Bluejacket Books – serie

A narrative of brief compass yet immense force, Yoshida Mitsuru's work makes a singular contribution to the literature of the Pacific War. Long a favourite in Japan, it was not fully translated into English until 1985 when the hardcover edition was first published in the United States to rave reviews. In April 1945 the fabled battleship Yamato was the centrepiece of a last desperate sortie by the Japanese Navy. A young ensign on the bridge during the climactic battle against American airplanes, Yoshida writes in prose that is at once terse and evocative, spare and eloquent, raising his experience on the doomed ship to the level of existential tragedy.Translator Richard Minear gives us a Requiem faithful to the original, its language vigorous and idiomatic. His informative introduction describes the work's historic and political context and Yoshida's difficulties with occupation censors. Minear comments on matters of form and style and quotes extensively from Yoshida's postwar essays, which trace the author's avid and continual search for the meaning of peace beyond "the crucible of nothingness we call battle."Like other great war stories, the book transcends the particulars of disaster and the divisiveness of war. In the words of the translator, Yoshida's "ultimate concern is less bombs and bullets than human nature, less death than life." His remarkable insights will stir the memories of others who served and help those who did not reach a new level of understanding.

With a sharp eye and wry wit, Roger Hall recounts his experiences as an Army officer assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer during World War II. First published in 1957 to critical and popular acclaim, his book has become a cult favorite in intelligence circles. The story follows the author from bored junior officer fleeing a tedious training assignment in Louisiana through the quirky and rigorous OSS training rituals in the United States, England, and Scotland. After quickly learning the skills necessary for behind-the-lines intelligence work, he eventually became an expert instructor. But deemed too much of an iconoclast, he was only reluctantly given operational duties. His first parachute jump in support of the French resistance terminated prematurely in a comedy of errors. Hall’s droll story-telling style and descriptions of the unforgettable personalities he encountered unite to create one of the funniest and most perceptive books ever written about life in the OSS.Roger Hall, a free-lance writer and editor, lives in Delaware.

When first published in 1995, this book was hailed as an absolutely indispensable contribution to the history of the Pacific War. Drawing heavily from Japanese sources and American wartime intercepts of secret Japanese radio messages, a noted American naval historian and a Japanese mariner painstakingly recorded and evaluated a diverse array of material about Japan's submarines in World War II.The study begins with the development of the first Japanese 103-ton Holland-type submergible craft in 1905 and continues through the 1945 surrender of the largest submarine in the world at the time, the 5300-ton I-400 class that carried three airplanes. Submarine weapons, equipment, personnel, and shore support systems are discussed first in the context of Japanese naval preparations for war and later during the war. Both successes and missed opportunities are analyzed in operations ranging from the California coast through the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the coast of German-occupied France. Appendixes include lists of Japanese submarine losses and the biographies of key Japanese submarine officers. Rare illustrations and specifically commissioned operational maps enhance the text.

This well-documented and hard-hitting biography of the thirteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps succeeds in converting John A. Lejeune from a near mythical figure in corps history to a flesh and blood officer who helped build the service from a small appendage of the U.S. Navy to an important arm of naval warfare. Commandant from 1920 to 1929, when he retired from military service to become president of Virginia Military Institute, Major General Lejeune is regarded by many as the man most responsible for the establishment of the modern Marine Corps. In capturing the life and times of this visionary leader who directed the corps toward major amphibious operations, Merrill Bartlett provides vivid insight into the political and military giants of the era and shows Lejeune to be an adroit player of Washington politics and a shrewd manipulator who marshalled the energies and loyalties of his senior officers to accomplish his vision.

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 enables him to add a striking human dimension to the account. The terror of firefights along the jungle-lined rivers, the rigors of camp life, and the sudden perils of guerrilla warfare are conveyed with authenticity. At the same time, the author's training as a historian allows him to objectively describe the scope of the navy's operations and evaluate their effectiveness.Winner of the Navy League's Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement in 1988 when the book was first published, Cutler is credited with having written the definitive history of the brown-water sailors, an effort that has helped readers better understand the nature of U.S. involvement in the war.

More than eight hundred sailors served aboard the Sterett during her hazardous and demanding duties in World War II. This is the story of those men and their beloved ship, recorded by a junior officer who served on the famous destroyer from her commissioning in 1939 to April 1943, when he was wounded at the Battle of Tulagi. Peppered with the kind of vivid, authentic details that could only be provided by a participant, the book is the saga of a gallant fighting ship that earned a Presidential Unit Citation for her part in the Third Battle of Savo Island, where she took on a battleship, cruiser, and destroyer and was the last to leave the fray. Calhoun's gripping and colorful account tells what it was like to be there during those furiously fought, close-range engagements. When published in hardcover in 1993, the book was widely praised as a good read loaded with rich and interesting details.

In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area ""Torpedo Junction."" And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-manoeuvred, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war.In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win - because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.

A classic and poignant treatment of Japan's struggle between recognition of the kamikaze's futility and the country's pride in having made the attempt to stem the tide of the American advance in 1944-1945, this account, given by two former Kamikaze pilots, testifies to Japanese perspective of the last days of World War II. This book stands out among English-language translations of Japanese accounts of the Pacific war, and was translated by a former American officer who fought against the Japanese in the Pacific.

When legislation was passed in 1948 giving women permanent status in the regular and reserve Navy, it was largely due to the efforts of Joy Bright Hancock, the author of this revealing memoir. Her prominent role was acknowledged at the time by the secretary of the navy who credited her ideals, energy, and enthusiasm as the moving force behind the historic integration of women into the U.S. Navy, including the 1942 establishment of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). This personal account of those formative years has long been considered the best study available. Originally published in 1972 and out of print for nearly twenty-five years, it is now being reissued in paperback to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of the WAVES.Hancock's own work as a Yeoman in World War I offered the armed services a lesson in the benefits of having women in uniform. Her descriptions are eye opening of those early days and her later efforts, when finally in a position of authority, to argue the case for women. With a wealth of documentation and numerous photographs, she chronicles not only her career but also the evolution of Navy women, offering colorful details of the legislative battles to get women admitted into the regular Navy. She reminds us that although it was not until 1967 that the last restriction of rank was removed, WAVES always served with equal pay for equal work. This new edition of her book will introduce generations of Americans to the problems of establishing a place for women in the Navy and details of Hancock's dogged pursuit of fair treatment for women in the armed services.

The USS Rasher had an extraordinary record in World War II: she sank 18 enemy ships and destroyed 99,901 tons-the second highest tonnage of the war. Her fifth war patrol is the stuff of legends. In August 1944 during a single night surface attack on a Japanese convoy off the Philippines, she sank the escort carrier Taiyo and three marus, and later during that same patrol she sank another ship. Reading more like a novel than an operational history, this book covers all aspects of the Rasher's combat history in a way that both the general reader and veteran submariner will appreciate. Author Peter Sasgen is the son of a Rasher crew member, and from his father's perspective he follows the sub from the builder's way through eight action-packed patrols to war's end. His richly detailed descriptions of submarine operations include lively commentary by former shipmates and excerpts from patrol reports along with a close examination of patrol procedures, communications, life guarding, and other topics rarely covered in such detail. Sasgen also explores the essence of submarine combat, aggressive leadership, and its role in the Rasher's success.

Called one of the most inspiring stories to come out of World War II when first published in 1959, this epic account of Arleigh Burke's legendary Destroyer Squadron 23 is much more than a story of ships and their tactical deployment. It is a story of men in action, some four thousand of them, and how they lived and fought as a magnificent combat team. Ken Jones not only records their heroic deeds but helps explain what prompted those deeds, including the leadership qualities that fired the men into action. In doing so he brings to life the outfit's fighting spirit - that mysterious combination of qualities inspired by great leaders that wins battles - and the man who led them. Commodore Arleigh Burke was the right man at the right place at the right time; his leadership fused the squadron into a superb combat organization.This book offers a vivid account of the fighting in the South Pacific during one of the most crucial periods of the war. In authentic, minute-by-minute detail drawn from once-secret documents, Jones describes the battles of Tassafaronga, Savo Island, Empress Augusta Bay, and Cape St. George. But the focus throughout is on the men as they meet the test of battle with a common bravery as staunch as any in the Navy's annals. No squadron in any navy is said to have won more battle honours in less time than the Fighting Twenty-third.

Joe Owen tells it like it was in this evocative, page-turning story of a Marine rifle company in the uncertain early days of the Korean War. His powerful descriptions of close combat on the snow-covered mountains of Chosin Reservoir and of the survival spirit of his Marines provide a gritty real-life view of frontline warfare. As a lieutenant who was with them from first muster, Owen was in a unique position to see the hastily assembled mix of regulars and raw reservists harden into a superb company known as Baker-One-Seven. His fast-moving narrative describes enemy night assaults, foxhole fights, patrols through Chinese lines, and dramatic examples of Medal of Honor gallantry, and he supports his account with tales from other survivors.

This now-classic novel by Richard McKenna enjoyed great critical acclaim and commercial success when it was first published in 1962. The winner of the coveted Harper Prize, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for seven months and was made into a popular motion picture that continues to be shown on television today.Set in China on the eve of revolution, the book tells the story of an old U.S. Navy gunboat, the San Pablo, and her dedicated crew of ""Sand Pebbles"" on patrol in the far reaches of the Yangtze River to show the flag and protect American missionaries and businessmen from bandits. The plot revolves around a newcomer to the boat, machinist's mate Jake Holman, a maverick and loner who dramatically alters the lives of the crew and the people they have come to save. A faithful engine-room coolie and a pretty young missionary help Holman gain an appreciation of China and its people and discover a world of humanity and promise he has never known. It is a story of old loyalties versus new values, of violence and tenderness, tragedy and humor, and it engages the reader from the first line to the last. This new paperback edition includes in informative introduction by Robert Shenk, written for the Naval Institute's Classics of Naval Literature edition in 1984.

As plans got under way for the Allied invasion of Sicily in June 1943, British head of counter-intelligence Ewen Montagu masterminded a scheme to mislead the Germans into thinking the next landing would occur in Greece. The innovative plot was so successful that the Germans moved some of their forces away from Sicily, and two weeks into the real invasion still expected an attack in Greece. This extraordinary operation called for a dead body, dressed as a Royal Marine officer and carrying false information about a pending Allied invasion of Greece, to wash up on a Spanish shore near the town of a known Nazi agent.Montagu tells the story as only an insider could, offering fascinating details of the difficulties involved especially in creating a persona for a man who never was and the risks involved in mounting such a complex operation. Failure could have had devastating results. Success, however, brought a decided change in the course of the war.

This infectiously readable memoir by the most colourful and controversial Navy Secretary in memory provides the inside story of the origins and battles at home and abroad in building a 600-ship Navy. Young, bright, and ambitious, John Lehman came to office refusing to be just another figurehead. For the six years he served in the Reagan administration, he helped forge an aggressive strategy for achieving maritime supremacy and for rebuilding the U.S. Navy. In this bestselling personal account of those years between 1981 and 1987, he speaks with candour and authority about the ills of the military establishment and the struggles and frustrations he encountered.Lehman reveals instances of political intrigue, including his dramatic Oval Office confrontation with Admiral Rickover at the time of the admiral's firing in 1982 and battles within the Pentagon and Congress. His explanation of the administration's new naval strategy has been called the most comprehensive and lucid ever written, and his descriptions of the Navy in combat over Libya, Lebanon, and Grenada are packed with fascinating details that only an insider could know. The bold insights he presents of a critical turning point in the Cold War will continue to inform and, with the addition of new material to this paperback edition, promise to renewed discussion of the role of the U.S. Navy then and into the future.

Patrol Wing Ten was the only U.S. Navy aviation unit to fight the Japanese in the early weeks of World War II, and the daring exploits of its PBY scout-plane pilots offer a dramatic tale of heroism, duty, and controversy. Poorly equipped and dead tired from flying back-to-back patrols with no fighter cover, the men lost sixty-six percent of their aircraft in just eight weeks as they took on an enemy that outnumbered them nearly 1,000 to one. This forceful narrative places the reader right in the midst of their courageous battle. Dwight Messimer's aggressive research on the topic has resulted in a work that provides moving details to their desperate but valiant acts against the seemingly invincible Japanese juggernaut that swept across the southwest Pacific at the opening of the war. By Christmas Day in 1941, Patrol Wing Ten was forced to split into two groups, one fighting an air and sea campaign in Java, the other fighting as infantry on Bataan and Corregidor. Moving back and forth between the two groups, Messimer skillfully interweaves their experiences with the major events of the overall war. He uses material from the fifty survivors he managed to track down and deftly captures their ability to maintain a sense of humour in the face of overwhelming danger.The more than one hundred personal and official documents uncovered during years of research reveal new information relating to technical points about the planes, facts verified by the PBY crews that do not agree with popularly accepted ideas. To those who believe the wing accomplished nothing, and this group includes many pilots, Messimer argues that while attempts to bomb the Japanese fleet proved futile because the PBYs were unsuitable for such a task, the wing's rescue and evacuation missions saved many lives. The airdales themselves were not so lucky. When Corregidor fell, nearly half of them were captured and many died in captivity.

This is the true story of the legendary Vietnam War hero John Ripley, who braved intense enemy fire to destroy a strategic bridge and stall a major North Vietnamese invasion into the South in April 1972. Told by a fellow Marine, the account lays bare Ripley's innermost thoughts as he rigged 500 pounds of explosives by hand-walking the beams beneath the bridge, crimped detonators with his teeth, and raced the burning fuses back to shore, thus saving his comrades from certain death.First published in 1989, the book has broad appeal as a riveting tale of adventure. But John Miller has taken this daring act of heroism beyond the specifics of time and place to provide new insights into the nature of war and warriors, characteristics that have remained unchanged for centuries and will remain valid for generations to come. It has been on the Marine Corps Commandant's recommended reading list since 1990. Newly illustrated by Col. Charles Waterhouse, USMCR (Ret.).

The U.S. Navy's patrol of the Yangtze River began in 1854 when the USS Susquehanna was sent to China to safeguard increasing American commerce in the region. As Kemp Tolley explains in this entertaining history of the patrol in which he was to later serve, the presence of gunboats along the river greatly benefited the integrity of the shoreline factories. Tolley was a young naval officer in the 1930s when assigned gunboat duty, first in the Mindanao, then in the Tutuila, and finally the Wake in August 1941. His colorful description of life as a ""river rat"" is filled with anecdotes about the resourceful and high-spirited sailors who manned the old riverboats in that distant land.In the process of telling their story he covers a century of Chinese history, replete with warlords and mandarins, bandits and kidnappers, missionaries and mercenaries, riots and revolution. He presents a knowledgeable summary of the political situation in China up to World War II, including the bombing of the Panay, the siege of Shanghai, and the Nanking incident. Far more than a routine account of naval operations on the great Yangtze, this book is an unforgettable reading experience that has attracted readers since 1971 when it was first published in hardcover.

The Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813 is considered by many to be the most important naval confrontation of the War of 1812. Made famous by the American fleet commander Oliver Hazard Perry's comment, ""We have met the enemy and they are ours,"" the battle marked the U.S. Navy's first successful fleet action and was one of the rare occasions when the Royal Navy surrendered an entire squadron. This book draws on British, Canadian, and American documents to offer a totally impartial analysis of all sides of the struggle to control the lake. New diagrams of the battle are included that reflect the authors' modification of traditional positions of various vessels. The book also evaluates the strategic background and tactical conduct of the British and the Americans and the command leadership exercised by Perry and his British opponent, Commander Robert H. Barclay. Not since James Fenimore Cooper's 1843 book on the subject has the battle been examined in such detail, and not since Alfred Thayer Mahan's 1905 study of the war has there been such a significant reinterpretation of the engagement. First published in hardcover in 1997, the book is the winner of the North American Society for Oceanic History's John Lyman Book Award.

The story of one of the bloodiest battles in history, resulting in the raising of the American flag on Mt. Suribachi, is documented with a personal touch; the author himself was a member of that company. It is a searing and unique account of that battle, told from the perspective of both the gallant U.S. Marines who invaded the island and the brave Japanese soldiers who defended it.

The dramatic tale of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in World War II received little attention prior to the publication of this book in 1982, when Winslow chronicled their short and tragic story of heroism and defeat.Greatly outnumbered by vastly superior forces, and saddled with defective equipment; a lack of supplies, reinforcements, and air cover; and, towards the end, an incompetent and bungled Allied combined command, the Asiatic fleet met the Japanese head-on. Within a matter of three months, however, the beleaguered ships were totally wiped out.Captain Walter Winslow, a naval aviator on board the USS Houston, flagship of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, was in a unique position to tell the riveting story. As an active participant in all the major battles the fleet engaged in, he had an intimate understanding of the calamities that befell it. In addition, he drew upon the his own extensive notes he kept from a POW camp while interviewing other American, British, Dutch, and Australian prisoners from the Allied fleet. Winslow also painstakingly tracked down war documents and battle reports from all the ships assigned to the fleet to paint a complete picture filled with graphic details of the fleet’s only victory at Balikpapan; the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea that broke the back of the combined Asiatic fleet; the ghastly spectacle at Sunda Strait where the Houston struggled to survive; the suspenseful episode in the submarine Perch trapped in the mud at the bottom of the sea; and the daring escape from Corregidor of eighteencrewmembers from the USS Quail who refused to surrender to the Japanese forces.

Hailed as the most important novel to emerge from the Vietnam War when first published in 1978, this book launched a spectacular writing career for James Webb that now includes four bestselling novels. A much-decorated former Marine who fought and was wounded in Vietnam, Webb tells the story of a platoon of tough, young Marines enduring the tropical hell of Southeast Asian jungles while facing an invisible enemy--in a war no one understands. Filled with the sounds and smells of combat, it is nevertheless a book about people, an amazing variety of closely observed characters caught up in circumstances beyond their control. It is a powerful work that brilliantly expresses the basic ambiguity of war: the repulsion of war's destruction contrasted with the grisly attraction of war as the ultimate test of survival. Critics have compared this bestselling first novel to All Quiet on the Western Front and The Naked and the Dead, among other masterpieces, for authentically capturing the fury and agony of combat.This is the real war in Vietnam, told without histrionics or self pity. For many years the novel has been a part of the recommended reading list of the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

the USS Guardfish during World War II•Fascinating study of the only sinking of a US warship by submarinefriendly fireClaude Conner weaves a compelling tale of his experiences as a radar technician in the Pacific aboard the USS Guardfish, one of the Navy’s most successful World War II submarines. Tragically, the Guardfish was also the only submarine to sink another American ship in a little-known friendly fire action against the USS Extractor.This thoroughly researched memoir chronicles the Guardfish’s numerous heroic operations, such as her perilous forays into Japanese-controlled harbours and the daring rescue of personnel from a Japanese-held island. It includes first-hand accounts by a dozen Extractor survivors, who describe the actions leading up to their encounter with the submarine, the actual sinking of the ship, and their rescue and subsequent treatment by Navy officials.The author examines the chain of events that led to the sinking of the Extractor and provides details of the Court of Inquiry that followed and for which he testified as a witness.

A Marine who wielded both pen and sword in a long, distinguished career captures the heroism and horror of the early days of the Korean War in this gripping novel. As a young man--with his own experiences in the war still vivid in his mind--Simmons wrote of the complex gamut of emotions and experiences that made this bloody encounter between East and West so unique. He kept the manuscript to himself until the war's fiftieth anniversary, when it was published to critical acclaim. Lauded for bringing a psychological intensity and realism to the war, the novel tells the story of a Marine reserve captain abruptly recalled to active duty to lead a company of Marines in a series of battles from the mud flats of Inchon to the frozen wasteland of the Chosin reservoir.

• Autobiography of a fighter and test pilot during World War II and Vietnam•Among first marines to fly a helicopter•First Marine to be named to the Navy Carrier Aviation Test PilotsHall of HonorFirst published in 1994, this stirring autobiography of a fighter and test pilot takes readers full throttle through Carl’s imposing list of`firsts’. Beginning with his World War II career, he gained such commendations as first Marine Corps ace, among the first Marines ever to fly a helicopter, and first Marine to land aboard an aircraft carrier. His combat duty included the momentous battles at Midway and Guadalcanal. Not one to rest on his laurels, however, he participated in photoreconnaissance operations over Red China in 1955 and flew missions in Vietnam. In peacetime he gained fame for `pushing the envelope’ as a test pilot, adding the world’s altitude and peace records to his wartime feats and becoming the first US military aviator to wear a full pressure suit.Such achievements also led to Carl’s being the first living Marine admitted to the Naval Aviation Hall of Honor, as well as the first Marine to be named to the Navy Carrier Aviation Test Pilots Hall of Honor. This very readable memoir is as forthright and compelling as the man it chronicles.The late MARION CARL retired in 1973 with eighteen aerial combat victories, having clocked 14,000 flight hours. Award-winning aviation writer BARRETT TILLMAN has also written books on the Corsair, Crusader, Hellcat, and Dauntless Dive bomber, all published by the Naval Institute Press.

During the 1920s Herbert O. Yardley was chief of the first peacetime cryptographic organisation in the United States, the ancestor of today’s National Security Agency. Funded by the US Army and the Department of State, Yardley’s small and highly secret unit based in New York succeeded in breaking the diplomatic codes of several nations, including Japan. Despite its extraordinary success, the Black Chamber, as it became known, was disbanded in 1929. President Hoover’s new Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, refused to continue its funding with the now famous comment,`Gentlemen, do not read other people’s mail.’ In 1931 a disappointed Yardley caused a sensation when he published this book and revealed to the world exactly what his agency had done with the secret and illegal cooperation of nearly the entire American cable industry. These revelations and Yardley’s right to publish them set in motion a conflict that continues to this day: the right to freedom of expression versus national security.

Many regard this work as the definitive account of a controversial conflict of the war in the Pacific, the June 1944 battle known as the ""Great Marianas Turkey Shoot."" Drawing on ten years of research and told from the viewpoint of the fliers and sailors who were on the firing line, William T. Y'Blood leads the reader through every stage of the battle, from the dogfights to the persistent attacks on the Japanese carriers to the frantic efforts of the returning fliers to land on friendly carriers. He takes the battle from the initial planning through the invasion of the Marianas and the recriminations that followed, describing Admiral Spruance's decision to allow U.S. forces to remain on the defensive and giving blow-by-blow details of the action. This intensive study of what many believe to be a major turning point in the Pacific War has remained an important reference since it was first published in 1981.

An instant bestseller when it was first published in 1946, this memoir recounts the author's nearly forty years of service in naval intelligence, beginning in 1908. One of the first to venture into the realm of psychological warfare, Ellis Zacharias was awarded the Legion of Merit with two gold stars for his contributions. Among the highlights of his impressive career was the role he played in convincing the Japanese to accept surrender in 1945, a subject he deals with in fascinating detail in this book. Zacharias gives readers access to rare psychological profiles that he prepared for the Office of Naval Intelligence on leading political and military figures in Japan. His book also recounts his exploits as a young naval attaché with the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo in the early 1920s. In the early months of the war readers join him in the thick of combat in the Pacific, first aboard a cruiser under his command and later in a battleship. Of particular interest are descriptions of his one-man radio broadcasts beamed at Japan between V-E and V-J days that received kudos from Adm. Ernest J. King for helping bring about the surrender.