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Neptunes Inferno
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Book Synopsis Neptune's Inferno by : James D. Hornfischer
Download or read book Neptune's Inferno written by James D. Hornfischer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2011 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed, bestselling author of "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" now delivers a riveting, character-focused narrative of the United States Navy's bloodiest, most pivotal campaign of World War II.
Book Synopsis Ship of Ghosts by : James D. Hornfischer
Download or read book Ship of Ghosts written by James D. Hornfischer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-03-25 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Son, we’re going to Hell." The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR’s favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn’t a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again–until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston—a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma–Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will–power—and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston’s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it’s easy to forget that every single word is true. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from James D. Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno.
Book Synopsis The Fleet at Flood Tide by : James D. Hornfischer
Download or read book The Fleet at Flood Tide written by James D. Hornfischer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The extraordinary story of the World War II air, land, and sea campaign that brought the U.S. Navy to the apex of its strength and marked the rise of the United States as a global superpower Winner, Commodore John Barry Book Award, Navy League of the United States • Winner, John Lehman Distinguished Naval Historian Award, Naval Order of the United States With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war. With a close focus on high commanders, front-line combatants, and ordinary people, American and Japanese alike, Hornfischer tells the story of the climactic end of the Pacific War as has never been done before. Here are the epic seaborne invasions of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, the stunning aerial battles of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, the first large-scale use of Navy underwater demolition teams, the largest banzai attack of the war, and the daring combat operations large and small that made possible the strategic bombing offensive culminating in the atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the seas of the Central Pacific to the shores of Japan itself, The Fleet at Flood Tide is a stirring, authoritative, and cinematic portrayal of World War II’s world-changing finale. Illustrated with original maps and more than 120 dramatic photographs “Quite simply, popular and scholarly military history at its best.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture “The dean of World War II naval history . . . In his capable hands, the story races along like an intense thriller. . . . Narrative nonfiction at its finest—a book simply not to be missed.”—James M. Scott, Charleston Post and Courier “An impressively lucid account . . . admirable, fascinating.”—The Wall Street Journal “An extraordinary memorial to the courageous—and a cautionary note to a world that remains unstable and turbulent today.”—Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, author of Sea Power “A masterful, fresh account . . . ably expands on the prior offerings of such classic naval historians as Samuel Eliot Morison.”—The Dallas Morning News
Book Synopsis Descent into Darkness by : Edward C. Raymer
Download or read book Descent into Darkness written by Edward C. Raymer and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lie paralyzed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese ttack on Pearl Harbor, a crack team of U.S. Navy salvage divers headed by Edward C. Raymer are hurriedly flown to Oahu from the mainland. The divers have been given a Herculean task: rescue the sailors and Marines trapped below, and resurrect the pride of the Pacific fleet. Now for the first time, the chief diver of the Pearl Harbor salvage operations, Cmdr. Edward C. Raymer, USN (Ret.), tells the whole story of the desperate attempts to save crewmembers caught inside their sinking ships. Descent into Darkness is the only book available that describes the raising and salvage operations of sunken battleships following the December 7th attack. Once Raymer and his crew of divers entered the interiors of the sunken shipwrecks—attempting untested and potentially deadly diving techniques—they experienced a world of total blackness, unable to see even the faceplates of their helmets. By memorizing the ships’ blueprints and using their sense of touch, the divers groped their way hundreds of feet inside the sunken vessels to make repairs and salvage vital war material. The divers learned how to cope with such unseen dangers as falling objects, sharks, the eerie presence of floating human bodies, and the constant threat of Japanese attacks from above. Though many of these divers were killed or seriously injured during the wartime salvage operations, on the whole they had great success performing what seemed to be impossible jobs. Among their credits, Raymer’s crew raised the sunken battleships West Virginia, Nevada, and California. After Pearl Harbor they moved on to other crucial salvage work off Guadalcanal and the sites of other great sea battles.
Book Synopsis Neptune's Inferno by : James D. Hornfischer
Download or read book Neptune's Inferno written by James D. Hornfischer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A literary tour de force that is destined to become one of the . . . definitive works about the battle for Guadalcanal . . . [James D.] Hornfischer deftly captures the essence of the most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war.”—San Antonio Express-News The Battle of Guadalcanal has long been heralded as a Marine victory. Now, with his powerful portrait of the Navy’s sacrifice, James D. Hornfischer tells for the first time the full story of the men who fought in destroyers, cruisers, and battleships in the narrow, deadly waters of “Ironbottom Sound.” Here, in stunning cinematic detail, are the seven major naval actions that began in August 1942, a time when the war seemed unwinnable and America fought on a shoestring, with the outcome always in doubt. Working from new interviews with survivors, unpublished eyewitness accounts, and newly available documents, Hornfischer paints a vivid picture of the officers and enlisted men who opposed the Japanese in America’s hour of need. The first major work on this subject in almost two decades, Neptune’s Inferno does what all great battle narratives do: It tells the gripping human stories behind the momentous events and critical decisions that altered the course of history and shaped so many lives. Praise for Neptune’s Inferno “Vivid and engaging . . . extremely readable, comprehensive and thoroughly researched.”—Ronald Spector, The Wall Street Journal “Superlative storytelling . . . the masterwork on the long-neglected topic of World War II’s surface ship combat.”—Richard B. Frank, World War II “The author’s two previous World War II books . . . thrust him into the major leagues of American military history writers. Neptune’s Inferno is solid proof he deserves to be there.”—The Dallas Morning News “Outstanding . . . The author’s narrative gifts and excellent choice of detail give an almost Homeric quality to the men who met on the sea in steel titans.”—Booklist (starred review) “Brilliant . . . a compelling narrative of naval combat . . . simply superb.”—The Washington Times
Book Synopsis South Pacific Destroyer by : Estate of R S Crenshaw
Download or read book South Pacific Destroyer written by Estate of R S Crenshaw and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today only a select few know firsthand what it is like to feel their ship shudder from the blast of their own guns, watch enemy guns flash back, and see friendly ships erupt in flames. Russell Crenshaw is one of those few. His riveting account of the savage night battle for the Solomon Islands in early 1943 offers readers a unique insider’s perspective from the decks of one of the destroyers that bore the brunt of the struggle. Russell Crenshaw was a gunnery officer on the USS Maury. His vivid, balanced, and detailed narrative includes the Battle of Tassafarounga in November 1942 and Vella Gulf in August 1943, actions that earned his warship a Presidential Unit Citation and sixteen battle stars. Crenshaw also discusses the impact of radar and voice radio, the shortcomings of U.S. torpedoes and gunfire, and the devastating effectiveness of Japan’s super torpedo.
Book Synopsis Who Can Hold the Sea by : James D. Hornfischer
Download or read book Who Can Hold the Sea written by James D. Hornfischer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A close-up, action-filled narrative about the crucial role the U.S. Navy played in the early years of the Cold War, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fleet at Flood Tide “A lucid, fast-moving and fitting finale to [Hornfischer’s] career.”—The Wall Street Journal This landmark account of the U.S. Navy in the Cold War, Who Can Hold the Sea combines narrative history with scenes of stirring adventure on—and under—the high seas. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the victorious Navy sends its sailors home and decommissions most of its warships. But this peaceful interlude is short-lived, as Stalin, America’s former ally, makes aggressive moves in Europe and the Far East. Winston Churchill crystallizes the growing Communist threat by declaring the existence of “the Iron Curtain,” and the Truman Doctrine is set up to contain Communism by establishing U.S. military bases throughout the world. Set against this background of increasing Cold War hostility, Who Can Hold the Sea paints the dramatic rise of the Navy’s crucial postwar role in a series of exciting episodes that include the controversial tests of the A-bombs that were dropped on warships at Bikini Island; the invention of sonar and the developing science of undersea warfare; the Navy’s leading part in key battles of the Korean War; the dramatic sinking of the submarine USS Cochino in the Norwegian Sea; the invention of the nuclear submarine and the dangerous, first-ever cruise of the USS Nautilus under the North Pole; and the growth of the modern Navy with technological breakthroughs such as massive aircraft carriers, and cruisers fitted with surface-to-air missiles. As in all of Hornfischer’s works, the events unfold in riveting detail. The story of the Cold War at sea is ultimately the story of America’s victorious contest to protect the free world.
Book Synopsis The Battle of Tassafaronga by : Estate of R S Crenshaw
Download or read book The Battle of Tassafaronga written by Estate of R S Crenshaw and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Tassafaronga, November 30, 1942, was the fifth and last major night surface action fought off Savo Island during World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign. It ended a string of Japanese victories, but it was also a horrible embarrassment to the U.S. Navy, which had three heavy cruisers damaged and one sunk to enemy torpedoes. After the battle, American commanders erroneously reported that multiple enemy ships had been sunk or seriously damaged, leading Admiral Nimitz to focus on training as the missing ingredient. Not until more than half a century later did Captain Russell S. Crenshaw, Jr., the destroyer Maury’s gunnery officer during the battle, discover that the outcome hinged instead on critical shortcomings that had been built into the U.S. Navy before the war—defective torpedoes, poor intelligence, blinding gunfire, over-confidence, and a tendency to equate volume of fire with effectiveness of fire—factors that turned the battle into “a crucible in which the very nature of the U.S. Navy and its weapons was tested [and] a miniature of what might have been, under other circumstances, a truly devastating defeat.”
Book Synopsis The naval battles for Guadalcanal 1942 by : Mark Stille
Download or read book The naval battles for Guadalcanal 1942 written by Mark Stille and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle for Guadalcanal that lasted from August 1942 to February 1943 was the first major American counteroffensive against the Japanese in the Pacific. The battle of Savo Island on the night of 9 August 1942, saw the Japanese inflict a sever defeat on the Allied force, driving them away from Guadalcanal and leaving the just-landed marines in a perilously exposed position. This was the start of a series of night battles that culminated in the First and Second battles of Guadalcanal, fought on the nights of 13 and 15 November. One further major naval action followed, the battle of Tassafaronga on 30 November 1942, when the US Navy once again suffered a severe defeat, but this time it was too late to alter the course of the battle as the Japanese evacuated Guadalcanal in early February 1943.This title will detail the contrasting fortunes experienced by both sides over the intense course of naval battles around the island throughout the second half of 1942 that did so much to turn the tide in the Pacific.
Download or read book Hunter Killer written by David Poyer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War with China explodes in Hunter Killer, David Poyer's dramatic new thriller. The United States stands nearly alone in its determination to fight, rather than give into the expansionist demands of the aggressive new “People’s Empire.” The naval and air forces of the Associated Powers – China, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea – have used advanced technology and tactical nuclear weapons to devastate America's fleet in the Pacific, while its massive army forced humiliating surrenders on Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other crucial allies. Admiral Dan Lenson, commanding a combined US–South Korean naval force, and Commander Cheryl Staurulakis of USS Savo Island fight to turn the tide and prepare for an Allied counteroffensive. Meanwhile, SEAL operator Teddy Oberg escapes from a hellish POW camp and heads west through desolate mountains toward what he hopes will be freedom. Hector Ramos, an unwilling recruit, learns the Marine Corps has an ethos all its own. And in Washington, DC, Dan’s wife Blair Titus helps formulate America's political response to overwhelming setbacks in the Pacific and at on the home front. Filled with dramatic battle scenes, from ship, submarine, and air warfare to desperate hand-to-hand Marine Corps combat, and informed by the author's own background as a Navy captain and defense analyst, Hunter Killer is a powerful, all-too-believable novel about how the next world war might unfold.
Download or read book Learning War written by Trent Hone and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learning War examines the U.S. Navy’s doctrinal development from 1898–1945 and explains why the Navy in that era was so successful as an organization at fostering innovation. A revolutionary study of one of history’s greatest success stories, this book draws profoundly important conclusions that give new insight, not only into how the Navy succeeded in becoming the best naval force in the world, but also into how modern organizations can exploit today’s rapid technological and social changes in their pursuit of success. Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.
Book Synopsis The Mantle of Command by : Nigel Hamilton
Download or read book The Mantle of Command written by Nigel Hamilton and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth analysis of FDR's leadership during the Second World War reveals how he assumed control over key decisions to launch a successful trial landing in North Africa to shift the war in favor of Allied forces. 50,000 first printing.
Book Synopsis The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal by : James W. Grace
Download or read book The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal written by James W. Grace and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most ferocious naval battles of World War II, the night action off the coast of Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942 - between U.S. cruisers and Japanese battleships fighting at point-blank range - claimed the lives of two American admirals. Though famous for tipping the scales in favor of the U.S. Navy in this critical area of the Pacific, this action has never before received the treatment provided in this book. Here, James Grace describes events from deck level and from both sides. He draws on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, including the vivid personal recollections of some two hundred Japanese and American survivors of the fight. These eyewitness accounts lend immediacy to a work that will appeal to the general reader as well as to serious World War II buffs and historians.
Download or read book The Last Patrol written by Harry Holmes and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Last Patrol is an operational history of the fifty-two U.S. submarines lost during World War II. The submarine service of the U.S. Navy suffered the highest percentage of losses of any branch of the American armed forces with almost one in five vessels failing to return. However, their achievements are legend. Their crews, while representing only two percent of naval personnel, accounted for over fifty-five percent of Japanese shipping losses. The Japanese merchant marine was second to none and vital to the fighting potential and economy of that nation, but by 1945 it had ceased to exist due to its near total destruction by the submarines. Of the U.S. submarines reported as "Overdue presumed lost", some were famous with commanders renowned for their audacious attacks, while others were lost before they could make their mark in history. This is the story of those submarines, their successes, their failures and their final dive when the sea closed over them forever
Book Synopsis Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em by : Mike Ostlund
Download or read book Find 'Em, Chase 'Em, Sink 'Em written by Mike Ostlund and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, revised and updated, the stirring and authoritative account of one of World War II's most highly decorated submarines Find ’Em, Chase ’Em, Sink ’Em is the first book to recount the tragic and mysterious loss of the World War II submarine USS Gudgeon. In April 1944, the highly decorated submarine USS Gudgeon slipped beneath the waves in one of the most treacherous patrol areas in the most dangerous military service during World War II. Neither the Gudgeon nor the crew was ever seen again. Author Mike Ostlund’s “Uncle Bill,” the operator of a farm implements business, was aboard that ship as a lieutenant junior grade. Through extensive research of patrol reports in U.S. and Japanese naval archives, interviews with veterans who had served aboard the Gudgeon before its final patrol, and the personal effects of the lost men’s relatives, Ostlund has assembled the most accurate account yet of this remarkably successful submarine’s exploits, of the men aboard from steward to captain, and of what we now know about her demise. Find ’Em, Chase ’Em, Sink ’Em details the memories and life lessons of the young men who went to sea aboard Gudgeon before its last patrol knowing hardly anything, and came home having seen too much.
Book Synopsis Company of Heroes by : Harry Carey, Jr.
Download or read book Company of Heroes written by Harry Carey, Jr. and published by Taylor Trade Publishing. This book was released on 2013-12-07 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Harry Carey, Sr., died in 1947, director John Ford cast Carey's twenty-six-year-old son, Harry, Jr., in the role of The Abilene Kid in 3 Godfathers. Ford and the elder Carey had filmed an earlier version of the story, and Ford dedicated the Technicolor remake to his memory. Company of Heroes is the story of the making of that film, as well as the eight subsequent Ford classics. In it, Harry Carey, Jr., casts a remarkably observant eye on the process of filming Westerns by one of the true masters of the form. From She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagonmaster to The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn, he shows the care, tedium, challenge, and exhilaration of movie-making at its highest level. Carey's portrayal of John Ford at work is the most intimate ever written. He also gives us insightful and original portraits of the men and women who were part of Ford's vision of America: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen, and Ben Johnson. Funny, insightful, and brutally honest, Company of Heroes is a rip-roaring good read that presents the remarkable life story of Harry Carey, Jr., and his many fine performances.
Book Synopsis Pirate Alley by : Terence E McKnight
Download or read book Pirate Alley written by Terence E McKnight and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a "Notable Naval Book of 2012" by Proceedings magazine, Pirate Alley is now available in paperback. The book provides an in-depth look at every aspect of Somali piracy, from how the pirates operate to how the actions of a relative handful of youthful criminals and their bosses have impacted the world economy. It explores the debate over the recently adopted practice of putting armed guards aboard merchant ships, and focuses on the best management practices that are changing the ways that ships are outfitted for travel through what’s known as the High-Risk Area. Readers will learn that the consequence of protecting high quality targets such as container ships and crude oil carriers may be that pirates turn to crime on land, such as the kidnapping of foreigners.
