Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart This book is a must read for anyone interested in U.S. Naval aviation in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Lt. Commander Harry “Dirty Eddie” March Jr. joined the Navy in December 1940 and pinned on his naval wings in August 1941. He would serve in the Pacific Theater
Reviewed by Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Schnellbootwaffe is a volume in the extensive Images of War collection from Pen and Sword. The collection focuses primarily on presenting lesser-known archival and private photographs woven with captions and text. For some subjects like military animals in the First World War and the Brandenburger commandos in the
Reviewed by Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Crash Boat is a remarkable memoir in several ways. The story of an Army Air Forces (AAF) 63-foot crash boat, P-399 Sea Horse (an unofficial nickname), in the Pacific during the latter half of World War II, it was written in a cooperative effort between the skipper, Earl
Thomas Francis Brown III entered Officer Candidate School in 1954 and served as an aviator until his retirement in 1985 as the Director, Strike and Amphibious Warfare Division (OP-954) in the Office of the CNO. In his 343 combat missions in Vietnam, he was awarded a Silver Star for dropping a bridge span in North
Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. Published twenty years after the death of the author, Franz Kurowski, the book focuses on U-48, the most successful U-Boat in World War 2. During the war, the author served as a Luftwaffe paratrooper with the Afrika Korps. After the war, he worked as a freelance journalist and wrote
Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Dr. Wigand Wüster’s An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War offers insight into a pivotal World War II campaign through the rarely told artilleryman’s perspective. His frank memoir lacks the self-serving elements common to historical retellings where pride takes precedence and real experiences require
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. This new title from the Naval Institute Press’s series, Studies in Naval History and Sea Power, is written by Christopher Buckley, son of Captain David Buckey (USN Retired) and an undergraduate history major from the University of California Santa Cruz, who obtained his doctorate at the University of Salford
The cruise of the Great White Fleet took the U.S. Navy around the globe in fourteen months on a journey totaling 43,000 miles. They visited twenty unique port calls across six continents. It was a monumental “show of flag” for the burgeoning world power. The fleet showcased the naval and maritime capabilities of its new
Reviewed by David F. Winkler, Ph.D. Paul Stillwell has filled one of the remaining voids in the bibliographic study of America’s World War II naval leadership with his well-written narrative of Vice Adm. Willis A. “Ching” Lee who was entrusted with command of the American battleline during the Pacific war against Japan. Such a position,
By Dennis A. Steenbergen, Landing Craft Support Museum 15 February is the anniversary of the loss of three LCS ships to Shin’yō suicide boats at Mariveles Bay during the liberation of the Philippines. U.S. forces were massing in February 1945 to launch an amphibious and land attack on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor. Mr. Steenbergen
Reviewed by Master Chief David Mattingly, US Navy (Retired) Rear Admiral Dave Oliver spent a career as a submarine officer, a leader within the Navy and Department of Defense, and as an executive in several Fortune 500 companies. He has been a writer about leadership most notably Lead On! A Practical Guide to Leadership published
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. James G. Stavridis, a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 1976, who majored in English and would ultimately rise to four-star admiral, spent 37 years as a surface warfare officer on active service in the U.S. Navy. He commanded destroyers (USS Barry and subsequently Destroyer
Victory at Midway: The Battle That Changed the Course of World War II by James M. D’Angelo. McFarland Press, Jefferson, NC, 2018. 198 pp., $35.00. This book is more than another account of the Battle of Midway. Yes, the author covers the story of the naval engagement between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the
The Defenders of Taffy 3: Analysis and Retelling of the Battle of Leyte Gulf by Byron G. Como. (2018.) Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart This print-on-demand paperback book is destined to be the benchmark against which all future accounts of the struggle of Taffy 3 to survive its encounter with the Japanese Navy
World War II at Sea: A Global History Craig L. Symonds New York: Oxford University Press, 2018 Reviewed by Kenneth J. Hagan The author of this monumental and unique book, Craig L. Symonds, a former colleague of mine, writes to fill what he sees as a massive gap in World War II historiography. He laments
