Pugsley Captain (4 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. No Jacket. First Edition.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Small 4to, plain black cloth, gilt stamped, worn and with some staining, hinges broken, color printed wrappers, 152pp. + printed envelope bound in to rear cover, labelled "CHARTS," and containing nine, crisp folding maps: New Harbor & Bay; Long Island Sound; Delaware Bay; Chesapeake Bay; Boston Harbor; Gloucester Harbor; Portland Harbor Maine; Block Island to Currituck; and San Francisco Harbor. Text illustrations in line and in halftone. Several ad sheets inserted, in promotion of product (some in color). The content is substantial. A good copy only.…

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. First Edition, Presumed first printing. 224 pages. Some endpaper discoloration. DJ is worn, torn, and chipped. The author was one of the Royal Navy's great commanders of small ships. This book is the story of an outstanding fighting sailor's war. His success as a leader in combined operations led to his appointment to command the naval side of the amphibious assault on the Dutch island of Walcheren, in which his landing craft gained imperishable fame. In the last month of the war. his force played a vital role, operating under extraordinary conditions in the canals, waterways, and estuaries of the Low Countries. This is a record of World War 2 as seen by through a destroyer man's eyes, It is essentially a picture of the war from an operational angle--from the point of view of the user of the weapons put into his hands by others. Donald George Frederick Wyville Macintyre DSO & Two Bars, DSC (26 January 1904 - 23 May 1981) was a Royal Navy officer during the Second World War and a successful convoy escort commander. Following the war, he was an author of numerous books on British naval history. Rear Admiral Anthony Follett Pugsley CB DSO (7 December 1901 - 17 July 1990) was a British naval officer. During the Second World War he served as a successful destroyer captain, landed the 3rd Canadian Division on D-Day, and planned and executed the amphibious landings on Walcheren during a critically important phase in the Battle of the Scheldt in late 1944. His early experiences as second-in-command of the gunboat HMS Widgeon on the river Yangtze from 1925 to 1927 are recorded in Pugsley's memoirs, Destroyer Man. At a particularly dangerous and lawless time in Chinese history, the upper Yangtze was ruled by warlords. An uneasy peace was kept by a British naval presence, and when one of the warlords held a number of British merchant seamen hostage, Pugsley received his first opportunity to distinguish himself in aiding in their rescue. On another occasion he prevented a Chinese mob from overrunning a British cantonment by leading a guard of four sailors with unloaded rifles, he himself armed only with a service cane, towards the mob which parted and melted away. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Pugsley, by now a commander, was captain of the destroyer HMS Javelin, and was mentioned in despatches for his ship's defence against enemy aircraft in the Norwegian Campaign. Javelin was also at the Evacuation of Dunkirk, where she evacuated some 1,400 troops before being withdrawn to form part of a special anti-invasion force. After Dunkirk, Javelin was ordered to join Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten's Fifth Destroyer Flotilla at Immingham. The flotilla was a force of J- and K-class destroyers, commanded by Mountbatten from, variously, his ship HMS Kelly, and the County Hotel at Immingham. As Javelin was the sole possessor in the flotilla of a radar set, Mountbatten often selected Javelin to be his temporary flotilla leader. On New Year's Eve 1942, Pugsley was promoted to captain, and to command of the 14th Destroyer Flotilla in HMS Jervis. He subsequently was appointed to command all the fleet destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean. Throughout the early part of 1943, his flotilla harried Axis shipping and engaged Italian naval surface ships.[2] Following the highly successful destruction of an Axis convoy off Sicily, he was awarded a Bar to his DSO and the Greek War Cross. n mid-July 1943, after four years almost continuously at sea, Pugsley was recalled to join the Combined Operations planning for D-Day at Cowes under Commodore John Hughes-Hallett. Pugsley was appointed to command one of the assault groups. Each landing force (there were originally three, two British and one American, although this was later increased to three British and two American) had a commodore or rear-admiral as naval commander and was subdivided into three assault groups each with a captain in command. Pugsley was given the frigate HMS Lawford as his headquarters ship for assault group J1, responsible for the landing operations of the 3rd Canadian Division at Juno Beach. Lawford was sunk by enemy aircraft in the early stages of the landings. The landings completed, Pugsley was awarded a second Bar to his DSO. and was appointed deputy to Admiral Vian in the British landing areas in the Channel as Captain (Patrols). After Vian's departure, Pugsley was promoted to the command of all British naval patrols in the Channel, responsible for preventing the enemy disrupting the Allied build-up. Walcheren was the key to opening up the Scheldt estuary which would open up the strategic port of Antwerp, critical to supply the Allied armies pursuing the Germans to the Rhine. The whole impetus of the Allied advance across North-Western Europe, and into Germany, was dependent on rapid and ample supply, particularly fuel and ammunition. If Antwerp were not soon made available, the advance would be in imminent and fatal danger of being halted in its tracks. Pugsley soon became convinced that two combined amphibious assaults of Walcheren with simultaneous crossings of the causeway was now the only feasible way of ensuring the capture of the island.[2] He pressed this view on Brigadier Church Mann, Crerar's Chief of Staff. Mann was sympathetic and confirmed that General Guy Simonds, the corps commander responsible for the area, held the same view. Pugsley contacted Admiral Ramsay, who also immediately supported the idea, and authorized the planning and operational resources that Pugsley needed. By 8 November 1944, Walcheren with all its batteries had been captured and neutralized and the seaborne way to Antwerp secured, although it took more than ten squadrons of minesweepers until 26 November to clear the 80 miles of estuary and river. He was promoted Rear-Admiral in 1951 and was Flag-Officer Malayan Area during the Malayan Emergency, responsible for naval support to the military operations and acting as naval adviser to General Sir Gerald Templer. Pugsley retired in 1954. Asses.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Scattered foxing to edges o/w clean, fresh navy blue fabric boards with sharp titles to spine, firm hinges, sharp corners. DJ has light wear along top/bottom edges, nominal wear to corners with light wrinkling to spine ends. Handsome copy. Scarce. BP/WWII/Naval.…