Gunboat! : Small Ships at War

by Perrett, Bryan

• ISBN13: 9780304353026
• ISBN10: 0304353027
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Sterling Pub Co Inc

Summary

By focusing on 13 classic engagements in which gunboats won the day, you appreciate how they were used to establish and control empire, preserve trade routes, and police pirates and rebels. Starting with the Burma war in 1824, and ending with the dramatic escape of the Amethyst down the Yangtze in 1949, this gunboat saga depicts exploits from China to Argentina, from the Crimea to the Mississippi, and from the Persian Gulf to East Africa.

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(10)
Little Ships, Big War
Gunboat Operations During the Crimean War, 1854-5	17	(16)
Chinese Poison
The Second Opium War, 1856-60	33	(17)
The Demise of Jolly Roger
The Suppression of Piracy in the East Indies and the South China Sea, 1855-69	50	(13)
Gunfire on the Mississippi
Federal and Confederate Gunboats in Action, 1862-3	63	(21)
The World's Policemen
Gunboats and the Pax Britannica, 1865-90	84	(16)
Death on the Nile
Egypt, 1882 and the Gordon Relief Expedition, 1884-5	100	(17)
Revenge at Omdurman
The Second Sudan War, 1896-8	117	(11)
Spicer-Simson Pulls It Off
German East Africa, 1914-16	128	(15)
General Townshend Holds a Regatta
The Mesopotamian Campaign, 1914-17	143	(14)
Bolos, Emperors and Warlords
Gunboat Operations Between the World Wars, 1918-39	157	(19)
Inshore Squadron
The Mediterranean, 1940-4	176	(24)
Imperial Echo
The Detention and Escape of HMS Amethyst, 1949	200	(15)
Epilogue: Return to Brown Water
Riverine Operations in Vietnam	215	(2)
Bibliography	217	(1)
Index	218