The Ship Killers - Hinds, Joe

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Résumé :
Small boats have been a threat to major navies from ancient times up to the Ukrainian mass suicide drone boat attacks against the Russian Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol in October 2022. The torpedo boat, a fast craft armed with a propelled high explosive warhead, was used to hold enemy navies at risk from the days of the American Civil War until it was supplanted by the missile boat during the Cold War era. These vessels exerted a powerful hold on the imagination, and for good reason: small crews, standing on deck, lightly protected if at all, dashing at high speed through heavy fire towards huge warships: what could be bolder, or braver? This omnibus edition brings together for the first time the eleven volumes and 794 color pages of the late Joe Hind's magisterial history of the torpedo boat, which covers every phase of torpedo boat development from medieval times to the end of WW2 for every navy in all the world's oceans. Meticulously researched and illustrated with more than a thousand footnotes and nearly 500 color images, THE SHIP KILLERS provides a detailed and carefully verified daily timeline of every noteworthy torpedo boat activity during its period of coverage. This edition includes illustrated timelines from 1280 to 1945 plus five special articles, twenty-two appendices, and twelve specialized indexes.

Biographie:
Joe Hinds illustrated works of military interest for more than 40 years.Mr. Hinds served as an illustrator in the United States Marines and the United States Navy from 1965 to 1980 and again in the Naval Reserves from 1990 to 1996 in support of Operations of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. During his military career he served on the aircraft carriers USS Coral Sea and USS Enterprise and later at the Naval Weapons Test Center, Port Hueneme, California. He also worked on the first cruise missile tests in what would become the Tomahawk program.Mr. Hinds grew up in Needles, California. In this desert river town he was greatly influenced by the National Speed Boat Races. These events featured small, fast boats that were civilian echoes of the torpedo boats of the world's navies.Mr. Hinds was involved in both technical and editorial illustration. His career includes working in the business community as an independent graphics project manager, illustrator and designer for American Honda Motor Company, British Petroleum/HITCO, Martin Marietta, Grey Advertising, BBDO Los Angeles and others. His art appeared in magazines such as Private Pilot, Plane and Pilot, Cycle World, Civil War Times Illustrated, America in World War II, and others.In pursuit of historical accuracy, he was fortunate to work with distinguished museum curators, Joe Judge (Curator, Hampton Roads Naval Museum), Bob Holcombe (Curator, Confederate Naval Museum, and Dana Wegner (Curator, US Navy Ships Model Museum. Mr. Hinds has also worked closely with Jeff Johnston, Program Specialist and Dr. John Broadwater, Manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary-NOAA. This collaborative effort led to illustrations of the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack). These illustration, sold as prints, show numerous details of these two historic vessels that have never been shown before. Mr. Hinds' illustrations of several Civil War vessels appeared In Civil War Times magazine from 1999 to 2006. At that same time he began work with the Discovery Channel to produce an accurate illustration of the US Navy Civil War submarine Alligator. This illustration was subsequently used by NOAA as an international distributed poster to celebrate the achievements of the USS Alligator during the American Civil War. This illustration was produced with the aid of master model builders and submarine historians, a necessity since no contemporary plans or photographs of the Alligator exist. The final product produced by Mr. Hinds was used in television productions, posters and other products.Mr. Hinds has completed the first comprehensive treatment of torpedo boats. This monumental research effort on the development of the torpedo boat in the world's navies has produced a series of illustrations and narrative accounts, as well as voluminous research files. Hinds have pushed back the timeline on the invention of the torpedo to 1280 AD thanks to assistance from Dr. Ahmad Y. Al-Hussan, Cambridge University. One part of the effort, the story of PT-34, recently appeared in the magazine America in World War II with a second article detailing the second PT boat heroic action by President John F. Kennedy.By combining his avocation for naval history with his vocation in illustrating, Mr. Hinds made lasting contributions to the history of the world's navies.