4 Ergebnisse.

In January 1942, following the United States' entry into WWII, German U-boats began a reign of terror off America's Eastern Seaboard, over the next several months, sinking hundreds of ships almost at will. With the combatant ships of the then-small U.S. Navy, spread thin in distant theaters, Vice Admiral Andrews desperately sought vessels to protect the coast. Those available consisted of Navy remnants of World War I, private yachts and fishin...

When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, the Royal Navy was deficient in minelayers needed to try to hold enemy forces at bay and out of its home waters. Turning first to the Merchant Navy, it requisitioned a liner and two ferries for this use, and a dozen destroyers and submarines were also converted to carry mines. Later, six fast minelaying cruisers joined the force. When Italy entered the war on the Axis side in June 1940, t...

As war with Japan was imminent, the British laid minefields off Hong Kong and Singapore, the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies, and the Australians off New Zealand and Australia, in an attempt to prevent enemy invasion. Ships hastily converted to this task were referred to as "night raiders." Duty aboard a "floating ammunition dump" was hazardous enough, missions carried out under the cloak of darkness increased the odds of survival in enem...

In WWI under a crippling naval blockade of its North Sea ports which ultimately resulted in the starvation of thousands of its citizens and as land warfare in Europe drags on, Germany endeavours to counter-blockade Britain via U-boat attacks on shipping and by mining waters round the British Isles. Hundreds of fishing vessels from every port and harbour in Britain are pressed into minesweeping duties and minelayers sow fields to restrict and d...