Going Deep

John Philip Holland and the Invention of the Attack Submarine

Lawrence Goldstone

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781681777818
• eBook ISBN:
  9781681774848
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The controversial history of the attack submarine—and the story of its colorful creator, John Philip Holland—that reveals how this imaginative invention changed the face of modern warfare. From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to The Hunt for Red October, readers the world over have demonstrated an enduring fascination with travel under the sea. Yet the riveting story behind the invention of the submarine—an epic saga of genius, persistence, ruthlessness, and deceit—is almost completely unknown. Like Henry Ford and the Wright brothers, John Philip Holland was completely self-taught, a brilliant man raised in humble circumstances, earning his living as a schoolteacher and choirmaster. But all the while he was obsessed with creating a machine that could successfully cruise beneath the waves. His struggle to unlock the mystery behind controlled undersea navigation would take three decades, during which he endured skepticism, disappointment, and betrayal. But his indestructible belief in himself and his ideas led him to finally succeed where so many others had failed. Going Deep is a vivid chronicle of the fierce battles not only under the water, but also in the back rooms of Wall Street and the committee rooms of Congress. A rousing adventure—surrounded by an atmosphere of corruption and greed—at its heart this a story of bravery, passion, and the unbreakable determination to succeed against long odds.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Prologue: Death From Below
• Chapter 1: Blurred Beginnings
• Chapter 2: Made in America
• Chapter 3: An American in Paris
• Chapter 4: Stars and Bars
• Chapter 5: Entr’Acte: A Fictional interlude
• Chapter 6: For an Independent Ireland
• Chapter 7: The Fenian Ram
• Chapter 8: Competition From the Clergy
• Chapter 9: Treading Water
• Chapter 10: Chasing the Carrot
• Chapter 11: Challengers
• Chapter 12: Uneasy Neighbors
• Chapter 13: Argonaut
• Chapter 14: The Plunge
• Chapter 15: Shedding Ballast
• Chapter 16: King’s Gambit Accepted
• Chapter 17: A New Skipper
• Chapter 18: Joining the Navy
• Chapter 19: Bottom Fishing
• Chapter 20: Displacement
• Chapter 21: Counterstrike
• Chapter 22: Proxy War
• Chapter 23: Skewed Competition
• Chapter 24: A Warship in Search of a War
• Chapter 25: Holland Without Holland
• Chapter 26: Excessive Ballast
• Chapter 27: The New Class
• Chapter 28: Suicide Squeeze
• Chapter 29: Going Deep
• Selected Bibliography
• Endnotes
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Illustration Credits
• Copyright