By Leo J. Daugherty III The late Professor Edgar F. Puryear, Jr., who until his death in 2018 was scholar-in-residence at the National Defense University and an authority on American generalship, outlined in his book Marine Corps Generalship (National Defense University, 2009) the three critical components that define Marine leadership in time of war. The
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
Reviewed by John Grady The weeks long gruesome land battle by Marines and soldiers to take mountainous Saipan included a doomed but deadly Banzai charge of Japanese soldiers followed by mass civilian suicides rather than surrender to the Americans. Those two events are often what is remembered most in the struggle to control the most
Reviewed by Ed Calouro A long evolutionary arc traces the design and development of metal battleships. It generally dates to the Battle of Hampton Roads in 1862 between the ironclads USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack (Virginia). Surely, the behemoth super dreadnoughts of the Yamato-class sit at the apogee of this arc. At 63,315 tons
Reviewed by CAPT Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Donald Collingwood’s Captain Class Frigates is both a history of a class of escorts important in the latter stages of World War II and also a fond memoir of both ships and men. Collingwood himself served in the Captain-class H.M.S. Cubitt from 1943 to 1946 in the Atlantic
Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Derek Walters’s The History of the British ‘U’ Class Submarine fills a gap in the historiography of World War II regarding short-range Allied submarine operations. In particular, Walters profiles the small ‘U’ (and ‘V’) class and their use by British and seven other Allied nations both during and after the conflict.
Reviewed by Nicholas M. Anthony Jr., Ph.D., USA (Ret.) The Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic Marcus Tullius Cicero stated that “Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.” In his first book, A Forgotten Campaign: The British
Reviewed by Ed Calouro Most histories of World War II at sea rightly focus on the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Germany. After all, these nations’ navies did the bulk of the fighting. The French, Italian, and other fleets generally receive short shrift. John Jordan and Robert Dumas have shifted the spotlight in their
Reviewed by Ellen A. Ahlness, PhD All Present and Accounted For is a comprehensive, well-researched, and well-narrated case study in U.S. Coast Guard History. Throughout his narration of this disastrous grounding, Craig ensures the historical rendering is never sterile; instead, it maintains an eye to the human experience of a complicated event in U.S. Military history.
Reviewed by LCDR Brian Hayes, USNR (Ret.) The Indestructible Man tells the story of Dixie Kiefer, a naval officer and aviator who served in several of the legendary battles of World War II’s Pacific Theater. Kiefer has been the subject of profiles by the Naval History and Heritage Command and other Internet and print publications,
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. 80 years after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, new books are being published on topics leading up to that event, the attack itself, and its aftermath. A volume titled Avenging Pearl Harbor: The Saga of America’s Battleships in the Pacific War has been written by U.S. Navy veteran
Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink David Bosco’s new book The Poseidon Project provides not only a historical account of the development of the international Law of the Sea from Early Modern times to the present day, but also an easily accessible guide to key legal concepts in this complex area of international law. Comprising eight chapters
Reviewed by CAPT Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) U.S. Aircraft Carriers 1939-45 is an excellent 2021 addition to the Casemate Illustrated Specials series. This slim volume offers a surprisingly comprehensive overview of American carriers that served in World War II as well as those that belonged to wartime classes but were completed only in the aftermath
Reviewed by LCDR Joseph L. Ilk, SC, USNR (Ret.) “On May 12, 1975 – only two weeks after the fall of Saigon and the collapse of South Vietnam – Cambodian Khmer Rouge forces boarded and seized the U.S. merchant vessel SS Mayaguez in international waters and took its crew hostage.” Thus begins Dr. Christopher J.
