This book recounts how the Wake Island garrison survived nearly daily bombings and repulsed the first Japanese attempt to take the atoll. The author uses extensive Japanese materials–many never before used or available– to identify the enemy order of battle and the roles each unit played in the drama. ...
The men of the U.S. Navy's brown-water force played a vital but often overlooked role in the Vietnam War. Known for their black berets and limitless courage, they maneuvered their aging, makeshift craft along shallow coastal waters and twisting inland waterways to search out the enemy. In this moving tribute to their contributions and sacrifices, Tom Cutler records their dramatic story as only a participant could. His own Vietnam experience ...
This book is the first to document the vital role played by Americans, not of Japanese ancestry, who served as Japanese language officers in World War II. Covering the period 1940-1945, it describes their selection, training, and service in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps during the war and their contributions toward maintaining good relations between America and Japan thereafter. Author Roger Dingman argues that their service as codebreakers and ...
Sergeant Major Devaney’s They Were Heroes presents moving portraits of warriors who have not been fully celebrated. His stories recognize the heroism of those who fought in these deadly conflicts and placed their lives at risk to assure the safety of their fellow Marines. For these Marines, no Medal of Honor is enough for their bravery. Nonetheless, though not his main purpose, Devaney calls attention to the practice of awarding medals ...
On December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lie paralyzed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese attack 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 o ...
If the U.S. Marines gave birth to a legend in the halls of Montezuma in the nineteenth century, they added glorious luster to it with their heroism and victories against the Japanese in World War II. For this vivid, foxhole view of the Marines' war, Richard Wheeler draws extensively on frontline eyewitness accounts of Marines and combat journalists and backs up their stories with official U.S. action reports and captured Japanese materials. ...
The Union Navy played a vital role in winning the Civil War by blockading Confederate ports, cooperating with the Union Army in amphibious assaults, and controlling the Mississippi River and its tributaries. President Lincoln understood, however, that the Navy was not as important, militarily and politically, to the war effort as the Army, so he delegated authority to his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who divided the Navy into six squadr ...
Saying that no generation of Americans has produced a finer array of combat commanders than that of World War II, a thirty-year army veteran examines combat leadership throughout the war at every level of command in the U.S. Army. The author argues that although Army chief of staff George C. Marshall's organization and training policies were indispensable, the ultimate victory was the result of spirited leadership and the undaunted courage ...
Applauded by the public and revered by the men who served under him, Adm. William F. Halsey was one of the leading American personalities of World War II. His reputation as a no-holds-barred fighter and his tough-guy expression earned him the nickname «Bull,» yet he was also known for showing genuine compassion toward his men and inspiring them to great feats in the Pacific. Originally disclaiming, the praise heaped on him, Halsey eventually cam ...
