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Home Waters: Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and U.S. Navy Mine Forces Battling U-Boats in World War I

Home Waters

This book by Commander David D. Bruhn, USN (Ret.) and LCDR Rob Hoole, RN (Ret.) published in 2018 is a detailed account of of the forces who swept the sea lanes of mines during and after the First World War. The mines blockaded ports and formed a defence against U–boats. The German forces also laid mines so that mariners were never able to be confident that the waters in which they were operating were clear of danger. Mines were laid and swept constantly through the War.

After the War the mines that had not detonated had to be picked up and disarmed. They posed a deadly threat to all shipping and when they washed ashore to civilians. The work continued for some years after the war and was difficult and dangerous. The book is written in an easy style and profusely illustrated with pictures, diagrams and maps. Appendices summarize useful information in tables at the end of the book. The narrative covers all the allied efforts and makes particular notice of some naval personnel who came to the effort from British Columbia.

Published by Heritage Books, Berwyn Heights MD USA. ISBN 978-0-7884-5798-2 (paper).


Nauticapedia

Site News: December 21, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).

Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

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