Robert F. Burgess Books in Order

Robert Burgess and Carl Clausen reconstruct the loss of a Spanish treasure fleet in a 1715 hurricane off Florida. Archival research connects the ships’ final voyage with modern divers’ attempts to recover their cargo and understand the wreck sites.

Recalling his meeting with Ernest Hemingway in Pamplona, Robert Burgess revisits the writer’s favorite places in France and Spain. Letters, memoirs, and journeys through the Pyrenees illuminate the people and experiences behind Hemingway’s fiction and his continuing literary legacy.

Diver Robert Burgess combines personal encounters with sharks and interviews with researchers to explore these marine predators. Their behavior, physical capabilities, and scientific study reveal an animal whose reputation for danger often overshadows its complexity and adaptations.

A map scratched onto an old telescope sends Shandy and Jib searching for hidden treasure with their friend Jackson. Shipwreck, pirates, and a Florida swamp obstruct their quest before they confront the mysterious sea creature said to guard the prize.

Robert Burgess recounts diving adventures ranging from a threatening shark encounter to explorations of submerged caves and prehistoric sites. Personal experiences and remarkable discoveries reveal the hazards and surprises awaiting divers who venture beyond familiar waters.

Burgess examines the Spanish treasure fleet lost off Florida in 1715 and the recovery of its cargo. Historical background, manifests, analysis, and photographs connect the wrecks with the coins and other objects brought back to the surface.

During the Vietnam War, a Viet Cong sniper known as Ghost strikes American soldiers and disappears into rough terrain. His ability to kill without being caught turns the pursuit of this elusive marksman into a deadly challenge.

Sergeant Harry Landon learns that the elusive enemy sniper he believed defeated is still killing American officers in Vietnam. Ordered to hunt him again, Landon follows an adversary whose invisible attacks and sinister calling cards seem to defy ordinary explanation.

Robert Burgess and three friends tow small sailboats to Key West and navigate toward the remote Marquesas Keys. Their learning experiences, lobster hunting, and later encounters with threatening storms explore the pleasures and risks of cruising aboard trailerable boats.

An elusive tormentor known as the Zebra terrorizes American troops and their prisoners in Vietnam. Sniper Harry Landon accepts the assignment to find him, entering a jungle pursuit that threatens to turn the hunter and his Montagnard companion into captives.

Robert F. Burgess recounts several Vietnam missions associated with Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock, including long-range shooting and encounters with enemy snipers. The account also examines his wartime heroism and the tributes offered by Marines after his retirement.

This short account follows Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock on a secret mission in Vietnam in 1966. Burgess focuses on the assignment and the exceptional demands placed on the man selected to carry it out.

Marine snipers Carlos Hathcock and John Burke enter Vietnam's Elephant Valley and encounter an entire North Vietnamese company. Burgess follows their prolonged confrontation, then considers Burke's later service and the recognition awarded for his actions.

During the Vietnam War, Sergeant Tom Ritter leads a team of Marine misfits on dangerous assignments. A mission forces him to distinguish his target from seven identically dressed men carrying matching briefcases, with only seconds to decide.

Burgess recounts Finnish sniper Simo Hayha's service during the Winter War against the Soviet invasion. The short account explores his fieldcraft, survival under counterattacks, and the reputation that earned him the name White Death.

Burgess draws on Vassili Zaitsev's recollections to follow his transition from Soviet sailor to sniper at Stalingrad. The account examines the tactics and survival methods he described using amid the city's devastating fighting.

Robert F. Burgess reflects on Paris through Ernest Hemingway's years after the First World War and his own later experiences. Memories and literary connections explore the city's appeal to expatriates and ask whether its earlier creative atmosphere can still be found.

A concealed sniper repeatedly harasses American troops near Hill 55 in Vietnam, defying attempts to locate him. Two Marine snipers investigate and devise an unusual response, with consequences Burgess asks readers to consider beyond the immediate military problem.

These accounts follow military snipers across conflicts from World War II through Vietnam and Syria. Burgess draws on real people and events to explore their missions, battlefield decisions, and the dangers faced by soldiers operating in isolation.

Burgess examines the disputed account of Soviet sniper Vassili Zaitsev’s duel with a German marksman at Stalingrad. Comparing books and film portrayals, he explores the controversy and Zaitsev’s relationship with fellow sniper Tania Chernova.

Marine snipers Carlos Hathcock and John Burke work together in Vietnam, confronting enemy forces and the mysteries of jungle warfare. Burgess follows their partnership, including a prolonged engagement against a much larger North Vietnamese unit.

Vietnam veteran Harry Landon struggles with grief, alcohol, and hurricane losses on an island off British Honduras. Returning to his old skills as a sniper, he confronts drug smugglers while ghostly pirates and traces of Spanish treasure complicate his recovery.

Robert F. Burgess gathers accounts of Vietnam combat, reconstructing real events with dialogue and some changed names. The stories follow soldiers through dangerous encounters, emphasizing the immediate experience of battle and the decisions that determine whether they survive.

Drawing on years of travel and reporting between Florida and the Bahamas, Robert F. Burgess examines disappearances and unexplained deaths. Accounts of missing sailors, Flight 19, and other regional mysteries combine personal experience with his investigations into possible explanations.

Robert F. Burgess explores the experiences and methods of wartime snipers, including Carlos Hathcock and Russian and Finnish marksmen. Individual missions accompany a brief history of sniping, focusing on preparation, concealment, equipment, and the tactics used against opposing sharpshooters.

Burgess gathers accounts of soldiers who searched the underground tunnel systems used by Viet Cong forces. Their experiences reveal hidden chambers, concealed entrances and the dangers of fighting an enemy who could move beneath apparently secured territory.

Four true adventures move from a midnight encounter at a pond to a sniper's dangerous crawl behind enemy lines. The collection also visits a Majorcan bullfight and follows a wild dolphin's friendship with children and a dog.

Vietnam veteran Mark Wilder retreats to his island after his wife disappears during a storm. Strange coins, vanishing drug runners, and disturbing dreams draw him into mysteries connecting her disappearance with the island's pirate past.

Squirrels keep raiding Robert Burgess's bird feeders until a story about his grandfather's battle with a pickerel suggests another approach. Photographs accompany his account of ending the conflict and finding a peaceful arrangement with the animals.

Robert Burgess recounts true encounters with sharks, underwater caves, sheer cliffs, and burial underground. Each account follows people facing urgent choices when escape seems impossible, examining the decisions that helped them survive extreme danger.

True accounts explore unlikely friendships between animals of different species, illustrated with photographs of the creatures and people involved. The stories consider the enduring bonds that can form across differences in size, habits, and temperament.

Robert Burgess explains how sailors can expand their cruising range with a small boat carried by road. Practical guidance covers choosing and equipping a vessel, trailering, sailing techniques, anchoring, maintenance, and planning trips that combine boating with travel.

Robert Burgess traces underwater archaeology from early discoveries of ancient statues to investigations of prehistoric remains in Florida springs. Combining historical accounts with his own experience, he follows divers recovering evidence that changes understanding of humanity’s distant past.

These accounts of shipwrecks and underwater discoveries follow treasure hunters, archaeologists, and survivors through maritime disasters and salvage expeditions. Stories of lost ships, sunken riches, and mysterious disappearances reveal the hazards and persistence behind searching the sea.

Robert Burgess interviews six treasure divers about the discoveries that made their fortunes. Their accounts explain how they began, researched lost wrecks, and overcame problems that defeated earlier salvagers, revealing the persistence and ingenuity behind successful underwater searches.

Robert Burgess recounts pioneering expeditions into submerged caves, freshwater springs, and underground rivers. Explorers in Europe, Florida, Mexico, and elsewhere confront dangerous passages and technical challenges while uncovering prehistoric evidence and pushing the limits of underwater exploration.

William Royal recounts adventures that took him from catching sharks to feed his family to collecting them for scientific research. His dives into Florida springs and underwater caves bring dangerous encounters and discoveries of prehistoric remains.

Through interviews with successful treasure hunters, Robert Burgess explores how people enter the profession and locate valuable finds. Their experiences reveal the research, persistence, practical methods, and unexpected discoveries behind a pursuit often imagined as a matter of luck.

Tracing underwater exploration from early diving bells to nuclear submarines, Robert Burgess follows the inventors and explorers who tested unfamiliar machines beneath the surface. Their experiments reveal the ingenuity, danger, and failures behind advances in diving technology.