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When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron
21) to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the
Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval
squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had
accumulated such an inspiring resume; it was the people serving
aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had
won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander
Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most
decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr
Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle
against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and
Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La
Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to
treat his patients at sea, epitomize the sacrifices made by all the
men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews
with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the
war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits
brings to life the human story of the squadron and its men who
bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to
Tokyo.
When Billy Hobbs and his fellow Hellcat aviators from Air Group 88
lifted off from the venerable Navy carrier USS Yorktown early on
the morning of August 15, 1945, they had no idea they were about to
carry out the final air mission of World War II. Two hours later,
Yorktown received word from Admiral Nimitz that the war had ended
and that all offensive operations should cease. As they were
turning back, twenty Japanese planes suddenly dove from the sky
above them and began a ferocious attack. Four American pilots never
returned--men who had lifted off from the carrier in wartime but
were shot down during peacetime. Drawing on participant letters,
diaries, and interviews, newspaper and radio accounts, and
previously untapped archival records, historian and prolific author
of acclaimed Pacific theater books, including Tin Can Titans and
Hell from the Heavens, John Wukovits tells the story of Air Group
88's pilots and crew through their eyes. Dogfight over Tokyo is
written in the same riveting, edge-of-your-seat style that has made
Wukovits's previous books so successful. This is a stirring,
one-of-a-kind tale of naval encounters and the last dogfight of the
war--a story that is both inspirational and tragic.
When Billy Hobbs and his fellow Hellcat aviators from Air Group 88
lifted off from the venerable Navy carrier USS Yorktown early on
the morning of August 15, 1945, they had no idea they were about to
carry out the final air mission of World War II. Two hours later,
Yorktown received word from Admiral Nimitz that the war had ended
and that all offensive operations should cease. As they were
turning back, twenty Japanese planes suddenly dove from the sky
above them and began a ferocious attack. Four American pilots never
returned--men who had lifted off from the carrier in wartime but
were shot down during peacetime. Drawing on participant letters,
diaries, and interviews, newspaper and radio accounts, and
previously untapped archival records, historian and prolific author
of acclaimed Pacific theater books, including Tin Can Titans and
Hell from the Heavens, John Wukovits tells the story of Air Group
88's pilots and crew through their eyes. Dogfight over Tokyo is
written in the same riveting, edge-of-your-seat style that has made
Wukovits's previous books so successful. This is a stirring,
one-of-a-kind tale of naval encounters and the last dogfight of the
war--a story that is both inspirational and tragic.
On October 25, 1944, the Samuel B. Roberts, along with the other
twelve vessels comprising its unit, Taffy 3, stood between Japan's
largest battleship force ever sent to sea, and General Douglas
MacArthur's transports inside Leyte Gulf. Faced with the surprise
appearance of more than twenty Japanese battleships, cruisers, and
destroyers, including the Yamato, at seventy thousand tons the most
potent battlewagon in the world, the twelve-hundred-ton Samuel B.
Roberts turned immediately into action with six other ships. The
ship churned straight at the enemy in a near-suicidal attempt to
deflect the more potent foe and buy time for MacArthur's forces. Of
563 destroyers constructed during World War II, the Samuel B.
Roberts was the only one sunk, going down with guns blazing in a
duel reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylae or Davy Crockett's
Alamo defenders. The men who survived faced a horrifying three-day
nightmare in the sea, where they battled a lack of food and water,
scorching sun, numbing night time cold, and nature's most feared
adversary - sharks. The battle would go down as history's greatest
sea clash, the Battle of Samar - the dramatic climax of the Battle
of Leyte Gulf.
In the Tarawa atoll lies the tiny islet of Betio. In November of
1943, the men of the 2nd Marine Division watched as bombardments
destroyed the island's Japanese defenses. But when the Marines
landed, the Japanese poured out of their protective bunkers and
began one of the most brutal encounters of the war. Drawn from
sources such as participants' letters and diaries and interviews
with survivors, "One Square Mile of Hell" is the riveting true
account of a battle between two determined foes, neither of whom
would ever look at each other in the same way again.
On April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey heroically
withstood twenty-two kamikaze attacks at Okinawa in what the US
Navy called "one of the great sea epics of the war." Using scores
of personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members,
and the sailors' wartime correspondence, historian John Wukovits
breathes life into this nearly forgotten event and makes the ordeal
of the Laffey and her crew a story for the ages.
Before the Green Berets...Before the Navy SEALs...Before the Army
Rangers...There was the Long Patrol."
November 1942: in the hellish combat zone of Guadalcanal, one man
would make history.
Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson was considered a maverick by many
of his comrades-and seen as a traitor by some. He spent years
observing guerrilla tactics all over the world, and knew that those
tactics could be adapted effectively by the Marines.
Carlson and an elite fighting force-the 2nd Raider
Battalion-embarked upon a thirty-day mission behind enemy lines
where they disrupted Japanese supplies, inflicted a string of
defeats on the enemy in open combat, and gathered invaluable
intelligence on Japanese operations on Guadalcanal. And in the
process they helped lay the foundation for Special Forces in the
modern military.
Here for the first time is a riveting account of one man, one
battalion, and one mission that would resonate through the annals
of military history.
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