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Here for the first time is the definitive history of the submarine war against Japan -- the ONLY full-scale submarine war the United States ever fought -- which has for the most part been shrouded in secrecy for three decades. Only recently have the codebreakers who played such a pivotal role in the submarine war been willing to talk about their work. And only recently have the private papers, diaries, and official reports of the submarine admirals and skippers been made available to historians.
This epic World War II saga follows the USS Squalus and Sculpin as they play out their dramatic destinies in the Pacific. The author, a seasoned journalist, re-creates their entire perilous journey. The Squalus sank during a test dive in 1939, but thirty-three trapped crewmen were saved thanks to the revolutionary use of the McCann diving bell. The Sculpin's role in that historic rescue is just the first of many incongruous twists of fate that brought the two subs together after the Squalus was salvaged and rechristened the Sailfish. Carl LaVO skillfully weaves together the tragic loss of the Sculpin to a Japanese destroyer with the frenetic wrath of its sister sub. Their intertwined fates come to an eerie climax as the Sailfish unleashes a ten-hour attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Chuyo amid a raging typhoon, unwittingly killing twenty-two of the forty-three Americans captured from the sunken Sculpin. The saga comes to a close with a moving description of the surviving Sculpin crewmen as they face incredible hardship, torture, and disease as POWs in Japan. This book is certain to instill a renewed appreciation for the intrepid men and stealthy boats that were the soul of the Pacific campaign's silent service.
With the content of an authoritative reference and the excitement of a thriller, this history of the U.S. submarine war is one of the most informative and entertaining books written on the Pacific campaign. The author, a respected journalist and World War II submariner himself, is credited with providing a complete and unbiased account of what happened. When published in 1975, it was the first such account to detail controversial aspects of the American campaign, from the torpedo scandal to discrepancies between claimed and confirmed sinkings. To get to the truth, Clay Blair interviewed scores of skippers, staff officers, and code breakers, and combed thousands of documents and personal papers. In addition, he thoroughly researched the development of the submarine and torpedo from pre-war to post-war times. As a result, he takes the reader into the submarine war at all levels--the highest strategy sessions in Washington, the terrifying moments in subs at the bottom of the ocean waiting out exploding depth charges, the zany efforts of a crew coaxing a chicken to lay an egg. He also exposes the reader to the jealous infighting of admirals vying for power and the problems between cautious older skippers and daring young commanders. Supplementing the text are nearly forty maps showing submarine activity in the context of every important naval engagement in the Pacific, more than thirty pages of photographs, multiple appendixes (including a calendar of submarine war patrols), and an index of over 2,000 entries. This is a work of great scholarship and scope that makes a timeless contribution to the history of World War II.
The definitive history of American war reporting in the Pacific theater of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After almost two years slogging with infantrymen through North Africa, Italy, and France, Ernie Pyle immediately realized he was ill-prepared for covering the Pacific War. As Pyle and other war correspondents discovered, the climate, the logistics, and the sheer scope of the Pacific theater had no parallel in the war America was fighting in Europe. From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The War Beat, Pacific provides the first comprehensive account of how a group of highly courageous correspondents covered America's war against Japan, what they witnessed, what they were allowed to publish, and how their reports shaped the home front's perception of some of the most pivotal battles in American military history. In a dramatic and fast-paced narrative based on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, Casey takes us from MacArthur's doomed defense on the Philippines and the navy's overly strict censorship policy at the time of Midway, through the bloody battles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, Saipan, Leyte and Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, detailing the cooperation, as well as conflict, between the media and the military, as they grappled with the enduring problem of limiting a free press during a period of extreme crisis. The War Beat, Pacific shows how foreign correspondents ran up against practical challenges and risked their lives to get stories in a theater that was far more challenging than the war against Nazi Germany, while the US government blocked news of the war against Japan and tried to focus the home front on Hitler and his atrocities.
Between the First and Second World Wars, the U.S. Navy used the experience it had gained in battle to prepare for future wars through simulated conflicts, or war games, at the Naval War College. In Playing War John M. Lillard analyzes individual war games in detail, showing how players tested new tactics and doctrines, experimented with advanced technology, and transformed their approaches through these war games, learning lessons that would prepare them to make critical decisions in the years to come. Recent histories of the interwar period explore how the U.S. Navy digested the impact of World War I and prepared itself for World War II. However, most of these works overlook or dismiss the transformational quality of the War College war games and the central role they played in preparing the navy for war. To address that gap, Playing War details how the interwar navy projected itself into the future through simulated conflicts. Playing War recasts the reputation of the interwar War College as an agent of preparation and innovation and the war games as the instruments of that agency.
It is 1943 and the big war in Europe is now in its fourth year. The Allies have begun to take the fight to Germany and bombing raids on German cities are now an almost daily and nightly occurrence. As cities are being destroyed, panic-stricken survivors are frantically searching for relatives to find shelter with. Refugees, driven out of recently occupied Russian territories in the east, are now arriving with only small pieces of luggage as their only possessions and they are in desperate need of places to stay. Our small house, which we already shared with another family, soon nearly doubles its occupancy as desperate relatives in need of shelter kept arriving. All eligible men are away fighting at one of Hitler's many fronts. The overwhelming need to support this effort has left the country drained of nearly everything and has forced mothers alone to protect and provide for their families during this most difficult period of history. Fear, hunger, and the struggle to survive have become a way of life. As children we did not always understand the serious time in which we lived, however, we learned to assess the fear from the expressions on our mother's faces, especially so during the frequent air raids. Often it was their despair that we quietly observed while they struggled with the constant inability to adequately provide for their families. In late1943, my family received the news that Dad had recently become a prisoner of war. By late1944, it became clear that Germany was losing the war. Fear that Russian troops would reach our area ahead of American or British forces became the real concern now. Just days prior to Germany's capitulation, our occupation occurred, and this event would forever remain in my memory and directly affect much of my young life. The events, as described, were real and have been written as seen through the eyes of a young boy. Following our liberation, we came to realize the enormous atrocities that had occurred and learned of people whose suffering had been far greater than ours, and to those people I wish to offer my deepest respect.
Eugene Fluckey was one of the great naval heroes of World War II. His exploits as captain of the submarine USS Barb revolutionized undersea warfare and laid the groundwork for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet. He retired as a rear admiral and was awarded numerous presidential, congressional, and military honors, including the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses. In the war against Japan, Fluckey fired the first ballistic missiles from a submarine, sank more tonnage than any other U.S. submarine skipper, including an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer, and blew up a train after landing submariners-turned-saboteurs on mainland Japan in 1945. Here is the legendary submariner's story, told with the exclusive access to Fluckey's personal papers and based on interviews with him, his family, Barb shipmates, official Navy documents, and the recollections of his contemporaries.