"This ... history encompasses the heart of the Pacific War--the period between mid-1942 and mid-1944--when parallel Allied counteroffensives north and south of the equator washed over Japan's far-flung island empire like a 'conquering tide, ' concluding with Japan's irreversible strategic defeat in the Marianas. It was the largest, bloodiest, most costly, most technically innovative and logistically complicated amphibious war in history, and it fostered...

As the war in Europe winds down in the wake of the Normandy invasion, the United States has turned its vast military resources toward an all-out effort against the Japanese. In the spring of 1945, Japan's empire has been pressed slowly back toward its home islands, and the Americans mount a furious assault on the last great stepping-stone to Japan itself--the heavily fortified island of Okinawa. The three-month battle will feature some of the most...

"Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.Written in gritty, journalistic detail, the story follows an army platoon of foot soldiers who are fighting for possession of the...

"Takes us to a place of almost mythic power and tells a story that unfolds like a long ride on a killer wave . . . compellingly written." —Sebastian Junger, New York Times–bestselling author
Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just fifteen feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for...

The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the Fall of Manila during World War II—a saga of love, adventure, and danger.

On New Year’s Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. The couple had worked

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"In Lethal Tides, Catherine Musemeche weaves together science, biography, and military history in the compelling story of an unsung woman who had a dramatic effect on the U.S. Navy's success against Japan in WWII, creating an intelligence-gathering juggernaut based on the new science of oceanography. When World War II began, the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs,...

"From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a...

In this companion book to the HBO series on the war in the Pacific, historian Hugh Ambrose focuses on five American soldiers who each took an active role in the difficult and costly--in terms of lives--campaign to reach the Japanese mainland. Ambrose recounts key battles--Guadalcanal, Midway, Okinawa, and the lesser-known Peleliu--and he provides a soldier's eye view of the events, conveying the great valor and sacrifices of those in uniform.

It is the summer of 1942 and what our historians have called the Incredible Victory in the Battle of Midway has become a horrendous disaster in this world. Two of America's handful of carriers in the Pacific have blundered into a Japanese submarine picket line and have been sunk, while a third is destroyed the next day. The United States has only one carrier remaining in the Pacific against nine Japanese, while the ragtag remnants of U.S. battleships

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A memoir by a USS Arizona survivor describes his experience of the attacks that left him with burns over more than sixty-five percent of his body, his resolve to reenter service after a grueling recovery, and his contributions to some of the Pacific's most violent battles. The most gripping, intimate, and inspiring account of Pearl Harbor, the first memoir ever published by a USS Arizona survivor. At 8:06 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Seaman First Class...