The PT boat was a class of motor torpedo boats used by the United States during the Second World War. Armed with a 40mm antiaircraft gun, two 20mm antiaircraft guns and four torpedo tubes, their agility and speed consistently bested even the most outlandish expectations. Against Japan, they figure prominently in some of the best-known feats of heroism of the entire war. In Devil Boats, the reader is right on board, buffeted by the spray of the crashing Pacific minutes after the Pearl Harbor disaster as a PT boat brings down the first enemy plane. And there again as PT boats, their engines muffled, steal along on an unforgiving ocean to sink a warship, blow up a supply barge, carry a sabotage team past enemy lines, or effect another extraordinary rescue of a downed Allied pilot. In instance upon instance, the PT boats and their crews performed deeds demanding incredible courage and skill, pitting their plywood craft against the force of the angry sea, or the might of ships hundreds of times their own size. Among their legendary exploits - General MacArthur being spirited off besieged Corregidor; Philippine president Quezon's "kidnapping" to Australia; and the unforgettable heroism of a wounded John F. Kennedy and his fearless PT-109.

PT boats loom large in the popular imagination of World War II. In March 1942, a PT boat evacuated Gen. Douglas MacArthur, his family, and top staff from the Philippines, which inspired the war movie They Were Expendable, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. John F. Kennedy became a war hero while commanding PT-109, which collided with a Japanese destroyer and was sunk in August 1943. But the story of PT boats has never been told in the depth and detail that their exemplary service deserves. Naval historian C. J. Skamarakas uses one Pacific PT boat squadron to tell the story of PT boats in action in World War II. Eighty feet long, PT boats were designed to launch torpedoes against enemy ships five and ten times their own size. But defects in the torpedoes and the boats’ speed and maneuverability ultimately shifted the boats’ mission to patrolling and breaking up Japanese shipping and reinforcements. In the waters of the Southwest Pacific as part of MacArthur’s offensives in New Guinea and the Philippines, Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 25 completed these missions and also executed other operations for which they weren’t specifically trained, including inserting commandos behind enemy lines, air-sea rescue, raids on enemy positions, reconnaissance of potential sites for amphibious landings, coordination of air strikes in support of ground forces, meetings with guerrilla leaders, recovery of prisoners of war, diversionary activities, and psychological operations. Today we would call many of their missions “special ops.” The Japanese called PT boats “mosquitoes” and “devil boats.” The Devil Boats recounts the unique contributions of one motor torpedo boat squadron and through it tells the story of PT boats in the Pacific War. With drama and excitement, as well as careful attention to detail, the book fills a void in the history of the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Presents the author's first-hand account of her stay on the Farallon Islands--in the shark infested waters thirty miles west of San Francisco--and includes information on the sharks behavior and scientists who study them.

This, the first of two volumes on Germany's World War II U-boats, traces their development from the early U-boats of the Kaiser's Navy, the prohibition on Germany having U-boats following the Armistice in 1918 and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles, the secret development of U-boats using a 'cover-firm' in Holland, culminating in the formation of the 1st U-boat Flotilla in 1935 with the modern Type II. The operational history section includes examples from the Classes Type VIIA, Type VIIB, VIID, VIIE and VIIF before concentrating on the mainstay of the U-boat arm, the Type VIIC. Comparisons are also made with the standard allied submarines, their strengths, weaknesses and U-boat tactics.

"Nick Finn and his partner and brother-in-law, Diego Jimenez, are used to rough water. As Marine Interdiction Agents for Customs and Border Protection, the two hunt drug smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminals who hide in the vastness of the waters surrounding southern California. One night, Finn and Diego track a phantom boat off the Los Angeles coast, but it disappears before they can intercept it. They find a dead body in its wake, ravaged by sharks. Their investigation into the floater stalls when Finn is accused of using excessive force following the death of a suspected drug smuggler. Then Diego is murdered--and Finn is the number-one suspect"--