CLASSIC DIVE BOOKS

    Military Operations, and Navy Diving
    Please note: The books are listed for interest only, and not offered for sale.

    		 HOMEPAGE

    TO MASTER LIST
    See also authors:  Peter Keeble.  See also separate webpage US Military operations.
    ABOVE US THE WAVES
    The Story of Midget Submarines and Human Torpedoes.
    C.E.T. Warren and James Benson.
    Forword by Admiral Sir George Creasy.
    First published in Great Britain, September 1953 by George G. Harrap & Co., London.
    Hardcover, dust jacket, 256 pages, a few mono prints and maps.
    Covers the naval operations in underwater demolition in the Mediterranean Sea , Norway, around British waters, and ‘the Far East' during the Second World War. This is perhaps the most authorative and most respected of the ‘frogmen' books, quite detailed and a bit daunting to wade through, but nevertheless an important contribution to our knowledge of underwater warfare.
    [ps]
    COMBAT FROGMEN: MILITARY DIVING FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
    Michael Welham.
    Patrick Stephens Limited United Kingdom, 1989.  Dust jacket.  Hard back, 218 pages, bibliography, index, mainly mono prints, colour plates. 
    From the fly blurb: Dangerous, clandestine, shadowy. This is the world of combat frogmen, below the surface of rivers, lakes, estuaries, dock areas and seas. A giant arena in which covert units of swimmers and divers are able to carry out military operations in conditions of great secrecy, infiltrating for reconnaissance missions, and committing acts of devastating destruction against enemy targets of vital strategic importance. The underwater environment is cold and cruel, and these highly-trained combat units face a great variety of lethal hazards, undertaking tasks as diverse as mining enemy shipping and constructing river crossings. The men chosen to operate under water represent the elite of their nations' fighting forces: the Royal Marines' Special Boat Squadron, the Special Air Service Boat Troops, the US SEALs and Green Berets, the French Fusiliers Marins, and the Soviet Spetsnaz. This book is an account of these men ,and the dangerous field of conflict in which they operate. It investigates their selection and training, and gives graphic accounts of actual operations, looking also at the development of their specialist equipment, some of which conld come straight from the pages of science fiction. Michael Welham served with the Royal Marines as a diver/parachutist and saw active service in Aden, later transferring to the SAS and 9S Commando Special Forces. After a time as a commercial diver in industry, he is now a writer and researcher on military subjects, and operates a military picture library. [xoe]
    COMMANDER CRABB
    by Marshall Pugh.
    First edition August 1956. Reprinted 1956.
    Macmillan and Company Limited.
    Printed in great Britain.
    Hardcover, dust jacket, 166 pages, mono prints. Cover shown is th Macmillan, London, edition. [ps]
    He disappeared on 19 April 1956 - ‘presumed drowned' - under bizarre and controversial circumstances whilst diving in Portsmouth harbour.
    USA edition is titled:
    FROGMAN - COMMANDER CRABB'S STORY. 
    Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. No date. Library of Cingress 56-11868, so therefore publ;ished in 1956. 
    FROGMAN V.C.
    Ian Fraser.
    Copyright 1957. Angus & Robertson, London, Melbourne, Sydney.
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 216 pages, mono photographs.
    Covers the midget submrine attacks on Japanese vessels in the Johore Strait, one of whom was commanded by the author. The target was the Takao which he put on the bottom in a most dangerous operation. "However, this is more than a naval story; and perhaps here rests its charm. Fraser's exploiut and his supreme decoration placed him on a wave of popular accalim. The popular acclaim could not last, and he had to live, and succeed. How he established a prosperous salvaging firm ... etc etc". 
    [ps]
    FROGMAN EXTRAORDINARY. J. Bernard Hutton.
    First published in 1960 by Neville Spearman Limited, London. 
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 180 pages, mono plates in separate sections.
    'The Counter Espionage Book of the Year. Crabb Alive in Russia'.  States rather provocatively that "Crabb was not drowned", and was captured by the Russians in April 1956, take aboard the Ordzhonikidze, flown by helicopter to Stetin, then plane to Moscow, whilst heavily drugged.
    [ps][cd]
    FROGMAN SPY
    The Incedible Case of Commander Crabb.
    J. Bernard Hutton.
    First published in 1960 by Neville Spearman Limited, London. (My edition publisshed by McDowell, Obolensky, New York, no date).
    The loss of Commander Crabb in 19 April 1956 has sparked much debate and bitterness between Great Britain and Russia. This account draws much from official statements taken at he time. I cannot comment on its value in comparison to other books on the subject, but it appears authoritive.
    [ps]
    K-MEN  The Story of the German Frogmen and Midget Submarines
    C.D.Bekker. Preface by Hellmuth Heye, formerly Admiral of K-Force.
    William Kimber, London, 1955. (No indication of a German edition). 
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 202 pages, mono photographs. 
    From the fly: This book tells the whole excitingstory of how the Germans, influenced by the British X-craft attack on the Tirpitz and the Italian frogmen in the Mediterranean, formed what they called naval "Kommandos" and used them in daring exploits against the Western Allies and the Russians in the later stages of the last war. The Kommandos not only operated as frogmen, but also they manned midget submarines and human torpedoes and piloted explosive boats by remote control. The author, himself a former German naval officer, spent nearly two years interviewing surviving K-men, and in these pages he recounts their dangerous and often fatal task with a skill which brings to life the tension and the risks they had to run. The K-men's objectives ranged from ships of the Allied invasion fleet and the bridges and harbours vital to the invading forces, to pirate warfare in the Adriatic Sea and operations against theRussians in the river Oder. This thrilling account of the K-men's adventures will be read with the greatestinterest by those who enjoyed such books as V-boat 977 and Swastika at Sea. [ps]
    ORDEAL BY WATER
    Peter Keeble
    Longmans, Green and Co. London.  First published 1957.  See author Peter Keeble webpage.
    Full REVIEW of this book. One of the best book on salvage that I have read. 
    From the fly:
    In the closing days of 1941, a dramatic summons from Admiral  Sir Andrew Cunningham fetched the author of this book from his minesweeper in Alexandria harbour to the Commander-in-Chief's flagship, to be dispatched to South Africa on a mission of desperate urgency. His task was to raise men and equipment to augment the almost negligible salvage ; force then operating in the Middle East - a force whose inadequacy had been revealed by the successful Italian two-man submarine attack on the battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth at their berths in Alexandria. This opened a new career for Lt-Cdr. Peter Keeble in the highly experimental field of Naval Salvage, and a few months later he found himself dropping into the luke-warm waters of the Red Sea harbour of Massawa in a diving suit he hardly knew how to control. It was his first salvage operation, and from this uncertain beginning he rose ultimately to command, as Fleet Salvage Officer, Eastern Mediterranean and Levant, a powerful force of auxiliary vessels, salvage ships, rescue tugs and lifting craft. But; to the end of the war, Lt.-Cdr. Keeble continued to grapple at first hand with the ever-varying problems that marine salvage presented. In the deepest dive of his career he entered a sunken V-boat ,in a boffin-commissioned search for a top- secret device to which, he knew, a demolition charge had been wired. On another occasion, he and his men acted as human minesweepers when they crawled about the bottom of a Greek harbour, marking the mines with buoys. And with one of his Petty Officers, in what the great authority, Sir Robert Davis, has described as "perhaps the most outstanding under- water cutting operation ever undertaken", he burnt the damaged screws off Valiant in the course of an ordeal that has left its marks on him to this day. [ps]
    . SEA DEVILS - SUICIDE SQUAD. 
    J. Valerio Borghese
    Translated from the Italian Decima Flottiglia Mas byJames Cleugh, and adapted by the author.
    First published 1952 by Andrew Melrose, London. (It is presumed that ‘first published' means the English edition. There is no indication when the Italian version was first published). Hardcover, dustjacket, 262 pages, mono plates throughout the book.
    This is the true story of the daring ‘human torpedoes' who caused acute anxiety to Mr. Chirchill, the Cabinet and the Royal Navy at the most critical period of the war. These Ialian divers reputedly the first and develop the ‘frogman' techniques. The author was their commanding officer. This is a record of extraordinary heroism, pertinacity and endurance.Of significant value to those interested in militiary underwater demilition in World War 2, particularly as it was performed by the enemy at the time.
     First Arrow Edition mass market paperback 1956.   "This is the true story of the 'human torpedoes' who, led by the redoubtable Prince J. Valerio Borghese, inflicted very heavy damage on the Royal Navy during the war...". 
    [ps-far]
    SOFTLY TREAD THE BRAVE
    Ivan Southall.
    Original edition published by Angus & Robertson Ltd.., Sydney, 1960. Hardcover, dustjacket; Octavo size 8vo. or.cl.; 294pp illustrations.
    "Australian mine-disposal officers in England during World War Two." 

    Edition described and shown is special edition published by Readers Book Club, Sydney, in association with The Companion Book Club, London. No date.
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 288 pages, smaller format 190 x 124 mm. 
    From the fly: "This true and gloriously inspiring story pays tribute to the exploits of two Australian mines- disposal officers - the late Commander John Stuart Mould, GC, GM, RANVR, and Lieut. Hugh Randal Syme, GC, GM and Bar, RANVR - during World War II. Inheriting the reputation that "Australians are silly enough for anything," they joined some equally "silly" Britons in an amazing top- secret team, the Rendering Mines Safe Squad - a select band of heroes who gambled continuously with death. The courage and icy nerve of these RMS men were staggering - for their job was to tunnel, dig, crawl or dive into darkness and mud to draw the fangs of the devilish monsters of death and destruction that were dropped in the cities, towns, villages and harbors of Britain. Simply but vividly, Ivan Southall tells an epic of hard-bitten Australian heroism that must make all of us thrill with pride. The book is illustrated with splendid on-the-spot photographs." [ps]
    . THE FROGMEN. 
    The Story of the Wartime Underwater Operations.
    T.J. Waldron and James Gleeson. 
    Evans Brothers, London. First published 1950. Many reprints up to, and possibly beyond 1954. Hardcover, dust jacket, 192 pags, many mono photographs. 
    The edition  by The Quality Book Club, London, has no date, circa 1950s. Hardcover, dust jacket, 192 pages, no illustrations. Slightly smaller overall size. 
     "...clad in fantastic rubber suits, some crawled on the muddy bottoms of harbours looking for mines, some bestrode torpedoes, others slipped through the darkness in midget submarines".
    "A magnificent tribute to the most fantastic courage and skill of officers and men of the Royal Navy and to our scientists." 
    [ps-both]
    . THE FROGMEN OF BURMA - The Story of the Sea Reconnaissance Unit.
    Lt. Comdr. Bruce S Wright.
    Forward by earl Mountbatten.
    US edition: Published by Clarke Irwin in 1968. Hardcover, green cloth boards with dustjacket. (Left image, lower case letering).
    British edition: William Kimber & Co. Ltd., London. 1968. (Right image - upper case lettering). 
    The "true story of the first frogman unit formed by the Allies in World War II, related by the Canadian naval officer who raised and commanded the Unit from its training period in California to its successful employment in Burma."
    Maps on endpapers, illustrated with archival B&W photos.  152 pages. Size 6 1/4 x 9 in.
    Info acknowledge: from eBay. 
    [ps-british]
    THE MIDGET RAIDERS
    The Wartime Story of Human Torpedoes and Midget Submrines.
    C.E.T Warren and James Benson.
    THE PRICE OF ADMIRALTY
    Paul McGuire, and Frances McGuire.
    Oxford University Press, Melbourne, London, 1944. 
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 328 pages, mono prints. 
    From blurb: This book interprets the meaning of seapower, its part in our history and the great value and use of our Navy. The book describs the life of a man, the late Commander J.H.Walker, and of his ship HMAS Parramatta. It tells of the development of the Royal Australian Navy, the maning to Australia of seapower; the formation and experience of an Australian naval officer at home and abroad.' The Parramatta was lost at Tobruk. This entry doesn't really belong here in classoc dive books, but I like the cover!!!
    [ps]
    .
    		THE SEA SURRENDERS
    Captain W.R.Fell.
    First published 1960, Cassell & Co, London.
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 236 pages, mono photographs.
    This is the first of the two major books written by Captain William Richard Fell, who was born in New Zealand. 
    From the fly blurb: When the time for Captain Fell to retire from the Royal Navy approached he had little idea of what he wanted to do except remain as closely connected with the sea as possible. His chance came when he was offered the job of clearing the war damage from the harbour at Malta, part of it a seemingly impossible task. On completion of this, Captain Fell was retired from the Royal Navy and immediately re-employed by the Ad- miraltyas a Grade 1 Salvage Officer. His first task in this new capacity was the testing of submarines by submerging. them until the water pressure collapsed their hulls, a long job, but with a spec- tacular climax. After this, he continued for some years as salvage officer in various parts of Great Britain charged with the job of clearing up after the war, work which included the salvaging of H.M.S. Wave, who went aground at St. Ives in a howling gale, and the cutting up and disposal of a sunken mine-layer con- taining over 500 live mines. Then came his biggest assignment- the epic operation of the clearance of Port Said in 1956. He was sent out to take charge of the heartbreaking task of trying to open the harbour against all the obstruction and political shilly-shallying and lobbying that the Egyptians and. others could bring to bear. Captain Fell describes these major salvage operations with the minimum of technical jargon and in such a way that his problems of the moment become ony's own, and one can feel the triumph of success, the feats of seamanship, and the delicate manreuvres being achieved as if at one's own command. [ps]

    THE SEA OUR SHIELD
    Captain W.R.Fell.
    First publishhed 1966, Cassell & Co, London.
    Hardcover, dustjacket, 232 pages, mono photographs.
    The author is the developer of the 'human torpedo' or underwater chariot used aginst the Germna Navy, particularly the Tirpitz. This is an autobiography, but "essentially the story of the development and operation of the humn torpedo and its rival and ul;timate successor, th midget submrine. The patience and ingenuity with which these weapons were perfected, and the many dangers involved in their ise, make Captain Fell's latest book one of the most memorable personal narratives of the last war." Written after The Sea Surrenders.  [ps]
    UNDER SEA HEROES
    Capt. Samuel Taylor Moore.
    Illustrated by Raymond Lufkin. Published by McLoughlin Brothers Inc, 1932. (Presume in USA).
    Hardcover, 234 pages.
    Excerpt from the foreward: "In this collection of short stories is presented thrilling episodes in the desperate struggle to beat the unscrupulous U-Boats in the World War. Also you will find modern stories of our under-sea Navy at home. You will learn in these chapters of the daily dangers of submarine sailors in peace: you will find them trapped on the bottom, facing death from deadly chlorine gas, which generates in the storage batteries, making the iron hull a lethal chamber; you will know of other dangers such as internal explosions, of cold, and the cruelty of King Neptune in anger at men who would sail into his depths. You will come to know how heroism may exist in peace, as well as war." 
    . UNDERWATER SABOTEUR
    The amazing exploits of the famous Special Agent.
    Max Manus.
    First edition, November 1953, William Kimber & Co. Ltd. London.
    Hardcover, dust jacket, 240 pages, mono plates throughout.
    I have just found this copy so know little about it. The author sank the German troopship Donau. He was arrested by the Germans, escaped, and became a resistance fighter in Norway. 'More exciting than any fictional thriller..' says the Birmingham Mail. Now thats recognition!! 'A story of breathtaking gallantry', suggestss the Illustrated London News. 
    Left image is as described. [ps]
    Not sure of right image - may be a paperback. 
    UNDERWATER WARRIORS
    Peter Kemp.
    First published 1996 by Arms & Armour Prss, an imprint ofCassell, London.
    Published by Brockhampton Press, a member of the Hodder Headline Group, in 1999. Image is of 1999 edition.  [ps]
    Hardcover, with laminated pictorial boards, dustjacket, mono prints, 256 pages, index, bibliography.
    From the fly: Of all types of battle zone movement the most difficult to detect has been that of submerged craft; it is not sur- prising that this mode of clandestine activity is centuries old and was first used offensively over 200 years ago. With the Italians, Japanese, British and German navies all active in the use of one- and two-man sub- marines it is not surprising to find them employed in a multitude of daring and dramatic sorties against seaborne, harbour and land-based targets. In this thorough study of the topic - the most comprehensive ever attempted in the English language - Paul Kemp provides ample evidence of the diverse tasks undertaken by the underwater warriors. The reader is supplied with sufficient technical data to understand the mechanics of this element of naval warfare before being taken on the myriad subversive actions performea by these fascinat- ing craft. For students of naval history and military intelligence work this sub- stantial account of midget submarines and their crews will prove a major contribution to an intriguing yet under-published topic. 

     
      CLASSIC DIVE BOOKS HOME

      This CLASSIC DIVE BOOKS site is sponsored by:

      For
      OCEANS ENTERPRISES
      homepage, link on graphic.
      OCEANS ENTERPRISES
      Publishers and Distributors
      303 Commercial Road, Yarram, Vic 3971, Australia
      Phone (03) 5182 5108   International  61 3 5182 5108
      Email: peter@oceans.com.au