Navy Eyes Ship E-Book Libraries

There’s nothing like a good book to while away shipboard days on the bounding main, as I learned as a Marine afloat on many a ‘gator freighter back in the days when publishers printed books on paper rather than in digits.

Today’s sailors and Marines increasingly opt for e-books, but surface vessels have limited bandwidth, and submarines have none, to download e-books.

The Navy Supply Systems Command plans to rectify this situation through shipboard e-book libraries, and it wants some contractor help to do the job.

I suggest the Navy make the best sea tale I have read in the decade, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour, by James D. Hornfischer, the first e-book it includes in the shipboard e-libraries.