America's Black Sea fleet
Subtitle: the U.S. Navy amidst war and revolution, 1919-1923
By: Robert Shenk
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Annapolis, Md
Language: eng
Number of pages: 365
ISBN-13: 9781612510538
Subjects: United States; United States. Navy; Naval History; Foreign service; History
Description: "Drawing heavily on previously unknown sources, Robert Shenk offers a revealing portrait of America's small Black Sea Fleet in the years following World War I. Home-ported in Constantinople, navy ships sped to the Crimea to help evacuate some 150,000 White Russians, and then coordinated the grain shipments that ended a terrible Russian famine. The fleet's successes in evacuating nearly 200,000 ethnic Armenian and Greek refugees from Smyrna and in rescuing tens of thousands from mainland Turkey are also detailed in full. Shenk's incisive depiction of Admiral Mark Bristol as both head of U.S. naval forces and America's chief diplomat in the region--William Leahy, Thomas Kinkaid, Julian Wheeler, and diplomat Allen Dulles served under him--help to make this book the first-ever comprehensive account of a vital, but little-known naval undertaking." -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The arrival; title: Turkey in 1919 and the American commissions; title: The admiral, the Embassy, and the crisis in Cilicia; title: The White Russian invasion; title: Death in the Pontus; title: After dark in Pera and Galata; title: The great Russian famine; title: Swimming the Hellespont and other naval recreation; title: Shipboard life; title: The burning of Smyrna; title: The expulsion of the minorities and Constantinople's last fling; title: The departure.