Sea Devils is a compelling account of pioneer submariners and their astonishing underwater contraptions. Some made perilous voyages. Others sank like stones. Craft were propelled by muscle-power or had steam engines with chimneys. Some had wheels to trundle along the seabed. Others were used as underwater aircraft carriers.Here John Swinfield traces the history of early submarines and the personalities who built and sailed them. From a plethora of madcap inventors emerged a bizarre machine that navies of the world reluctantly acquired but viewed with distaste. It matured into a weapon that would usurp the mighty battleship, which had for centuries enjoyed an unchallenged command of the oceans. In its long and perilous history the submarine became subject to fierce business, military and political shenanigans. It won eventual acceptance amidst the chaos and carnage of the First World War, in which pathfinder submariners achieved an extraordinarily high tally of five Victoria Crosses, Britain’s highest military decoration.Sea Devils brims with daring characters and their unflinching determination to make hazardous underwater voyages: an immensely readable, entertaining and authoritative chronicle of low cunning, high politics, wondrous heroism and appalling tragedy.

A fascinating memoir of service with the "human torpedoes" of the Italian Navy's Tenth Light Flotilla.

July 1945. Eighteen young British, Australian and New Zealand special forces from a top-secret underwater warfare unit prepare to undertake three audacious missions against the Japanese. Using XE-craft midget submarines, the raiders will creep deep behind Japanese lines to sink two huge warships off Singapore and sever two vitally important undersea communications cables. Success will hasten ultimate victory over Japan; but if any of the men are captured they can expect a gruesome execution. Can the Sea Devils overcome Japanese defences, mechanical failures, oxygen poisoning and submarine disasters to fulfil their missions? Mark Felton tells the true story of a band of young men living on raw courage, nerves and adrenalin as they attempt to pull off what could be the last great raid of World War Two.

At the beginning of World War II, Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, dashing Italian nobleman, assembled the famous Decima MAS naval unit-the first modern naval commando squad. Borghese's "frogmen" were trained to fight undercover and underwater with small submarines and assault boats armed with a variety of destructive torpedoes. The covert tactics he and the Decima MAS developed, including the use of midget submarines, secret nighttime operations, and small teams armed with explosives, have become a standard for special forces around the world to this very day.After the Italian capitulation in 1943, Borghese determinedly fought on as a Fascist commando leader. After the war, he became a man of mystery, variously said to be involved with several right-wing conspiracies, abortive coups, and clandestine activity. The Prince's death in 1974 was every bit as mysterious as his life.Greene and Massignani have drawn upon official archives as well as information from Allied and Axis veterans in an unprecedented attempt to separate fact from fantasy in this detailed examination of Borghese, the Decima MAS, and the Italian naval special forces.

Tasked with destroying as many British merchant ships as possible, German aristocrat Felix von Luckner and his ship the Seeadler succeeded in spectacular fashion. n 1916, a three-masted windjammer bearing Norwegian colours sailed out of a quiet anchorage in Germany, loaded with cargo and apparently bound for Australia. Her true mission was quite different. The ship was, in fact, the SMS Seeadler, commanded by swashbuckling German aristocrat Felix von Luckner. Over an epic voyage, he used cunning and deception to destroy fourteen merchant ships, all the while evading the utterly foxed and infuriated British Admiralty in a daring game of cat and mouse. This rip-roaring World War I story depicts a life of espionage, counterespionage and piracy of the most gentlemanly kind.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

DIRK PITT IS BACK, AND ON HIS SHOULDERS RESTS THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE PLANET . . . JOIN THE LATEST THRILL RIDE FROM THE GRAND MASTER OF ADVENTURE, CLIVE CUSSLER _________ In 1959 a Skytrain plane flees Tibet - carrying a precious artefact - but after crossing the Himalayas it is never seen again . . . Sixty years later Dirk Pitt and NUMA are surveying near the Philippines when a rogue wave nearly sinks their ship. Diverting to rescue washed-away islanders, Pitt discovers the wave has raised a sunken relic - an ancient cargo plane. But before he can get to the bottom of one mystery, Pitt is hit with another: beat the Chinese military to find a lost hypersonic missile. Yet what should be a simple search and retrieve reveals evidence of a far more dangerous weapon. Because the rogue wave that almost sank Pitt and devastated the islands was no natural phenomenon. And the weapon that caused it is to be turned on a much bigger target . . . _________ Praise for Clive Cussler: 'The Adventure King' Sunday Express 'Just about the best in the business' New York Post 'Cussler is hard to beat' Daily Mail