Originally published in 1990, Sky Ships is easily the most comprehensive history of U.S. Navy airships ever written. The Naval Institute Press is releasing this new edition— complete with two hundred new photographs—to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the book’s publication. Impressed by Germany’s commercial and military Zeppelins, the United States initiated its own airship program in 1915. Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey was homeport for several of the largest machines ever to navigate the air. The success of the commercial rigid airship peaked in 1936 with transatlantic round trips between Central Europe and the Americas by Hindenburg and by Graf Zeppelin— ending with the infamous fire in 1937. That setback, the onset of war, and the accelerated progress of heavier-than-air technology ended rigid airship development. The Navy continued to use blimps to protect Allied shipping during World War II. Following the war, the Navy persisted with efforts to integrate the airships, but the program was finally discontinued in the early 1960s.

Captain Glenn F. Howell kept a detailed account of his activities in China for 62 years. His journals now make up 202 leather-bound volumes--one of the largest sources in existence, perhaps the largest, of servicemen's observations of service in China during that country's struggle to oust one power and come to grips with a new one between World War I and II. This work presents Howell's diary from June 6, 1920, to September 23, 1921, during which time he commanded the naval gunboat USS Palos on the Yangtze River. First comes a biography of Howell, an overview of Chinese history from 1800 to 1920, and a history of the United States military involvement in China during those years. Howell's time as commander of the USS Palos is divided into three sections. Preceding each, the editor comments on the nature of the upcoming diary entries. Howell covers a range of topics, including the Chinese people, various important locales (e.g., the Three Gorges), making official visits, (his first as a captain), officer-enlisted man relations, opium, the steam navy, people who influenced him (S. Cornell Plant and Captain Joseph Miclo, skipper of the Meitan), missionaries and other foreigners in China (including U.S. military retirees), and "trackers" (China's human beasts of burden.)