Maritime History with Chris Sams (live and unplugged)

This week’s podcast is my attempt to answer whether the German Navy of the Second World War would have been better off with a larger U-boat force rather than surface warships. It covers twenty years …

This week’s podcast is on a very Victorian research and development problem that led to disaster. The evolution of the Turret mounted warship dreamed up by Captain Cowper Coles which led to HMS Capta…

This week’s podcast is on the career of the SS Mount Temple from the Boer War to the Titanic sinking and on to her final encounter with the raider Mowe.

If you’re listening to this on a podcast provi…

This week’s podcast is on the British invasions of the French colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1809-10.

If you’re listening to this on a podcast provider I’d really appreciate it if you left …

This week’s podcast is on the openning first day of Operation Neuland, the U-boat offensive against oil and bauxite ore ships and facilites in the Caribbean in 1942 as well as the Allied response to …

In February 1781 Admiral Rodney attacks the Dutch held island of St Eustace as part of the Fourth Anglo Dutch War.

However, rather than a successful snatch and grab what followed is an often overlooke…

From August 1914 the German light crusier Emden began a raiding career against Allied flagged shipping in the Indian Ocean and what followed is a campaign that sees 70,000 tons sunk and 30,000 nautic…

In April 1942 the Japanese Navy carrier task force moves into the Indian Ocean with devestating effect. The only British force to engage the Carrier group was 11 Squadron’s Blenheim Mk IVs in a darin…

One of the strangest encounters to occur in the War at Sea of 1914 was when the German liner, Cap Trafalgar, was engaged by the British liner, Carmania. Both vessels were serving as auxiliary warship…

On the 27th October the battleship, Audacious sank off Tory Island, Ireland. She was a new dreadnought of the Grand Fleet and this became a massive embarrassment to the British Admiralty and caused a…

This may seem like a random post about a small vessel that probably didn’t do much but the S.90 was the only Torpedo boat/destroyer in the German East Asia Squadron at the outbreak of the War.

Unlike …

In November 1703 the Great Storm strikes central Europe, England and Wales which decimates large swathes of England and her fleet…

On 22nd February 1940 a simple North Sea sweep for British shipping turned into a disaster that cost two destroyers and 600 dead without the Allies firing a single shot…

In which I talk about a Liberty Ship full of explosives that could be very problematic….

In which I talk about the deadliest accident on British waterways ever…

Could Operation Rheinubung have worked? Had the German Naval command learned anything from the First World War? I do a quick(ish) overview of Operation Rheinubung and discuss Kreuzerkrieg as a tactic…

The loss of HMS Glatton in Dover Harbour in 1918 could have been a major disaster but it was quickly averted but what was Glatton and what disaster befell her?

On 31st January 1916 the L.19 Naval Zeppelin of the Imperial German Navy took off on its final mission. What followed was a human tragedy and questionable behaviour by would be rescuers but what do y…