“There’s no margin for mistakes in submarines. You’re either alive or dead.”–Richard O’KaneHailed as the ace of aces, captain Richard O’Kane, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his consummate skill and heroism as a submarine skipper, sank more enemy ships and saved more downed fliers than anyone else.Now Pulitzer Prize—winning author William Tuohy captures all the danger, the terror, and the pulse-pounding action of undersea combat as he chronicles O’Kane...

“There’s no margin for mistakes in submarines. You’re either alive or dead.”–Richard O’KaneHailed as the ace of aces, captain Richard O’Kane, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his consummate skill and heroism as a submarine skipper, sank more enemy ships and saved more downed fliers than anyone else.Now Pulitzer Prize—winning author William Tuohy captures all the danger, the terror, and the pulse-pounding action of undersea combat as he chronicles O’Kane...

Stalking the Red Bear, for the first time ever, describes the action principally from the perspective of a commanding officer of a nuclear submarine during the Cold War—the one man aboard a sub who makes the critical decisions—taking us closer to the Soviet target than any work on submarine espionage has ever done before.This is the untold story of a covert submarine espionage operation against the Soviet Union during the Cold War as experienced by the commanding officer o...

Few know how close the world has come to annihilation better than the warriors who served America during the tense, forty-five-year struggle known as the Cold War. Yet for decades, their work has remained shrouded in secrecy. Now, in this riveting history, W. Craig Reed, a former navy diver and fast-attack submariner, provides an eye-opening, pulse-pounding narrative of the underwater struggles and espionage operations between the US and the USSR that brought us to the brink of nuclear war...

One of the great secrets of the Cold War, hidden for decades, is revealed at last. Early in 1968, a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence strongly suggests that the sub sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile.We now know that the Soviets had lost track of the sub; it had become a rogue. The Nixon administration launched a clandestine, half-billion-dollar project...

Lying due north of Australia, New Guinea is among the world's largest islands. In 1942, when World War II exploded onto its shores, it was an inhospitable, cursorily mapped, disease-ridden land of dense jungle, towering mountain peaks, deep valleys, and fetid swamps. Coveted by the Japanese for its strategic position, New Guinea became the site of one of the South Pacific's most savage campaigns. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division's Ghost Mountain Boys were assigned t...

In November 1943, while on war patrol in the Makassar Strait, the USS Billfish submarine was spotted by the Japanese, who launched a vicious depth charge attack. Explosions wracked the sub for fifteen straight hours. With his senior officers incapacitated, diving officer Charlie Rush boldly assumed command and led key members of the crew in a heroic effort to keep their ship intact as they tried to escape.Now, in War Beneath the Waves, this intense story is finall...

Forty years ago, in May 1968, the submarine USS Scorpion sank under mysterious circumstances, with a loss of ninety-nine lives. The tragedy occurred during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and only weeks after the sinking of a Soviet sub near Hawaii. Now, drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews, many with exclusive sources in the naval and intelligence communities, as well as recently declassified United States and Soviet intelligence fi...

John Comer kept a journal of the twenty-five missions he flew in 1943 when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80 percent. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred.Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 Squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer. In 1943 the Army Air Force had no long-range fighters to protect the B-17s as they flew deep into enemy territory...

SURVIVORThrough six grueling years of warfare, USS Russell and her gallant crew pitted their prowess against a determined enemy.From the pre-Pearl Harbor Battle of the Atlantic to the campaigns in the Pacific, She was home to warriors who fought off attacks by submarines, planes and ships. She saw them through sixteen major engagements of World War Two including the Battles of Coral Sea, Java, Midway, Savo Island, Santa Cruz, and Guadalcanal She supported the land forces thro...

April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Nazis are collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are vastly overpowering the Japanese in the Pacific. For a group of pilots in their early twenties who were trained during the twilight of the war, the biggest concern is that they'll never actually see real action and will go home without having a chance to face the enemy. They call themselves Tail-End Charlies. They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail ...

The incredible true story of nine Hellcat submarines assigned to penetrate the dense minefields protecting the sea of Japan. In 1945-with no knowledge of the development of the atomic bomb- American submarine commanders, desperate to avoid an invasion of the home islands, believed that if the Japanese merchant fleet was sunk, the enemy would be forced to surrender. The problem: the ships were protected in the Sea of Japan from American submarines by a seemingly impenetrable barrier of dead...