No Banners, No Bugles cover art

No Banners, No Bugles

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

€0.00/month for the first 3 months
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

No Banners, No Bugles

By: Edward Ellsberg
Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

The unheralded story of how salvage helped the Allies win back North Africa. By the time America joined World War II, Edward Ellsberg had already earned his place as one of the world’s great marine salvage engineers, and his best-selling accounts of raising doomed submarines and histories of classic diving operations had made him a literary star. With America’s entry into the war, Ellsberg returned to active duty with no easy assignment: clearing the vital port at Massawa, Eritrea, with no men, no equipment, and no budget.

No Banners, No Bugles picks up with Ellsberg stationed at Oran, Algeria, an important Mediterranean harbor as the Allies prepare for Operation Torch, the fight to reclaim North Africa from the Axis powers. Following his success at Massawa, Ellsberg must sort out the disorganized mess left by the Vichy French and find a way to open the port, though his flagging health proves to be a dangerous obstacle. As General Eisenhower’s chief of salvage in the Mediterranean, Ellsberg needs to clear harbors all across North Africa. No Banners, No Bugles is the riveting story of how Ellsberg the miracle worker tackled his greatest mission yet.

©1949 Edward Ellsberg and Lucy Buck Ellsberg (P)2014 Audible Inc. Armed Forces Military Naval Forces War Submarine Africa

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Far Shore cover art
On the Bottom cover art
PT 105 cover art
Crash Dive: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) cover art
Collision Course cover art
Trapped at Pearl Harbor cover art
Day of Infamy cover art
Wolfpack 351 cover art
Sheppard of the Argonne cover art
South Pacific Destroyer cover art
Pearl Harbor cover art
Humble Heroes cover art
Until the Sea Shall Free Them cover art
The Silent Service in World War II cover art
Sunk Without Trace cover art
December 7, 1941 cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Excellent story of aspects you hear little of about in war. Well detailed and gripping. Although clearly a remarkable man, he is very self indulgent seemingly to believe most around him were less than competent, and one finishes the book thinking that the result of the campaign would have been very different without him.
The reading is done in a very monotone voice and quite uninspiring.

Really interesting history behind war.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I thoroughly enjoyed Ellsberg’s second book. Each of the salvage jobs in the book seems to be a cliff-hanger and you never quite know whether he will succeed. Like the Red Sea book, I was strangely transfixed by his account and eagerly looked forward to my next commute to work to hear more. But the narrator was the worst I have ever heard in Audible. I had to listen at a faster speed just to bear the monotony of the man’s voice. Surely there are readers out there with more intonation and spirit in their voices?

Another great Ellsberg book, but awful narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well read and a fascinating story. I recommend it to all interested in war history.

Enjoyed this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There are four books in a series, first "On the Bottom" then "Under the red sea sun", this book and finally "The far shore." This is probably the best, and most revealing of the books and together with "Under the red sea sun" reveals a little discussed part of the second world war with many excellent little stories woven into a bigger narrative. The narrators often struggle with British English and technical words. Being British myself they can be quite fun, Scottish soldiers should be called Scots but are called Scotch here. Quay is for some reason spoken to rhyme with queue rather than key, with Coxwain as Cox-Waine rather than the correct Cox'un. The somewhat derogatory Ities for Italian troops/prisoners should be pronounced eye-tie not as in the book It-Eyes. I strongly recommend reading beneath the red sea sun before this book to put the narrative in order. The far shore is weak compared to the others.

Excellent story possibly best of the four

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was an excellent listen on a subject I know nothing about and hadn't considered before. I really enjoyed all the detail.

An excellent listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Started to listen. But the narrator is monotone and difficult to listen too. Shame because it’s apparently a good book

Bad narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book gives the impression that he alone won the war, both the British and French come off badly and US red tape little better. the annunciation was great but so boring.

who won the war?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.