The price includes a 4% credit card fee. If you pay by check, money order, or bank wire, the discounted price is $195 delivered within the contiguous United States.
 
1946, Dodd, Mead, New York, FIRST EDITION. Hardbound, gold embossed cover and spine, in original dust jacket in protective sleeve. INSCRIBED BY REAR ADMIRAL EDWARD ELLSBERG. A 77-year-old book is in good condition with some wear. Inside front cover map illustration is split along the hinge. The same map on the inside back cover is in excellent shape. Prior owners library stamp embossed. An essential book on American salvage operations in World War II by a salvage genius. Edited review: It is a firsthand account of the Allied salvage operation that played a key role in recovering North Africa from the Nazis during World War II. By 1942, Mussolini’s forces were on the run in East Africa. In order to slow the Allied advance, the Italians used audacious tactics—including making ports inoperable, leaving the Allies without the infrastructure necessary to continue the war effort. At Massawa, Eritrea, the fleeing Italians left the largest mass wreck in the world, turning a vital port into a tangle of shattered ships, cranes, sunken dry docks, and dangerous booby traps. To continue the war effort and push back the Axis powers in Africa, the Allies enlisted U S naval salvage expert Commander Ellsberg. Ellsberg, a veteran miracle worker in raising sunken ships, was given his toughest assignment yet: Reopen the port with no budget, no men, and no tools. The British had claimed the task was impossible—Massawa couldn’t be cleared. But a determined Ellsberg navigated complicated American and British bureaucracies to build a ragtag group of international civilians and pull off a historic feat of engineering. This is his account of that crucial operation—the largest of its kind the world had ever seen—accomplished in the searing heat of Eritrea. 
 
This fascinating story of salvage operations on the Red Sea during the first year of America's participation in WWII only burnishes the remarkable reputation of the Greatest Generation. The suffering, the determination and the majesty of the efforts by Ellsberg and his multinational crews is captured in a tale every American should know. The author's ability to bring you close to the scenes of success and tragedy, of humor and despair, dark waters and resolute mariners struggling to master machinery and the sea, makes this long and handsomely wrought tale a humbling testament to the American spirit in the worst of times and the cruelest of climes.