This episode presents an astonishing and tragic story from the American Civil War with great relevance to the present day.

It’s the story of a black teenager called David Henry White who comes from Delaware and has done all in his power to create a life for himself – he has signed onto a merchant ship for work with the prospects of pay and promotion. Life has different plans for him however. When war breaks out he finds himself crossing paths with the USS Alabama, a confederate commerce raider of immense power blazing a path of success. White’s ship is taken and he also is taken and forced to work on the confederate warship, captained by Raphael Semmes.

White works on board until his fate is sealed in battle and the Alabama sunk. Semmes survives but White does not. He drowns. After the war Semmes writes his memoirs which paint the world in which White lived and died a very different way to how it appeared in reality.

It's a story of the life and tragic death of a disempowered black boy, of an entitled racist naval officer, and of the profound and lasting power of written propaganda. After listening to this podcast you will burn with the light of the true historian, and never believe anything you read again without checking who wrote it, and more importantly WHY.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Andrew Sillen, author of the new book that unpicks this remarkable tale in the finest detail: Kidnapped at Sea.

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We may think of globalism as a recent development but its origins date back to the fifteenth century and beyond, when seafarers pioneered routes across the oceans with the objectives of exploration, trade and proft. And what did they seek? Exotic spices: cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ginger. These spices brought together the European ports of Lisbon, London, Amsterdam and Venice, with Goa, Bombay, Malacca and Jakarta - and through those ports the Arab world and China.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Nicholas Nugent. Nicholas spent his career as a journalist with the BBC World Service and his spare time collecting a valuable archive of original maps, developing a passion for how the growth of the spice ports helped spread the exchange of global culture between east and west. His magnificent book, The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of the Global Sea Trade published by the British Library is out now.

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This is the first of two episodes dedicated to that magical piece of prose so beloved by all with an interest in the sea – Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first published in 1798. Many know of it, some have read it but few people have actually heard it in full, and listening to this masterpiece is the best way of appreciating its full maritime and supernatural glory.

This episode therefore presents The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in full. It is also a traditionally masculine poem, written by a man and usually read or performed by a man, usually an English man – so to help appreciate this story through a different lens, the story is read today by the wonderfully talented Elaine Kingston – who you are soon to discover, is a Scottish Woman. To bring the story to life we have also commissioned the multi-talented composer Jamie Whyte to create an original work that combines music and sound effects. The combination of Elaine's reading and Jamie's soundscape creates a dramatic new interpretation of this poem.

Coleridge’s story begins at a wedding party where a man is accosted by a grizzly old sailor, beady of eye, who begins to unravel his own history. We hear how he sailed from his home harbour south, and is trapped in ice at the South Pole. They manage to break free and the sailors credit their salvation to an albatross; but the mariner then shoots the bird with a crossbow. Although, initially, it seems like a good move for these superstitious folk, things start to go horribly wrong and the murderer of the albatross is blamed. The sailor is forced to hang the carcass round his neck and over time becomes more appreciative of the natural world - which redeems him.

The text is dramatic and haunting and Coleridge explores numerous themes and sub-themes. It defies any single interpretation but you will certainly hear themes of retribution, punishment, guilt, curse and fear.

Part 2 of this episode features an interview with Professor John Spicer, Professor of Marine Zoology at the School of Biological & Marine Sciences at the University of Plymouth, who believes that the poem could teach us a lesson or two about the way we treat our environment today.

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Scholars debate the period when pirates actually ruled the waves - and the answer certainly depends on the location in question - but by general consensus it was all over by 1730 and it had begun some 80 years earlier, around 1650. The Golden Age of Piracy had been born in this crucial period when European maritime powers were flexing their muscles and starting to project naval power beyond the horizon. As empires grew so did the quantity and quality of trade and the seas became littered with merchantmen carrying indescribable wealth across the oceans. And yet this was a time when the maritime geographies of the new empires was imperfectly known, and when navigation was still as much guesswork as it was a science - this was the period immediately before the means to calculate longitude accurately had been discovered. The result was that ships carried this trade at predictable times of year, on predictable routes, in locations that were impossible to police adequately. Although European naval powers did create naval bases in the tropics, it was a slow process and one with many pitfalls. At the same time thousands of young men were learning how to sail and how to fight in a near endless series of maritime wars. The result? A period of piracy so intense and colourful that it still lives on today in myth, legend, and increasingly detailed and accurate histories. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with pirate historian Dr Jamie Goodall.

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Our Maritime Disasters mini series continues with the shocking, and scarcely believable tale, of HMS Guardian. In 1789 this 44-gun 2-decked ship of the Royal Navy was sent to the British colony in Australia under the guidance of the brilliant Captain Edward Riou. She was chock-full of convicts, livestock and provisions for the colony when she left England, and then re-stocked with provisions when the half-way point was safely reached at the Cape of Good Hope. Water was always a problem on such long journeys and any captain took advantage of a source of fresh water whenever it was discovered. Icebergs were such a source of fresh water, but approaching them was always fraught with danger, especially in the Atlantic hundreds of miles off the coast of South Africa when the weather could suddenly change....what happened next has been described as 'almost without parallel' in all of maritime history.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Dr Margaret Schotte, professor of Early Modern History in York's Department of History whose book Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800 investigates how early modern sailors developed mathematical and technical expertise in the age of exploration and the print revolution - expertise that helped people like Edward Riou cope if it just so happened that their ship was horrendously damaged by an iceberg miles from home....

This episode includes a rendition of the song "The Forecastle Sailor, Or The Guardian Frigate" by the historian Seb Falk, most likely the first ever recording of the song.

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Our maritime disasters series continues with the anniversary of the first successful underwater trials in 1863 of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley.

Shortly after the Hunley’s first trials in late July 1863 she sank during another test run, killing five of her eight crew. She was raised but then sank again in October killing all eight of her crew including Horace Hunley, the vessel’s designer, before sinking for the last time in 1864, again killing all of her crew.

The story of the Hunley is remarkable - it’s one of those stories that you can return to time and again. The early submarine pioneers were exploring an environment as dangerous as the early space pioneers and did so willingly.

Why did these people willingly get inside an iron tube that was built to operate underwater at a time when the science of operating vessels underwater was not properly understood? Why did they continue to do so when the vessel repeatedly demonstrated it was dangerous?

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Michael Scafuri, senior archaeologist at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston South Carolina, today the home of the Hunley, as she was raised from the depths in 2000 with all of her secrets perfectly preserved.

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We continue our mini series on maritime disasters with the third part of our episode on the wreck of the magnificent Italian passenger liner the Andrea Doria. Launched in 1953 as a means to rebuild Italy's reputation and status on the world stage after the Second World War she enjoyed a splendid career for just three years before she sank in 1956 after a horrific collision off the coast of Massachusetts.To find out more about the wreck of the vessel itself Dr Sam Willis spoke with the underwater explorer John Moyer who has has dived over 120 times on the Andrea Doria wreck, one of the most dangerous wrecks in the world.

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This episode continues our mini series on maritime disasters and our investigation into the wreck, in the summer of 1956, of the Italian passenger liner, Andrea Doria. This episode includes eyewitness accounts from Linda Hardberger and Mike Stoller. Linda is now 80 and lives in San Antonio Texas – she has been a teacher, librarian, museum curator and is a mother and in spite of her terrible experience on the Andrea Doria has been boating for 40 years. Mike Stoller is now 89, lives in California and is one half of the songwriting team Lieber and Stoller – who wrote, among many other hits, Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock and Stand by Me. The Andrea Doria was built in the 1950s, born from Italy’s bruised pride after the Second World War, and seen as a way to put Italy back on the map as a major player in the world of transatlantic travel. She became a hugely important ship for the Italian nation, a true icon of Italian culture and history. Launched in 1953 to great fanfare and fitted with the most exquisite Italian art, she enjoyed a successful career – though cut far too short by the events of July 1956.

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We continue our mini series on maritime disasters with the extraordinary tale of the Andrea Doria, a magnificent Italian passenger liner lost off the coast of Massachusetts in 1956 when she was rammed by another liner. The Andrea Doria was built in the 1950s, born from Italy’s bruised pride after the Second World War, and seen as a way to put Italy back on the map as a major player in the world of transatlantic travel. She became a hugely important ship for the Italian nation, a true icon of Italian culture and history. Launched in 1953 to great fanfare and fitted with the most exquisite Italian art, she enjoyed a successful career – though cut far too short by the events of July 1956. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Pierette Simpson who, as a child, witnessed those terrible events and has since dedicated her life to sharing the story of the Andrea Doria so that it is never forgotten. Pierette is the author of Alive on the Andrea Doria!: The Greatest Sea Rescue in History and the award-winning docufilm Andrea Doria: Are the Passengers Saved?

This episode is Part 1 of 3. Part 2 will include two more eyewitness accounts including an interview with Mike Stoller of the legendary songwriting team Lieber & Stoller who wrote hits for Elvis and Ben E. King. Part 3 will be focussed on the wreck itself and includes an interview with marine explorer John Moyer.

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In this episode we head much further back in time than we have ever dared before for an Iconic Ship…to find out about Henry V’s ship Grace Dieu, launched in 1418. And what a ship she was...

Henry only reigned for ten years but in those years he worked harder than any of his predecessors to build a navy designed to destroy French seapower. His ships were not just barges designed for transporting armies to France, but great warships built for prestige and power. It is during Henry V’s time as king that one of the finest of all medieval warships, Grace Dieu, was constructed. Contemporary descriptions marvelled at its size, and modern historians were cynical until her wreck in the River Hamble near Southampton was surveyed. These investigations proved that her mainmast was 200ft tall: she was nearly three times larger than Henry VIII’s Mary Rose which was built nearly a century later, and no warship that rivalled her for size was built for another 200 years.

To find out more about this remarkable feat of construction and the vision to attempt something apparently impossible, Dr Sam Willis spoke with Susan Rose, a legend in the world of medieval maritime and naval history.

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Our 'Iconic Ships' series continues with the magnificent SS United States, published on the 70th anniversary of her maiden voyage. Launched in June 1951 she was the last remaining American superliner from the golden age of transatlantic travel and was built specifically to break the transatlantic speed record. On her maiden voyage she made the transatlantic run in just three and a half days. To this day, she still holds the trans-Atlantic speed record: no other passenger ship has crossed the Atlantic faster in either direction. Not only built for speed, her design was also innovative for a number of different reasons, all of which are crucial in the history of ship design, and in particular in the history of safety in passenger ships, at a time when America was wrestling with Russia on the world stage. With lessons having been learned from the Second World War, in this period passenger ships were designed in a way that made them easily convertible into troopships. Her designer William Francis Gibbs famously summed up his achievement: 'You can’t set her on fire, you can’t sink her, and you can’t catch her.' The SS United States has remarkably survived the years and today sits at Pier 82 on the Delaware River in Philadelphia while money is raised and plans set in place to preserve her for future generations. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of William Frances Gibbs, the ship's visionary designer and President of the SS United States Conservancy, the body dedicated to her preservation.

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On 29 May 1914, the magnificent passenger liner Empress of Ireland sank in the St Lawrence River with the loss of over a thousand people. A full two years after the Titanic disaster, this was a vessel with adequate lifeboats and watertight compartments, and yet she foundered in just fourteen minutes after a collision with a Norwegian collier - ss Storstad - which punched an enormous hole into her side allowing 60,000 gallons of water in. More passengers died in this tragedy than eitherTitanic or Lusitania, both of which have featured in our Maritime Disasters series. She was one of the first two passenger liners built especially for the Canadian Pacific Line’s growing emigrant trade from Liverpool to Canada, her sister ship being the Empress of Britain and they provided a weekly service for emigrants, starting in the Spring of 1906. With so many years of service behind her the Empress of Ireland has an important position in the history of thousands of Canadians today. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Dan Conlin, curator at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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Our Great Sea Fights series continues on the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Solebay, fought between the Dutch and the allied English and French off the eat coast of England, and one of the hardest-fought battles of the Age of Sail. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Dr David Davies, historian and author of the Journals of Matthew Quinton, a series of historical novels set in the seventeenth century navy.

This was a fascinating and important period of naval history when so much was still being learned about how to actually fight at sea in broadside-armed ships, and in particular in enormous fleets: in this battle the Dutch had 75 ships and over 20,000 men and they took on a combined fleet of 93 ships and over 34000 men – that’s 108 MORE ships than fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It is also an unusual example of the English actually co-operating – or at least trying to – with the French.

The battle was fought during the third Anglo-Dutch war, a prolonged period of intense commercial rivalry between European powers which had begun some twenty years before hand with the First Anglo-Dutch war in 1652. By 1672 both sides had landed mighty blows but the Dutch and English engines of war that were producing ships and keeping them at sea was now working as well as it ever had, and to complicate matters the French now had a formidable fleet of their own.

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On 24 May 1945 the Supreme Commander of the German Navy, Admiral Karl Dönitz recorded the following words in his War Diary:

‘Wolf Pack operations against convoys in the North Atlantic, the main theatre of operations and at the same time the theatre in which air cover was strongest, were no longer possible. They could only be resumed if we succeeded in radically increasing the fighting power of the U-boats. That was the logical conclusion to which I came and I accordingly withdrew the boats from the North Atlantic. We had lost the Battle of the Atlantic.’

In this episode Dr Sam Willis speaks with U-boat historian Lawrence Paterson to find out how the U-boat shaped the global nature of the Second World War. The U-boat war was not confined to the Atlantic but fought in the Baltic, Mediterranean and in every other sea save for the Southern Ocean. It was a truly global conflict. Overstretched and undersupplied, it was this global nature of the U-boat role that ultimately doomed the campaign from the very start. Lawrence helps reset the mythology of the Battle of the Atlantic within the wider context of the war itself, analysing the chaotic German military and industrial mismanagement that occurred in all the theatres and hamstrung brilliant commanders and crews.

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Folklore, myths and legends relating to the sea have existed for as long as humans have been travelling by sea. The alien nature of the marine environment, the almost inconceivable scale of the oceans, the power of the sea, and the extraordinary richness in the ocean’s biodiversity has led to the creation and development of the most fabulous legends.

And one of the most important of those legends concerns women and the sea – women in the form of mermaids and sirens – both subtly different creatures: the mermaid having the torso of a woman and the tail of fish; a siren being a creature that first appears in Greek mythology, who lured sailors to shipwreck and death with their enchanting voices. Their appearance was different and although written descriptions are few and far between, they are depicted in art as birds flying over the sea and ships, but with the heads of women.

Such a rich story is culturally rather complicated. To find out more Eirwen Abborley-Watton spoke with Cecilia Rose a PhD Student at the university of Exeter whose work focuses on mermaids and sirens as figures of indeterminate gender in the art and poetry of the late Victorian Era and how these figures may still be used as symbols for transgender and non-binary communities today.

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This year we are launching a new strand of the podcast on eyewitness testimony, in which we bring you the most extraordinary primary sources – history as told and written by the people who were actually there.

Today we start with one of the most atmospheric of all maritime sources, one that transports you directly back to the creaky decks of the age of sail – you can smell the tar in the rigging – you can almost taste the rum.

This excerpt on Captain Avery comes from  A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, which was published in 1724, exactly 300 years ago. It was a fascinating time in the publishing industry: a market in criminal biography already existed and the author of this book, Charles Johnson, hopped on board to bring to the world for the first time the adventures and crimes of pirates.

Fascinatingly, we don't have any idea who Johnson actually was. Many thousands of words have been written and suggestions made including that he was actually Daniel Defoe. What is certain is that whoever wrote the book knew his – or her – stuff. The account is brimming with detail and accuracy. The author undoubtedly spoke with people who had sailed with these pirates and knew their world intimately. And the year 1724, when this was published was the very peak of what became known as the 'Golden Age of Piracy'.

The book became hugely famous and public interest in pirates can be traced in a direct line right up to the twentieth century classics we know so well, such as Treasure Island, Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean.

This particular chapter introduces Captain Avery, one of the worst of the worst. Born in the summer of 1659 he mysteriously disappeared in 1696 after an extraordinary life for which he was known by his contemporaries as 'The King of the Pirates.'

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The second of a new mini-series on ship models. Dr Sam Willis explores the extraordinary model of the SS Great Eastern held in the collections of the National Maritime Museum in London.

The Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was one of the most remarkable ships ever built.

She was the largest ship ever built – by an enormous margin.

measuring 692 feet(211m) and 17,274 tons gross she was almost twice as long as any ship that had ever been built.

Her registered tonnage was six times more than any ship ever built and in an age of the most extraordinarily rapid technological development her size was not actually surpassed until the launching of the Oceanic of 701 feet (214m) in 1899 and in tonnage by the Celtic of 21,035 tons gross in 1901.

She was the largest passenger ship ever built and could carry 4,000 passengers - seven times more than ever before. A figure not surpassed until 1913 by the German ship SS Imperator.

She was the first ships to carry three different methods of propulsion – screw, paddle and sail.

She was a pioneer in the laying of subsea telegraphic cables – laying the first successful Trans-Atlantic cable to USA.

For the video check out the Mariner's Mirror YOUTUBE channel!

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We explore the astonishing intertwined tales of both Robinson Crusoe and Alexander Selkirk, two men marooned on a desert island, one in fiction, one in real life.

Robinson Crusoe was a novel published in 1719 by Daniel Defoe – that supposedly came from the pen of Crusoe himself – and told the story of how he was marooned and spent 28 years on a deserted island in the Caribbean. The book was enormously successful and is widely considered to be the beginning of realistic fiction as a genre – Crusoe’s tale was entirely plausible at a time when ships were regularly sailing from the northern hemisphere to the tropics; when ships were regularly getting wrecked; when pirates were regularly attacking them; when there was still so much to discover about the world’s geography; when the idea of a sailor finding himself accidentally or deliberately abandoned on a desert island made perfect sense.

Crusoe’s story was based on a true story – the story of one Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish mariner who found himself castaway on a remote Pacific island for four years and four months a decade before Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. Selkirk is a fascinating character – and his history is absorbing, regardless of the fact that he found himself marooned. He was involved in buccaneering and privateering, he rounded the horn and sailed in the pacific where he attacked Spanish ships and towns – and it was here, on an island known as Mas al Tierra, 400 miles off the coast of Chile, that Selkirk chose to be marooned.

To find out more about these two brilliant stories, the way that Defoe intertwined them, and the way that we now believe they are intertwined, Dr Sam Willis spoke with Professor Andrew Lambert, Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies at King's College. In 2010 Lambert joined a German expedition to Mas al Tierra – now known as Robinson Crusoe Island, The expedition focused on the relationship between the fictional character of Crusoe, the real character of Selkirk, and the development of British global strategy that culminated in the arrival of Commodore George Anson’s naval expedition in 1741. 

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Those of you who have spent any time at sea will know how the unique conditions of being afloat can fundamentally change the way that you think and how you experience the world. It will come as no surprise that there have been occasions in history when humans have been pushed to their absolute limits and their minds have cracked; when a firm grasp on reality has catastrophically failed in a sudden a violent shock, or when doubts and anxiety have crept in like water through a tiny hole the hull of ship, unnoticeable until its weight has become too heavy to ignore and impossible to fix.

Dr Sam Willis explores the troubling history of madness at sea, a fascinating topic that allows us to range freely across the oceans of history, exploring a variety of stories that highlight different aspects of how the maritime environment has affected the mental health of sailors in the past. It's a story of loneliness, hallucinations, psychopaths, endurance and the limits of the human mind. It takes us to the adventures of ancient mythical seafarers, to the age of exploration and global maritime empires, to world wars fought at sea, to the challenges of modern racing and the dangerous pleasures of sailing for fun...

Sam speaks with the author and sailor Nic Compton whose book 'Off the Deep End' explores this theme as never before. Do NOT listen to this episode on your own on a boat, and be certain that safety at sea starts - and ends - in the mind.

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The San Juan was a basque whaling ship that sank in Labrador in 1565, and was rediscovered in 1978.

In the autumn of 1565 several Basque whaling ships were anchored in a remote bay of Labrador, opposite the island of Newfoundland. It was the end of the whaling season, and hundreds of sailors were hurrying up to complete their ships’ cargo of oil barrels. Some were flensing the blubber off the dead whales, some working in the rendering ovens while others were taking the oil barrels on board. All that frantic industrial activity was happening in the wilderness, decades before any Europeans would establish the first colonies of the country that we now call Canada.

In October a fierce storm hit that unprotected, barren coast. Under the strain of the hurricane-force wind, the anchor cables of one of the ships, the 200-tonne San Juan, gave in. To the despair of her crew members, the ship went adrift and ran aground on the small island that closed the bay. We can imagine the titanic efforts the crew members undertook in order to save the ships; nevertheless, the San Juan started sinking very near the shore, at about 10 m depth. The captain ordered to save as many victuals as possible and as much of the ship’s gear, and the crew members managed to save their belongings before the ship sank with nearly one thousand oil barrels on board.

The ship and its associated artefacts were rediscovered in 1978 and subsequently excavated, and have transformed what we know about seafaring in general and of course whaling in particular in that hugely important era where European seafarers were just beginning to stretch their reach across the Atlantic. The San Juan is now being recreated by hand and with the utmost care and attention to historical accuracy in the northern Spanish port of Pasaia To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Saul Hoffmann, an Italian shipwright who has worked on the ship, and Cindy Gibbons, the Cultural Resource Management Advisor of the Western Newfoundland and Labrador Field Unit, and a qualified witness of the impact in Red Bay of the discovery of the San Juan,

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One of the most fascinating periods in all of maritime history is the Viking Age. From around 700 CE and for the next 700 years, Vikings spread out from Scandinavia, reshaped Europe and influenced lands far beyond. It's a story of ingenious maritime engineering, astonishing navigation, fierce battles, culture clashes, trade, language and the rise and fall of a complex society. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Tore Ske, one of Norway’s most acclaimed historians. Tore has written several prize-winning and bestselling works of medieval history that challenge a traditional nation-oriented historical narrative. His latest book - The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire is a bestseller in Norway, won the prestigious Sverre Steen award and is the first of Tore’s books to be translated into English. Tore is a man with a gift for bringing to life the backstabbing, plotting, bribery and warfare of this period and for helping you think about the whole Viking era in a new way.

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In one of the most remarkable maritime history stories of recent years, a team of scientists and explorers are getting closer than ever before to finding the Endurance, the ship that Ernest Shackleton took on his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition. An expedition is currently in the Weddell Sea, less than two miles from the last known position of the Endurance and have released an underwater vehicle to scan the sea bed. To find out more, Dr Sam Willis interviewed David Mearns, a professional shipwreck hunter famed for discovering HMS Hood, about the remarkable story that led to Shackleton's ship being crushed by the ice; the challenges faced in identifying its location; and what it would mean if the ship is finally found.

The story of the Endurance is one of the most remarkable in the history of exploration. Shackleton and his 27 men became ice bound on the Endurance in February 1915, having spotted land just days before. Eight months later, having survived the antarctic winter, the ship was crushed and sank. The men camped on the ice and drifted northwards for six months before taking to the sea in the Endurance's small boats as the ice melted. In five days of sailing in open boats, they made it to Elephant Island and set up camp. Ten days later Shackleton and five others set sail once again in one of the small open boats to undertake an 800-mile journey to South Georgia. Two weeks later, having survived the worst weather the south Atlantic could throw at them, they arrived in South Georgia. Three of them then crossed an uncharted mountain range in a 36-hour hike to reach the settlement of Stromness, where they began to plan the rescue of the three members of the crew left around the coast on South Georgia, and the 21 left behind on Elephant Island. It took three separate attempts on three separate vessels to reach the camp on Elephant Island but eventually they were rescued, three months after Shackleton had left. Not a single man died.

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The naval battle of Guadalcanal was one of the most intense and dramatic naval battles of the war, and with with far-reaching strategic consequences. It is the winter of 1942, a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which brought America into the war. Guadalcanal is the largest of the Solomons Islands, found to the north west of Australia.

In the months after the attack on Pearl Harbour the Japanese had been immensely successful; they had driven the Americans out of the Philippines, the British out of Malaya, the Dutch out of the East Indies. The Japanese had then began to expand westwards in an attempt to build a defensive ring around their conquests and threaten the lines of communication from the United States to Australia and new Zealand. They reached Guadalcanal in May 1942 and invaded.

Three months later, the Americans responded with an invasion fo their own, their first amphibious landing of the war and, crucially, captured the airfield newly constructed by the Japanese. The following six months was spent in a desperate battle trying to hold it against relentless waves of Japanese attacks. The battle reached a crisis point in November with a concerted effort from the Japanese to bombard the airfield from the sea and a corresponding American naval effort to drive the Japanese ships away. They were successful and by February of 1943 the Japanese had evacuated the island, an immensely challenging operation, brilliantly executed.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis speaks with the historian Jeffrey Cox.

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This week we are exploring the history of how to become a naval officer, with particular focus on the American experience and the foundation of the Naval War College in Rhode Island. Established in 1884 the U.S. Naval War College offered professional study for naval officers and now offers advanced courses of professional study for all services, U.S. government agencies and departments, and international navies.

In our modern world media interest on naval power tends to be directed towards materiel rather than personnel: recent news stories, for example, have focussed on the USS Nevada, armed with no fewer than 20 Trident II strategic nuclear missiles recently surfacing at the American naval base in Guam in the Pacific – a clear demonstration of strength or in the official wording - of ‘readiness and commitment’ - towards China and North Korea. We do not hear, however, about the personnel wielding this naval power. No news stories ran a feature saying that a particularly successful or maverick or reliable naval officer had been sent to Guam; all we hear about is the submarine.

This is notably different to the way that naval power appears in history, as it is dominated by personalities, whether it is the American Chester Nimitz in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War, one of his great rivals the Japanese Chuichi Nagumo, the British Beatty and Jellicoe, in the First World War, Horatio Nelson, John Paul Jones, Francis Drake, …and so on.

So how does the US Navy try to guarantee the competence of the men who lead their fleet now - and how did they do it in the past? To help me find out more I spoke with Dr Evan Wilson, Assistant Professor in the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.

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Dr Sam Willis speaks with Don Lynch, a historian who has spoken to more survivors of the Titanic than anyone else alive and was the official historian for James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic. Sam and Don discuss a number of issues including the concept of ‘women and children first’ and how that actually worked in practice. They also discuss unresolved historical issues relating to the history of the Titanic. This episode is made to go alongside a remarkable new 3D model of the Titanic that has been built using the original plans for the ship and allows us to explore the Titanic in great depth and with great accuracy. The video can be found on the Mariner's Mirror Podcast YouTube Channel.

Laid down in March 1909 she was launched a little over two years later and completed just under a year after that, on 2 April 1912. Her size was immense: at 882 feet 9 inches long, she was the largest moveable man made object on earth. This was a major engineering challenge and it revolutionised shipbuilding. No one had ever tried to build a ship the size of the Titanic or her sister ships Olympic and Britannic, ever before.

It took an entire year to put the Titanic’s frames in place. She was built with 2000 hull plates mostly 6ft wide and 30ft long, weighing up to three tons. The hull was held together with over three million iron and steel rivets.

The radio room with the latest Marconi radio equipment was located on the boat deck, as close to the top of the ship as possible to keep the feed line to the antennae short. The transmitter was the most powerful at sea able to contact either New York or London from the centre of the Atlantic.

The First Class accommodation was high up in the ship away from the noise of the machinery. The suites were lavishly decorated in styles of different historical periods. The largest had their own private section of deck.

The Third Class accommodation was split between either end of the ship in the lower decks. Single men were in the bow and single women and families were in the stern where they were subjected to the noise and vibrations of the engine and propellers.

The 20 lifeboats were carried on the uppermost deck but 32 more, featured in the original design were never put in place, to create space for the wealthy to exercise. This meant that the Titanic only had sufficient lifeboats for 33% of her passengers.

At 11.40 on 15 April 1912, the Titanic was 370 miles south of Newfoundland, in 12,500 feet of water – nearly two and a half miles, travelling just under her top speed of just under ten metres per second, when an iceberg was spotted by the lookout.

He telephoned the bridge with the words ‘Iceberg right ahead’. It was 100 ft tall, the size of an eight-story building, and with no light to reflect it, the iceberg appeared almost black. The order was given hard to starboard, to turn the ship to port but she struck on the starboard side, tearing as many as six different holes in her hull, all along the lines of her hull plates, suggesting that the rivets snapped off.

Water poured in at seven tons per second, fifteen times faster than it could be pumped out. The hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments but they did not extend all the way up to the top of the ship, so the water flooded into each one at a time, as the bow began to sink. Within 45 minutes, 1500 tons of water were in the front section of the ship, and she snapped in half. Each section hit the seabed with such force that it created an enormous debris field, the stern burying itself fifteen metres below the sea bed. 1534 lost their lives.

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We find out about an exciting project run by the Imperial War Museum which explores how conflict has driven innovation in science and technology. Sponsored by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, the project aims to discover how conflict has accelerated innovation, and how this has impacted on the world we live in today. Science and technology are the key factors in influencing the course of modern conflict. On land, at sea and in the air, innovation in technology has played a key role in the course of conflict during the twentieth Century. Warfare accelerates technological innovation as part of the wider war effort, and this in turn has a significant impact on civilian society. As the Imperial War Museum is a world-renowned authority on conflict history, the project gives audiences the opportunity to change their understanding about war. With over one million items in the IWM collection, this project will offer a range of a wide range of intellectual and emotional experiences.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Rob Rumble, lead curator of the project. They examine and discuss a number of artefacts in the collection, including the Cavity Magnetron, which became the preferred source of very high frequency radio waves in various radars and communication devices and led to a massive growth in microwave radar technology; public safety posters which educated and encouraged the public use of antiseptic to prevent infections, as well as for the use of safety harnesses whilst working from height; an example of the 'Davis' Submarine escape apparatus, an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910; a lifejacket for a child; lifeboat navigation maps; a buoyant light; plastic armour; and a type of valve employed in early airborne interception and air to surface vessel radar equipment.

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We explore the extraordinary story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis speaks with Mark Stille, a retired commander in the US Navy, who studied at the Naval War College and has recently finished a 40-year career working in the intelligence community, with tours on the faculty at the Naval War College, the Joint Staff and US naval ships; he is also the author of numerous works focussing on naval history.

This episode is designed to sit alongside the most fabulous 3D animation exploring the Shokaku - one of the Japanese carriers involved in the attack. The full video can be seen on the Mariner’s Mirror podcasts’s Youtube and Facebook pages with shorter clips on Twitter and Instagram.

Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack, launched by the Japanese against the American naval base in Hawaii, before the formal declaration of war between the two nations. The Japanese goal was nothing less than to destroy the American pacific fleet. From six aircraft carriers, The Japanese launched hundreds of aircraft in two waves. Less than two hours later the Japanese had crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were also destroyed. 2,403 sailors, soldiers and civilians were killed.

Importantly, however, the Japanese actually failed in their goal to cripple the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important vessel in the navy as they had been in the previous war: Aircraft carriers and seaborne airpower had now changed that nature of seapower and all of the American Pacific Fleet’s carriers were away from the base on December 7 and escaped destruction.

Moreover, for the the first time in years of discussion and debate about America entering the war, popular opinion now dramatically swung towards joining the fight. The following day America declared war on Japan, and three days later, on Germany.

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In this episode we hear about Thermopylae, one of the most magnificent clipper-ships ever built, and some claim the finest of them all. In 1879, before her second wool voyage from Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald eulogised: 'The fastest and handsomest ship in the world is now lying at the Circular Quay loading for London, and those who take pleasure in seeing a rare specimen of naval architecture should avail themselves of the opportunity of doing so. Of course, we allude to the Thermopylæ, the celebrated Aberdeen clipper. [The] Thermopylæ has all the appearance of a yacht, and yet she carries a good cargo, is a beautiful sea boat, and stands up to her canvas well.'

Built in Aberdeen and commissioned in 1868, but long over-shadowed in public recognition by her rival, Cutty Sark (a ship built specifically to out-pace her in the China tea trade but only once succeeded in so doing), Thermopylæ lives on as arguably the finest all-round clipper of them all.

Clipper ships like Thermopylae were astonishing to behold, and were the culmination of centuries of refinements in sailing technology that led to some of the most beautiful and fastest merchant ships ever built. They revolutionised global trade tearing around the seas carrying tea, wool, luxury goods, and of course people as this era of migration changed the populations and economies of the world forever. Their heyday was short lived, however, as increasingly efficient steam engines and railways changed the way that goods were transported – all over again.

To find out more, Dr Sam Willis speaks with Captain Peter King. Peter recently retired from the merchant shipping industry after over 62 years of continuous service in a wide range of maritime disciplines. In the 1980s, while serving as Managing Director of one of the Christian Salvesen group companies in Aberdeen, he developed an interest in the George Thompson Jnr’s Aberdeen-based shipping enterprise leading to his researching and publishing the first definitive history of Thermopylæ.

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