Böcker av B B Schofield

Vice Admiral Schofield recounts Operation NEPTUNE's monumental role in the D-Day landings, offering firsthand insights from his pivotal position at HMS Dryad.Operation NEPTUNE was the codeword for the naval side of the OVERLORD plan for the historic June 1944 landings in Normandy. Massive in its scale, its tasks were wide-ranging and varied, from beach reconnaissance, minesweeping, shore bombardment as well as the organization of loading, assembly and disembarkation; it was also responsible for positioning two Mulberry artificial harbors and Pluto: the laying of the cross-channel fuel pipeline under the sea. Operation NEPTUNE may not have been a naval battle in the traditional sense, but it ranks as one of the greatest naval exploits in history.In this timeless book, Vice Admiral Schofield describes the great events of June 1944 which, as Captain of HMS Dryad, the Royal Naval shore establishment which housed General Dwight Eisenhowers Supreme Allied Headquarters before the landing, he witnessed at first hand.

During World War II, small Merchant Navy vessels played a crucial role, saving lives amid perilous seas and enemy threats in nearly 800 convoys.The Rescue Ships and the Convoys tells the history of one of the least known aspects of Second World War maritime history. Despite the threat of heavy losses of ships and lives, no hospital ships, which had to be lit, could accompany the convoys as they would betray a convoy's position.The solution was to create a fleet of 30 small Merchant Navy vessels of about 1,500 gross tons, mostly from coastal trade. These 'Rescue Ships', commanded and manned by Merchant Navy personnel, carried medical teams, and life-saving equipment including operating theaters, hospital beds, 'Carley' floats, and hoists.Undeterred either by either enemy action or atrocious weather conditions, these vessels accompanied close to 800 convoys and saved 4,194 lives from ships sunk in the North Atlantic and with the Arctic convoys. During their service, seven Rescue Ships were lost.This is a story packed with suspense, danger, achievement and tragedy. As the author, Vice Admiral Schofield, who was closely involved in the establishment of the fleet, writes, it is a record 'of great humanitarian endeavor, of superb acts of courage, of a display of seamanship of the highest order, of a devotion to duty by medical officers under the most arduous conditions imaginable, of great deeds by men of the Merchant Navy in little ships on voyages they were never designed to undertake.'