Tag: Carriers

Free Download Richard Humble – Aircraft Carriers: The Illustrated History
Michael Joseph Ltd. | 1982 | ISBN: 0718121503 | English | 200 pages | PDF | 169.98 MB
A real good overview of the evolution of the aircraft carrier as a premier sea weapon.

Free Download Martyn Chorlton – British Aircraft Carriers of WW2 (Ships Illustrated)
Ships Monthly | I2014 | ISBN: 1909786276 | English | 100 pages | PDF | 101.31 MB
Each issue focuses on a theme or significant historic ship, their stories complemented with archive photography and artwork. A real collectors item and great read for anyone with an interest in the development of naval, passenger and transportation shipping.

Free Download Steve Crawford – Battleships and Carriers
Barnes & Noble | 1999 | ISBN: 076071259X | English | 327 ppages | PDF | 104 MB
Battleships and Carriers contains 300 of the most important and influential capital ships to have sailed the seas. This book also includes the greatest aircraft carriers that served during World Wars 2 and 11, and such active fighting vessels as the Hermes, George Washington, Enterprise and Ark Royal.

Free Download Paul Wright, "World War I Seaplane and Aircraft Carriers"
English | 2016 | pages: 52 | ISBN: 1472813782 | PDF | 49,8 mb
In 1910 the first aircraft was successfully launched from a small wooden platform on a stationary ship. Just four years later, seaplane-carrying warships were being used to launch the first naval air raids, and by 1918 the first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck was in service. High quality artwork and historical photographs help author Mark Lardas tell the fascinating story of the pioneering years of naval aviation, covering such historic clashes as the Japanese siege of Tsingtao, the British raid against German Zeppelin bases at Cuxhaven, and the Battle of Jutland, which saw the first airplane take part in a naval battle. Through detailed analysis he explores their development from hastily adapted merchant ships to the launch of HMS Argus, the first aircraft carrier to have a full-length flight deck, and shows how they paved the way for the aircraft carriers of the future.

Free Download Martin Stansfeld, "Japanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific: The Yamamoto Option"
English | ISBN: 1399010115 | 2022 | 272 pages | PDF | 26 MB
Japanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific focuses on the pre-war debate between building a new generation of super-battleships or adopting aircraft carriers as the capital ships of the future. An Asian power in particular sees carriers as a way of challenging the USA and the colonial empires initially losing the contest yet coming out all right in the Cold War aftermath. Martin Stansfeld examines the much-overlooked genesis of Japan’s so-called shadow fleet that was a secret attempt to bring about parity with the U.S. in carriers albeit only with slower speed conversions of liners and auxiliaries but along with the super battleships cluttered launch facilities when these could have been devoted to keel-up fast fleet carrier production. This first analytical look at what major launch facilities were available in Japan shows that the Imperial Japanese Navy could have doubled its fast carrier fleet thereby able to give sufficient air cover for the invasion of Hawaii rather than just the raid on Pearl Harbor, but only providing nobody noticed they were building all these carriers. This is shown to have been entirely possible given the IJN’s extraordinary success at covering up their super battleship and shadow fleet production. This secret fast carrier fleet program is given the name "phantom fleet" by Stansfeld who proceeds to demonstrate how the strategy of the Pacific War would have been transformed. Weaving through the chapters is an exotic cast of characters led most notably by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the conceiver of Pearl Harbor and a figure of mythic status to Japanese today and famous around the world thanks to the movies. Stansfeld dwells on the ironies of war, notably how, without, the "day that will live in infamy," America might never have become the worldwide super-power it is today.

Free Download Essex Class Aircraft Carriers, 1943-1991: Rare Photographs from Naval Archives (Images of War) by Leo Marriott
English | December 2, 2020 | ISBN: 1526772140 | 262 pages | PDF | 50 Mb
Photographic history of the US Essex-class aircraft carriers of the Second World War.