Nicholas C. "Nick" Jellicoe, grandson of Admiral Nicholas Jellicoe and author of the book "Jutland: The Unfinished Battle" has published its next book after four years of work.

It is a continuation of the book "Jutland" in the sense that it deals with the longer-term strategic outcome of the battle: Germany's decision to declare unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. Nick's grandfather, Admiral Jellicoe, moved to lead the Royal Navy in late 1916 to find a solution: One of his findings was to form convoys. He was much criticised for this and even accused of being against convoy tactics; he was not. An effective convoy was only possible if more escort destroyers with more sub-hunting weapons were available. Technology and reconnaissance provided the advantages. This required an extraordinary government "takeover" of merchant shipping and harbour and distribution infrastructure. This is the story of that development and the all-important close working relationship between Jellicoe and Admiral Sims of the US Navy.

Seaforthpublishing.com

Der Beitrag Buchtipp: Jellicoe's War erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

Over ten years ago, in 2011, compulsory military service was suspended in Germany. The war in Ukraine brought the discussion back. For the authors Gerrit Reichert and Benjamin Vorhölter, this was the impetus to document the West German conscription form W 15. Step by step, from the draft enrolment letter to mustering, "Grundi", basic training and leaving, they recall the structure and mentality of the conscript army of the time. Together with their readers, they marvel at what was possible back then and what the consequences were for the Bundeswehr and civil society. Anyone discussing conscription today should know how conscription worked and should definitely have read this unique book!

About the book

Der Beitrag Buchtipp: Generation W 15 - 456 Tage "beim Bund" erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

U 96 seems indestructible. Following the success of "Das Boot" as a book (1973) and film (1981), its final chapter has now been revealed. The boat on which Lothar-Günther Buchheim collected his material for "Das Boot" as a war correspondent in the autumn of 1941 still exists, in Wilhelmshaven! Here, on the North Sea, U 96 was bombed shortly before the end of the war and a few years later, in 1948, its remains were used as filling material in the newly built Grodendamm. The journalist duo Gerrit Reichert and Dr Frank Ganseuer have now traced this trail with a wealth of facts. Starting with a Royal Air Force aerial photograph of the broken U 96 in mid-April 1945 and ending with the photographed sinking of the stern section three years later in Grodendamm. The exciting research is the exclusive 8th additional chapter in the bestseller "U 96 Reality and Myth", now in its fourth edition. Its author, Gerrit Reichert, thus concludes ten years of work on the U 96 complex: "In the beginning, I just wanted to know who the person behind Buchheim's main character of the "Old Man" actually was; in the end, after 80 years, I even managed to track down his boat, and that's the end of it."

29,95 € incl. VAT. to order from Koehler Mittler Shop

Der Beitrag „Das Boot“ – aufgetaucht in Wilhelmshaven! erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

The Reibert has been the standard handbook for the Bundeswehr for decades and offers comprehensive basic knowledge of laws, ordinances, decrees and service regulations. Indispensable for soldiers of all ranks. The new edition was published on 24 September 2024 "The Reibert - The handbook for soldiers of the German Armed Forces" published by Mittler Report Verlag GmbH. The comprehensively revised and updated edition also includes the organisational changes in the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence, information on the new Cyber and Information Space organisational area and details on the newly introduced hand weapons in the Bundeswehr.

This standard reference work with over 950 pages is divided into three parts and is based on the current status of laws, ordinances, decrees and service regulations. It provides soldiers with basic knowledge about the state, society and the Bundeswehr.

The first part deals with civics, internal leadership, international humanitarian law and general troop training. The second part focuses on security policy issues, the various armed forces and relevant institutions and alliances. The structure, equipment and tasks of the army, air force, navy and medical service are also described in detail, as are training opportunities and routes. As a practical companion, the third part contains valuable information for service and military training. In addition, "Der Reibert" also serves as a reference work for reservists. A detailed index also makes it easier to search for specific topics.

The author is Dr phil. Jan-Phillipp Weisswange, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.), currently posted as deputy battalion commander. He is a freelance PR consultant and publishes on security policy, military and weapons technology and history topics.

"Der Reibert - Das Handbuch für Soldatinnen und Soldaten der Bundeswehr" is available in softcover format 10.5 x 14.8 cm at a price of €23.95 from bookshops and in the publisher's online shop at www.koehler-mittler-shop.de.

Der Beitrag „Der Reibert “- ab sofort bei Mittler bestellbar! erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

So the next time you're waiting for a train that doesn't run or a plane that doesn't fly, make the most of the time and take a look at Wild wave!

Wild wave is a book that belongs on the bedside table of anyone who feels a connection to seafaring or simply to the adventures of this world. It is particularly easy to read in stages - the 18 captains' stories are self-contained. They include human and technical disasters, adventures in the South Seas on a submarine supply ship during the Second World War and the sinking of a crab fisherman off Alaska. The reader can also experience the human and technical pitfalls involved in ferrying a car ferry from North Friesland to Thailand (!).

Axel Prahl has shown a happy hand in selecting the stories and his summarising comments at the beginning of the stories set the mood and make it difficult to put the book down. However, this may also be due to the ingenious feel of the book - the soft paper and excellent printing make it considerably more difficult to put down. People who love books have put a lot of thought into this book!

Our conclusion: We find Wild wave entertaining, exciting, tanned by weather, wind and sea and spiked with a pinch of machine oil! The short stories invite you to pick up the book again and again or to read it in one go. The reader does not have to have been to sea himself to be fascinated.

What we particularly like: The publishing house with a heart for anchors manages to be enthusiastic about the coast, the sea and the people who live and work with them without coming across as old-fashioned or folksy - we certainly like the slightly punky image!

Axel Prahl presented:
Wild wave. The best stories of old captains
Ankerherz publishing house, Hollenstedt 2014
Available here, directly from the publisher

Der Beitrag Maritimes zum Schmökern - Wilde Welle erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

"Now the 67-year-old Frenchman has climbed back into the helicopter with his camera - and this time he only focused on the oceans. 200 photographs made it into the large-format volume "The Human and the Oceans" (Knesebeck), which is both a picture book and an environmental pamphlet.

In a dozen interviews, oceanologists and ecologists comment on topics such as fishing, biodiversity and the impact of shipping on nature. The photos show far more than just blue masses of water and shimmering green lagoons. They document oceans as habitats. They show where the Human a friendly, where is a ruthless flatmate.

This creates impressive contrasts. One picture shows a salt lake in Australia coloured blood red by millions of microalgae - a natural process. The next page shows the gruesome work of sealers in Canada: the blood of dozens of dead animals seeps into the white ice cover in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Another photo shows the Raja Ampat archipelago, one of the most biodiverse marine regions in the world. You can see nothing but green-covered hills rising out of aquamarine-coloured water. Here, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, swim sharks, rays and green sea turtles."
Such an article in Spiegel Online about the illustrated book.

The relationship between Human and the sea are reciprocal, so you don't have to be an environmental moraliser. We find the selection of published pictures impressive and have ordered the book directly!

The Human and the Oceans
Yann Arthus-Bertrand (Author), Brian Skerry (Author)
Knesebeck
For example at amazon.de

Der Beitrag "Der Mensch und die Weltmeere" - ein Bildband erschien zuerst auf marineforum.

Stefan Zweig, who was born in Vienna in 1881 and died voluntarily in exile in 1942, tells this story, and he tells it in his own mixture of melancholy and hope in a way that cannot be described as a biography. This is typical of Zweig, as he also treats the biographies of great historical figures in a highly subjective, personalised manner in his other works. However, this does not detract from the book, nor does it come across as uncritical - the enthusiasm that Stefan Zweig displays from the very first pages is not in any way detrimental to the subject matter, i.e. the deed itself. Magellan's itself, without omitting the difficulties and conflicts that history, society, princes and superiors and Magellan create it yourself.

But every great deed of a single people is always done for all peoples. They all sense that this first incursion into the unknown has at the same time overturned all previously valid measures, concepts and feelings of distance, and so the latest news from Lisbon is followed with throbbing impatience at all courts and universities. Thanks to a strange clairvoyance, Europe grasped the creative nature of this world-expanding Portuguese deed, it realised that seafaring and discovery would soon change the world more decisively than all the wars and cartaunas, that a century-old, thousand-year-old epoch, the Middle Ages, had finally come to an end and a new era, the "modern age", was beginning, which would think and create in other spatial dimensions.

Driven by the need for an alternative trade route with India and China, change is in the European air. Trade with the Orient and the Far East stagnated at best and during the Middle Ages would not reach the level that prevailed in antiquity between Europe, the Far East and all peoples in between. The Christian West not only needed luxury goods, silk and spices, but also incense from the Orient for its churches. Trade took place overland, the trade routes were well-known, but dangerous, arduous, lengthy and expensive. Europe is well aware of its needs and its dependence, and the idea of an alternative route to the Far East is not new. A direct sea route is not known, the seas have not yet been explored - there is a lack of technical possibilities and the will to create them. This development is set to begin in Portugal of all places. Portugal, the smallest of the European countries, up to its navel in the sea and with its back to Spain, makes a virtue of this geopolitical necessity. Here, at the behest of Henry the Navigator, Prince of the Portuguese King, the technological, social and political foundations were laid in the 15th century to turn Portugal into a seafaring and trading nation from virtually nothing!

While in 1418 [...] it was still a source of astonishment that the first barcas reached Madeira, in 1518 Portuguese ships landed - contrast the two distances on the map! - already in Canton and Japan [...]. Inspired by such speed, the world view must change and expand from year to year, indeed from month to month. Day and night the map engravers and cosmographers sit at work in their workshops in Augsburg, but they can no longer fulfil the orders. Still damp, still uncoloured, the engravings are torn from their hands, and the printers cannot bring enough travelogues and globes to the book fair, everything wants news of the "mundus novus".

This development must have seemed unbelievable, almost inhuman, to people. The sudden increase in the speed at which goods and ideas spread made a powerful impression on the curious, but until then leisurely, Old World, comparable to the information revolution of our time. After centuries of stagnation, globalisation is picking up speed again and, for the first time in history, the entire globe is being opened up. The parallels to the information revolution through the internet are obvious, the need for up-to-date and accurate map material throughout Europe a symptom, because information about the New Worlds not only satisfies people's curiosity, it is important for trade and politics and for making decisions about war and peace.

Only one deed remains, the last, the most beautiful, the most difficult: to circumnavigate the entire globe on one and the same ship and thus to measure and prove the round shape of our earth against all cosmologists and theologians of the past - it will be the life idea and the fate of Fernão de Magalhaes, whom history will remember for a long time. Magellan calls.

Stefan Zweig
Magellan - The man and his deed
Vienna, 1938
For example with amazon.com

Der Beitrag Buchtipp: Magellan - Der Mann und seine Tat erschien zuerst auf marineforum.