In November 1944, the U.S. Navy fleet lay at anchor deep in the Pacific Ocean, when the oiler USS Mississinewa exploded. Japan’s secret weapon, the Kaiten—a manned suicide submarine—had succeeded in its first mission.The Kaiten was so secret that even Japanese naval commanders didn’t know of its existence. And the Americans kept it secret as well. Embarrassed by the attack, the U.S. Navy refused to salvage the sunken Mighty Miss....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors comes a “vivid and engaging” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal.“A literary tour de force that is destined to become one of the . . . definitive works about the battle for Guadalcanal.”—San Antonio Express-NewsThe Battle of Guadalcanal ...

– Private Sidney Phillips– First Lieutenant Austin Shofner– Ensign Vernon Micheel– Private Eugene Sledge– Sergeant John BasiloneThrough the eyes of these five fearless and devoted men, Hugh Ambrose tells the epic story of the war in the Pacific. It is an intimate, personal history of a brutal, unforgiving conflict.

“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that st...

Winner of the 2011 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, The Twilight Warriors is the engrossing, page-turning saga of a tightly knit band of naval aviators who are thrust into the final—and most brutal—battle of the Pacific war during World War II: Okinawa.April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Third Reich is collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are overpowering the once-mighty Japanese Empire in the Pacific. ...

“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...

Outgunned and outmanned on the Pacific Ocean, a small American fleet defied the odds and turned the tide of World War IIOn the morning of June 4, 1942, doom sailed on Midway. Hoping to put itself within striking distance of Hawaii and California, the Japanese navy planned an ambush that would obliterate the remnants of the American Pacific fleet. On paper, the Americans had no chance of winning. They had fewer ships, slower fighters, and almost no battle experience...

Lord’s classic, bestselling account of the bombing of Pearl HarborThe Day of Infamy began as a quiet morning on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. But as Japan’s deadly torpedoes suddenly rained down on the Pacific fleet, soldiers, generals, and civilians alike felt shock, then fear, then rage. From the chaos, a thousand personal stories of courage emerged. Drawn from hundreds of interviews, letters, and diaries, Walter Lord recounts the many tales of heroism...

The career of the USS Wahoo in sinking Japanese ships in the farthest reaches of the Empire is legendary in submarine circles.Christened three months after Pearl Harbor, Wahoo was commanded by the astonishing Dudley W. “Mush” Morton, whose originality and daring new techniques led to results unprecedented in naval history; among them, successful “down the throat” barrage against an attacking Japanese destroyer, voracious surface-running gun attack...

During World War II, the U.S. Navy's submarine service suffered the highest casualty percentage of all the American armed forces, losing one in five submariners.But despite the odds, these underwater warriors accounted for almost 60 percent of Japanese shipping losses, and were a major factor in winning the war. 16 U.S. submarines - and one German U-Boat - that saw action during WWII are now open to the public. Most have been restored and authentically equipped.

This account of a disaster at sea during World War II is "a powerful and engrossing story of tragedy, survival, and heroism" (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down) .In the final days of 1944, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey is the Pacific theater's most popular and colorful naval hero. After a string of victories, the "Fighting Admiral" and his thirty-thousand-man Third Fleet are charged with protecting General MacArthur's flank ...

The author of A Return to Glory constructs a compellingly detailed and panoramic history of the fateful day that ushered the United States into WWII.Using long-established historical records and contemporary journals, as well as recently released wartime documents, Bill McWilliams has created a brand-new minute-by-minute narrative of the Day That Will Live in Infamy. Told from the points of view of dozens of characters, from generals and admirals and politi...