John F. Guilmartin

Contributor

BIOGRAPHY

Associate Professor of History, Ohio State University, Columbus. Author of Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century and others.

Primary Contributions (26)

Articles

Bf 109

Bf 109, Nazi Germany’s most important fighter aircraft, both in operational importance and in numbers produced. It was commonly referred to as the Me 109 after its designer, Willy Messerschmitt. Designed by the Bavarian Airplane Company in response to a 1934 Luftwaffe specification for a…

Hurricane

P-47

B-26

unmanned aerial vehicle

rocket and missile system

aviation in World War I

Publications (3)

Gunpowder and Galleys : Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th Century (2003)

By John Francis Guilmartin

A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang [Texas A & M University Military History] (1995)

By John F. Guilmartin Jr.

On May 12, 1975, less than two weeks after the fall of Saigon, Khmer Rouge naval forces seized the S.S. Mayaguez, an American container ship, off the Cambodian coast in the Gulf of Siam. The swift military response ordered by President Gerald Ford was designed to recapture the Mayaguez, held at anchor off the island of Koh Tang, to liberate her crew, and to demonstrate U.S. strength and resolve in the immediate aftermath of America's most humiliating defeat.Guilmartin, a former air rescue helicopter...

Galleons and Galleys

By John Francis Guilmartin

The turn of the 16th century saw the start of a revolution in sea warfare—one long in the making but, once begun, remarkably swift. The driving force: gunpowder. The principal agents: galleys (long, low boats propelled principally by oars) and galleons (heavy, square rigged sailing ships). Suddenly, Europe, formerly on a technological par with India and China, dominated the waters. They crossed the Atlantic, reached America, and became world powers. A beautifully written account of the age conveys...