{"title":"Mike Carlton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into gripping tales of naval warfare and historical fiction with Mike Carlton. Perfect for fans of Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester, discover thrilling adventures on the high seas. Start your voyage here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"scrap-iron-flotilla-book-mike-carlton-9781761042003","title":"The Scrap Iron Flotilla","description":"The British Admiralty's telegram arrived at Navy Office in Melbourne, the order to go to all-out war. It was coldly succinct: TOTAL GERMANY . The war at sea had begun. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron. Yet by the middle of 1940, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, successfully hunting for submarines and indefatigably bombarding enemy coasts. Sometimes the weather could be their worst enemy - from filthy sandstorms blowing off Africa to icy gales from Europe that whipped up mountainous seas and froze the guns.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49526345761041,"sku":"GOR013177636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49745852694801,"sku":"NGR9781761042003","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50389974876433,"sku":"CIN1761042009G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52901345427729,"sku":"CIN1761042009LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1761042009.jpg?v=1750832198"},{"product_id":"tennessee-wonders-book-mike-carlton-9781558532892","title":"Tennessee Wonders","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49625440583953,"sku":"GOR012523863","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1558532897.jpg?v=1751341047"},{"product_id":"first-victory-book-mike-carlton-9781742757643","title":"First Victory","description":"\u003cb\u003eHMAS Sydney's hunt for the German raider, Emden.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When the ships of the new Royal Australian Navy made their grand entry into Sydney Harbour in October 1913, a young nation was at peace.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Under a year later Australia had gone to war in what was seen as a noble fight for king, country and Empire. Thousands of young men joined up for the adventure of having 'a crack at the Kaiser'. And indeed the German threat to Australia was real, and very near - in the Pacific islands to our north, and in the Indian Ocean.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the opening months of the war, a German raider, \u003ci\u003eEmden\u003c\/i\u003e, wreaked havoc on the maritime trade of the British Empire. Its battle against the Australian cruiser HMAS \u003ci\u003eSydney\u003c\/i\u003e, when it finally came, was short and bloody - an emphatic first victory at sea for the fledgling Royal Australian Navy.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This is the stirring story of the perilous opening months of the Great War and the bloody sea battle that destroyed the \u003ci\u003eEmden\u003c\/i\u003e in a triumph for Australia that resounded around the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the century since, many writers have been there before Mike Carlton. Most were German, some of them survivors of the battle, others later historians, and they have generally told the story well. British accounts vary in quality, from good to nonsense, and there have been some patchwork American attempts as well. Curiously, there has been very little written from an Australian point of view. This book is - in part - an attempt to remedy that, with new facts and perspectives brought into the light of day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49743926722833,"sku":"CIN1742757642A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1742757642.jpg?v=1750897820"},{"product_id":"scrap-iron-flotilla-book-mike-carlton-9781761042010","title":"The Scrap Iron Flotilla","description":"When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e HMAS \u003ci\u003eVendetta\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVampire\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVoyager,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eStuart\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWaterhen\u003c\/i\u003e were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Yet by the middle of 1940, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, successfully hunting for submarines and indefatigably bombarding enemy coasts. Sometimes the weather could be their worst enemy - from filthy sandstorms blowing off Africa to icy gales from Europe that whipped up mountainous seas and froze the guns. Conditions on board were terrible - no showers or proper washing facilities; cramped and stinking sleeping quarters; unpleasant meals of spam and tinned sausages, often served cold in a howling squall. And always the bombing, the bombing. And the fear of submarines.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When Nazi Germany invaded Greece, the Allied armies - including Australian Divisions - reeled in retreat. The Australian ships were among those who had to rescue thousands of soldiers. Then came the Siege of Tobruk - Australian troops holding out in that small Libyan port city. The Australian destroyers ran 'the Tobruk Ferry' - bringing supplies of food, medicine and ammunition into the shattered port by night, and taking off wounded soldiers.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e But the four destroyers now left were struggling, suffering from constant engine breakdowns, with crews beleaguered by two years of bombings, wild seas and the endless fear of being sunk. In late 1941 the ships were finally sent home, staggering back to Australia, proudly calling themselves the Scrap Iron Flotilla in defiance of the Goebbels' sneer. That flotilla is now an immortal part of Australian naval legend, and this is its story.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49753044058385,"sku":"NGR9781761042010","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51135979258129,"sku":"CIN1761042017VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52152583618833,"sku":"GOR014495049","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1761042017.jpg?v=1751344576"},{"product_id":"on-air-book-mike-carlton-9780857987808","title":"On Air","description":"Mike Carlton was born to controversy. His father Jimmy, a renowned Olympic athlete and later a Catholic priest, married his mother after a whirlwind wartime courtship. This scandal was hushed up at first, but eventually it made headlines. Six years later, Jimmy Carlton died in his wife's arms, felled by asthma. It was a tough beginning. Mike would have a Sydney suburban childhood where every penny counted. Unable to afford a university education, he left school at sixteen to begin a life in journalism that would propel him to the top, as one of Australia's best-known media figures. In an often turbulent career of more than fifty years he has been a war correspondent, political reporter, a TV news and current affairs reporter, an award-winning radio presenter in both Sydney and London, an outspoken newspaper columnist and a biting satirist. In later life he realised a lifelong ambition -- to write three bestselling books of Australian naval history. On Air is his story, no holds barred. With characteristic humour and flair, Mike tells of the feuds and the friendships, the fun and the follies, writing candidly of the extraordinary parade of characters and events he has encountered in the unique life he has led.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50132825768209,"sku":"GOR013866365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857987801.jpg?v=1751431606"},{"product_id":"cruiser-book-mike-carlton-9781741668391","title":"Cruiser","description":"Of all the Australians who fought in the Second World War, none saw more action nor endured so much of its hardship and horror as the crew of the cruiser HMAS Perth. Most were young--many were still teenagers--from cities and towns, villages and farms across the nation. In three tumultuous years they did battle with the forces of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Vichy French, and, finally, the Imperial Japanese Navy. They were nearly lost in a hurricane in the Atlantic. In the Mediterranean in 1941 they were bombed by the Luftwaffe and the Italian Air Force for months on end until, ultimately, during the disastrous evacuation of the Australian army from Crete, their ship took a direct hit and thirteen men were killed. After the fall of Singapore in 1942, HMAS Perth was hurled into the forlorn campaign to stem the Japanese advance towards Australia. Off the coast of Java in March that year she met an overwhelming enemy naval force. Firing until her ammunition literally ran out, she was sunk with the loss of 353 of her crew, including her much-loved captain and the Royal Australian Navy's finest fighting sailor, 'Hardover' Hec Waller. Another 328 men were taken into Japanese captivity, most to become slave labourers in the infinite hell of the Burma-Thai railway. Many died there, victims of unspeakable atrocity. Only 218 men, less than a third of her crew, survived to return home at war's end. \u003ci\u003eCruiser\u003c\/i\u003e, by journalist and broadcaster Mike Carlton, is their story. And the story of those who loved them and waited for them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401043415313,"sku":"CIN1741668395G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1741668395.jpg?v=1751312124"},{"product_id":"dive-book-mike-carlton-9781761342882","title":"Dive","description":"Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Australian submariners have done extraordinary deeds in the First and Second World Wars and, more recently, the Cold War. In April 1915 the Australian submarine \u003ci\u003eAE2\u003c\/i\u003e penetrated the Dardanelles Strait to 'run amuck', a historic feat that was a turning point in the Gallipoli campaign. Eventually captured, her crew spent three harrowing years as prisoners-of-war in Turkey.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the Second World War Australian naval volunteers made their name serving in midget submarines, attacking Hitler's mightiest battleship, the Tirpitz, in the icy waters of a Norwegian fjord. Later, they fought the Japanese in the South China Sea.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e And in the last half of the twentieth century, RAN submarines played a vital role tracking the Soviet navy in the Pacific Ocean. One wrong move could have led to outright war. The risks they ran, the perils they met and the intelligence they gathered are still classified Top Secret.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Submarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia's defences. For the first time, this is their unique story.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50785374208273,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50785375191313,"sku":"NGR9781761342882","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1761342886.jpg?v=1750722591"},{"product_id":"flagship-book-mike-carlton-9780857987785","title":"Flagship","description":"In 1924, the grand old battle cruiser HMAS \u003ci\u003eAustralia I\u003c\/i\u003e was sunk off Sydney Heads. Once she had been the pride of the navy and the nation. She had saved Australia from an attack by a German squadron in the Pacific in World War I.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e But after the war she was obsolete, and a victim in the race to disarm after WWI. It was a day of national mourning when they blew the bottom out of her; she went to her sea grave smothered in flowers and wreaths sent from around the country.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Four years later, in 1928, the RAN acquired a new ship of the same name, the fast and modern heavy cruiser HMAS \u003ci\u003eAustralia II\u003c\/i\u003e. During the Depression of the early 30s the navy virtually rotted on the beach - until the world so belatedly awoke to the menace of Hitler's Germany.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAustralia\u003c\/i\u003e saw her first action of World War II against the Vichy French, during the abortive 1940 attempt to install the young General de Gaulle as free French leader in Dakar, West Africa. She patrolled the North Atlantic on the lookout for German battleships and - in a feat of amazing seamanship - rescued the crew of a downed RAF Coastal Command aircraft in the teeth of an Atlantic gale. She was later bombed by the Luftwaffe in Liverpool.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAustralia\u003c\/i\u003e returned home to join the war against the Japanese, as the flagship of the RAN. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane were flooded with Americans 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'. Many Australian servicemen resented the Yanks and their magnetic attraction for the local girls. The so-called Battle of Brisbane in 1942 was two days and nights of out-of-control brawling and rioting, with the Americans on one side and the Australians on the other. One Australian was killed, and dozens of other men were wounded. The whole affair was heavily censored.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In March 1942, the ship was stunned by a murder. One night at sea a sailor, Stoker Riley, was found stabbed and bleeding to death on the fo'c's'le. Before he died, he named his two attackers, fellow stokers Gordon and Elias. They'd tried to kill him, he said, because he'd threatened to expose their homosexual activities in the ship. At a hastily arranged court martial, Gordon and Elias were found guilty and sentenced to death under British Admiralty law. That provoked a major constitutional row, because the death penalty did not apply in Australia. Eventually they were reprieved.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Only weeks later \u003ci\u003eAustralia\u003c\/i\u003e fought in the Battle of the Coral Sea near Papua New Guinea, the first sea battle to stop the Japanese advance in the Pacific. She was heavily attacked and bombed from the air but, with brilliant ship-handling, escaped unscathed.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e That luck did not last. In 1944 she took part in the greatest sea fight of all time, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which returned the American General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines. Australia was struck by a kamikaze bomber, killing her captain and 28 other men.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The next year, 1945, she was hit again and again, by no fewer than four kamikaze planes on four successive days, with another 44 men killed. She was, in fact, attacked by more kamikaze aircraft than any other allied ship in WWII.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e That ended her war. She retired gracefully, laden with battle honours, and was scrapped in 1956 - the last of her name, for the navy no longer uses \u003ci\u003eAustralia\u003c\/i\u003e for its ships.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50811328266513,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50811328594193,"sku":"GOR009881902","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/085798778X.jpg?v=1750980024"},{"product_id":"cruiser-book-mike-carlton-9781864711332","title":"Cruiser","description":"Of all the Australians who fought in the Second World War, none saw more action nor endured so much of its hardship and horror as the crew of the cruiser HMAS Perth.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Most were young - many were still teenagers - from cities and towns, villages and farms across the nation. 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Firing until her ammunition literally ran out, she was sunk with the loss of 353 of her crew, including her much-loved captain and the Royal Australian Navy's finest fighting sailor, 'Hardover' Hec Waller.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Another 328 men were taken into Japanese captivity, most to become slave labourers in the infinite hell of the Burma-Thai railway. Many died there, victims of unspeakable atrocity. Only 218 men, less than a third of her crew, survived to return home at war's end.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e CRUISER, by journalist and broadcaster Mike Carlton, is their story. 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