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As the Vietnam War reached its tragic climax in the last days of April 1975, a task force of U.S. Navy ships cruised off South Vietnam's coast. Their mission was to support the evacuation of American embassy personnel and military advisers from Saigon as well as to secure the safety of the South Vietnamese whose lives were in endangered by the North Vietnamese victory. The Lucky Few recounts the role of the USS Kirk in the rescue of remnants of the South Vietnamese fleet and the refugees on board. The story of the Kirk reflects one of America's few shining moments at the end of the Vietnam War. Now in paperback in time for the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, The Lucky Few brings to life the heroism of Captain Paul Jacobs and the crew of the USS Kirk.
The Ship that Held the Line
The American fleet aircraft carrier Hornet is widely acknowledged for the contributions she made to the war effort. The Doolittle Raid, launched from the Hornet's deck, inaugurated America's Pacific counteroffensive and transformed the aircraft carrier into one of the world's prime strategic weapon systems. She was one of three carriers to participate in the victory at Midway and the fighting around Guadalcanal. Through the experiences of this key warship and the eyes of her crew and the aviators who flew from her deck, Lisle Rose recreates the first desperate year of the war in the Pacific. He tells how the Hornet was molded into a deadly weapon of war, how the ship was fought and ultimately lost, and what it was like to live aboard her at a time when the fate of the United States depended on the Navy's tiny carrier fleet.In chronicling the carrier's operational history, the author contends that the fate of the Hornet's air group at Midway remains one of the great controversies in modern naval history and that the ship's importance in helping to keep the Japanese juggernaut at bay during the most critical period of the Pacific war is incontestable. His arguments ring true today as the controversy continues. Rose succeeds both in letting the reader see things the way the men of the Hornet did and in placing their experiences in a broad historical context.
The Rules of the Game
Foreword by Admiral Sir John Woodward. When published in hardcover in 1997, this book was praised for providing an engrossing education not only in naval strategy and tactics but in Victorian social attitudes and the influence of character on history. In juxtaposing an operational with a cultural theme, the author comes closer than any historian yet to explaining what was behind the often described operations of this famous 1916 battle at Jutland. Although the British fleet was victorious over the Germans, the cost in ships and men was high, and debates have raged within British naval circles ever since about why the Royal Navy was unable to take advantage of the situation. In this book Andrew Gordon focuses on what he calls a fault-line between two incompatible styles of tactical leadership within the Royal Navy and different understandings of the rules of the games.
Why Vietnam Matters
In The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam described Rufus Phillips as a man one could trust telling President Kennedy during the Vietnam War about the failures of the Strategic Hamlet Program, 'in itself a remarkable moment in the American bureaucracy, a moment of intellectual honesty.' With that same honesty, Phillips gives an extraordinary inside history of the most critical years of American involvement in Vietnam, from 1954 to 1968, and explains why it still matters. Describing what went right and then wrong, he argues that the United States missed an opportunity to help the South Vietnamese develop a political cause as compelling as that of the Communists by following a big war strategy based on World War II perceptions. This led American policy makers to mistaken assumptions that they could win the war themselves and give the country back to the Vietnamese. Documenting the story from his own private files as well as from the historical record, the former CIA officer paints striking portraits of such key figures as John F. Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hubert Humphrey, and Ngo Dinh Diem, among others with whom he dealt.Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up U.S. errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the U.S. approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Little Ship, Big War
Manned almost entirely by reservists, the USS Abercrombie (DE343) and her sister ships did the dirty work of the Pacific War. They escorted convoys, chased submarines, picked up downed pilots, and led the landing craft to the invasion beaches, yet they received little credit and less glory. This book is a stirring tribute to their heroic efforts, written by a naval officer who served in the Abercrombie during the war and later became a best-selling author. First published in 1984, it has long been acclaimed for presenting a view of the navy as the sailors actually saw it–the joys and pains, the humor and gravity, the successes and defeats.Ed Stafford provides an authentic, day-by-day account of life on board DE343, from the Battle of Leyte Gulf and picket duty against kamikazes at Okinawa to the signing of the peace treaty in Tokyo Harbor. To create an accurate picture he consulted ship logs and after-action reports and interviewed members of the crew. Although the book focuses on events in a particular warship, it tells the story of every small ship and their valiant crews that rose to the challenge and fought with everything they had until the war was won.
A Coast Guardsman's History of the U.S. Coast Guard
More a book about Coast Guard heritage than an academic history, this book focuses on a variety of relatively unknown Coast Guardsmen who personify the service's core values. The author highlights the contributions of a variety of individuals, from seamen to admirals on active duty, as well as Reserves, Auxiliarists, and civilian members of Team Coast Guard. These heroes, representing a great diversity in age, sex, race, and ethnicity, set an example worthy of emulation and serve as role models for today's Coast Guard men and women.
Destined for Glory
On 4 June 1942, three squadrons of U.S. Navy Dauntless dive bombers destroyed Japan's carrier force at Midway and changed the course of the Pacific war. As Wildenberg demonstrates in this book, the key ingredient to the Navy's success was the planning and training devoted to the tactic of dive bombing. Examining how political, economic, technical, and operational factors influenced the development of carrier airpower between 1925 and 1942, he shows why dive bombing became the Navy's weapon of choice. He also pays tribute to the select group of naval aviators who drove the evolution of carrier tactics. Although many books have been written about the Battle of Midway, this is the first to focus on how the Navy came to develop the one aerial weapon that proved to be the decisive instrument of victory
Guests of the Emperor
In World War II, over 36,000 American men, mostly military but some civilian, were thrown into Japanese POW camps and forced to labor for companies working for Japan s war effort. At Japan s largest fixed military prison camp, Mitsubishi s huge factory complex at Mukden, Manchuria, more than 2,000 American prisoners where subjected to cold, starvation, beatings, and even medical experiments, while manufacturing parts for Zero fighter planes. Those lucky enough to survive required the efforts of an OSS rescue team and a special recovery unit to make it home alive.Holmes, who spent two decades tracking down the POWs, shows conclusively for the first time that some Americans at Mukden were singled out for experiments by Japan s infamous biological warfare team.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf
The last great naval battle of World War II, Leyte Gulf also is remembered as the biggest naval battle ever fought anywhere, and this book has been called the best account of it ever written. First published in hardcover on the battle's fiftieth anniversary in 1994 and drawing on materials not previously available, it blends history with human drama to give a real sense of what happened–despite the mammoth scope of the battle. Every facet of naval warfare was involved in the struggle that engaged some two hundred thousand men and 282 American, Japanese, and Australian ships over more than a hundred thousand square miles of sea. That Tom Cutler succeeded at such a difficult task is no surprise. The award-winning author saw combat service aboard many types of ships during his naval career, and as a historian and professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College, he has studied the battle for many years.Cutler captures the milieu, analyzes the strategy and tactics employed, and re-creates the experiences of the participants–from seaman to admiral, both Japanese and American. It is a story replete with awe-inspiring heroism, failed intelligence, flawed strategy, brilliant deception, great controversies, and a cast of characters with names like Halsey, Nimitz, Ozawa, and MacArthur. Such an exciting and revealing account of the battle is unlikely to be equaled by future writers.
Honor, Courage, Commitment
J. F. Leahy chronicles the transition of eighty-one men and women from civilians to sailors at the U.S. Navy Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois. Granted unlimited and unprecedented access to the recruits during the fall of 2000, his examination of the unique American institution – popularly known as boot camp – offers a look into the hearts and minds of a group of young people who are a cross section of the nation. The work offers a unique view into the training experience of all recruits and sheds light on the differences between those entering the military services and the society they serve.