication focuses on the Chesapeake Bay, the Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean theaters of operation during the last two years of the war, 1814-1815. In each of these three theaters, a U.S. naval force found itself confronting a superior British naval force. Blockaded in tributaries by a significant British squadron, Commodore Joshua Barney's gunboat flotilla held out for ten weeks, engaging in several pitched battles, until Barney ordered its destruction. Barney's sailors then became foot soldiers and maintained the nation's honor in facing the red-coated foe marching on Washington, when other troops broke and ran at the battle that wit's derided as the "Bladensburg Races." The editors have culled documents from many domestic and foreign repositories and arranged them chronologically by topics within theaters of operations. An introductory essay that provides a context for the documents that follow precedes each theater. Originally published in 2002, this book contains supporting maps and illustrations.

This study is a dramatic example of how the U.S. Navy's multipurpose ships and aircraft, flexible task organization, and great mobility enabled President Kennedy to protect national interests in one of the most serious confrontations of the Cold War.Curtis A. Utz is currently a historian in the Naval Historical Center's Contemporary History Branch.