Download or read book Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway written by David Rigby and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, US Navy dive bomber pilot Wade McClusky proved himself to be one of the greatest pilots and combat leaders in American history, but his story has never been told – until now. It was Wade McClusky who remained calm when the Japanese fleet was not where it was expected to be. It was he who made the counterintuitive choice to then search to the north instead of to the south. It was also McClusky who took the calculated risk of continuing to search even though his bombers were low on fuel and may not have enough to make it back to the Enterprise. His ability to remain calm under enormous pressure played a huge role in the US Navy winning this decisive victory that turned the tide of war in the Pacific. This book is the story of exactly the right man being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Wade McClusky was that man and this is his story.

Download or read book Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway written by David Rigby and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, US Navy dive bomber pilot Wade McClusky proved himself to be one of the greatest pilots and combat leaders in American history, but his story has never been told – until now. It was Wade McClusky who remained calm when the Japanese fleet was not where it was expected to be. It was he who made the counterintuitive choice to then search to the north instead of to the south. It was also McClusky who took the calculated risk of continuing to search even though his bombers were low on fuel and may not have enough to make it back to the Enterprise. His ability to remain calm under enormous pressure played a huge role in the US Navy winning this decisive victory that turned the tide of war in the Pacific. This book is the story of exactly the right man being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Wade McClusky was that man and this is his story.

Download or read book The Battle of Midway written by Craig L. Symonds and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2013"--Title page verso.

Download or read book Miracle at Midway written by Gordon William Prange and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 1983 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the infamy of Pearl Harbor still fresh in their minds, the men of the U.S. Pacific Fleet waited for the Japanese Imperial Navy at Midway Island. This time, however, the element of surprise had shifted, and the American troops would be the victors of a battle that marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific. Like At Dawn We Slept, Miracle at Midway brings together eyewitness accounts from the men on both sides-those who commanded and those who fought. The sweeping narrative takes you into the thick of the action and shows exactly how American strategies and decisions led to America's triumphant victor and the crushing defeat of Japan. Book jacket.

Download or read book Never Call Me a Hero written by N. Jack Kleiss and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.

Download or read book Summary of David Rigby s Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-10T22:59:00Z with total page 75 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On June 4, 1942, Wade McClusky was flying at 19,000ft in a Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive-bomber at the head of two squadrons of USS Enterprise dive-bombers, Scouting Six and Bombing Six. He was tasked with attacking the Japanese carrier striking force, Kido Butai. #2 McClusky’s sixth sense told him that the Japanese were not going too fast, but too slow. They must have been held up somehow, and still be to his north. He turned right, leading his squadrons in a northwesterly direction. #3 The most important factor when choosing senior commanders for the Army is character, which involves integrity, unselfish and devoted purpose, a sturdiness of bearing when everything goes wrong, and a willingness to sacrifice self in the interest of the common good. #4 The Japanese showed at Midway that they were not good at improvising when the plan went awry. Without meaning any disrespect to the Japanese pilots who fought bravely at Midway, I believe that a Japanese squadron leader would have turned his group around and headed back to his carrier to refuel and get new orders before continuing a search for an enemy fleet.

Download or read book The Battle of Midway written by Thomas C. Hone and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best way for todays sailors to learn about a battle is from those who fought it. The Battle of Midway, commemorated annually in the U.S. Navy, warrants close attention. This Naval Institute guide includes some of the most vibrant and informed accounts by individuals who fought on both sides of the June 1942 battle. The anthology pulls together memoirs, articles, excerpts from other Naval Institute books, and relevant government documents to help readers understand what happened and explain why the battle was so significant to the naval service. The core of the book focuses on events leading up to the battle and the battle itself, with a separate section examining how others have interpreted the battles often desperate engagements. When the U.S. Navy stopped the Japanese steamroller off Midway Island, it not only turned the progress of the war but set the Navys foundation for future counter offensives. The Navys comeback spread to the Solomon Islands and on to the other key strategic areas in the Pacific. While many know that Midway was a crucial American victory, they often do not know the details of the battle. This book tells how, for example, the American PT boats contributed to the victory, how the carrier planes formed up for their attacks, and what role radar played in the battle. In addition to excerpts from books and articles, the guide includes selections from several important Naval Institute oral histories. From the enlisted mans perspective all the way to the admirals, for both Americans and Japanese, readers see the U.S. Navys greatest victory as the participants saw it.

Download or read book Joe Rochefort s War written by Elliot W Carlson and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elliot Carlson’s award-winning biography of Capt. Joe Rochefort is the first to be written about the officer who headed Station Hypo, the U.S. Navy’s signals monitoring and cryptographic intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor, and who broke the Japanese navy’s code before the Battle of Midway. The book brings Rochefort to life as the irreverent, fiercely independent, and consequential officer that he was. Readers share his frustrations as he searches in vain for Yamamoto’s fleet prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but share his joy when he succeeds in tracking the fleet in early 1942 and breaks the code that leads Rochefort to believe Yamamoto’s invasion target is Midway. His conclusions, bitterly opposed by some top Navy brass, are credited with making the U.S. victory possible and helping to change the course of the war. The author tells the story of how opponents in Washington forced Rochefort’s removal from Station Hypo and denied him the Distinguished Service Medal recommended by Admiral Nimitz. In capturing the interplay of policy and personality and the role played by politics at the highest levels of the Navy, Carlson reveals a side of the intelligence community seldom seen by outsiders. For a full understanding of the man, Carlson examines Rochefort’s love-hate relationship with cryptanalysis, his adventure-filled years in the 1930s as the right-hand man to the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, and his return to codebreaking in mid-1941 as the officer in charge of Station Hypo. He traces Rochefort’s career from his enlistment in 1918 to his posting in Washington as head of the Navy’s codebreaking desk at age twenty-five, and beyond. In many ways a reinterpretation of Rochefort, the book makes clear the key role his codebreaking played in the outcome of Midway and the legacy he left of reporting actionable intelligence directly to the fleet. An epilogue describes efforts waged by Rochefort’s colleagues to obtain the medal denied him in 1942—a drive that finally paid off in 1986 when the medal was awarded posthumously.

Download or read book Miracle at Midway written by Gordon W. Prange and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller: The true story of the WWII naval battle portrayed in the Roland Emmerich film is “something special among war histories” (Chicago Sun-Times). Six months after Pearl Harbor, the seemingly invincible Imperial Japanese Navy prepared a decisive blow against the United States. After sweeping through Asia and the South Pacific, Japan’s military targeted the tiny atoll of Midway, an ideal launching pad for the invasion of Hawaii and beyond. But the US Navy would be waiting for them. Thanks to cutting-edge code-breaking technology, tactical daring, and a significant stroke of luck, the Americans under Adm. Chester W. Nimitz dealt Japan’s navy its first major defeat in the war. Three years of hard fighting remained, but it was at Midway that the tide turned. This “stirring, even suspenseful narrative” is the first book to tell the story of the epic battle from both the American and Japanese sides (Newsday). Miracle at Midway reveals how America won its first and greatest victory of the Pacific war—and how easily it could have been a loss.

Download or read book Allied Master Strategists written by David Rigby and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded NASOH's 2012 "John Lyman Book Award for Best U.S. Naval History," Allied Master Strategists describes the unique and vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Based on a combination of primary and secondary source material, this book proves that the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization was the glue holding the British-American wartime alliance together. As such, the Combined Chiefs of Staff was probably the most important international organization of the Twentieth Century. Readers will get a good view of the personalities of the principals, such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. The book provides insight into the relationships between the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Allied theater commanders, the role of the Combined Chiefs regarding economic mobilization, and the bitter inter-Allied strategic debates in regard to OVERLORD and the war in the Pacific. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the British American alliance in World War II. Careful attention is paid in the book to the three organizations that contributed the principal membership of the Combined Chiefs of Staff; i.e., the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, and (in the case of Sir John Dill) the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington. After providing a biographical background of the principal member so the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Rigby provides information on wartime Washington, D.C. as the home base for the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization. Detailed information is given regarding the Casablanca Conference, but the author is careful to distinguish between the formal nature of the big Allied wartime summit meetings and the much less formal day-to-day give and take which characterized British-American strategic debates between the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Indeed, it is a major contention of the book that it is critical to remember that more than half of the meetings of the Combined Chiefs of Staff took place in Washington, D.C. in a regularly scheduled weekly pattern and not at the big Allied conferences such as Yalta. The role of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in directing the war in the Pacific and in planning the OVERLORD cross-channel invasion of western Europe, respectively, is covered in detail. These were the two most contentious issues with which the Combined Chiefs of Staff had to deal. Rigby attempts to answer the question of why two combative, fearless, warriors like Churchill and Brooke would be so unwilling to go back across the Channel, and to explain the tug-of-war the British Chiefs of Staff had to conduct with Churchill before a British battle fleet could join the American Central Pacific Drive late in the war. The book also provides a wealth of information on the role played by members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in the spheres of economic mobilization and wartime diplomacy. Most of all, what Allied Master Strategists does is to give the Combined Chiefs of Staff what they have long deserved—a book of their own; a book that is not weighted towards the U.S. Joint Chiefs on the one hand or the British Chiefs of Staff on the other; a book that is not strictly a “naval” book, an “army” book, or an “air” book, but a book that like the western alliance during World War II, is truly “combined” in an international as well as an interservice manner.

Download or read book Incredible Victory written by Walter Lord and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “remarkable” New York Times bestseller about the battle in the Pacific that turned the tide of World War II—from the author of The Miracle of Dunkirk (Los Angeles Times). On the morning of June 4, 1942, doom sailed on Midway. Hoping to put itself within striking distance of Hawaii and California, the Japanese navy planned an ambush that would obliterate the remnants of the American Pacific fleet. On paper, the Americans had no chance of winning. They had fewer ships, slower fighters, and almost no battle experience. But because their codebreakers knew what was coming, the American navy was able to prepare an ambush of its own. Over two days of savage battle, American sailors and pilots broke the spine of the Japanese war machine. The United States prevailed against momentous odds; never again did Japan advance. In stunning detail, Walter Lord, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Day of Infamy and A Night to Remember, tells the story of one of the greatest upsets in naval history. “Graphic and realistic . . . not an impersonalized account of moves on the chessboard of war, [but] a story of individual people facing crucial problems.” —The New York Times

Download or read book And I was There written by Edwin T. Layton and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Admiral Layton, who was the fleet intelligence officer for Admiral Nimitz through out World War II, describes the breakdown in the intelligence process prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and shares his experiences witnessing feuding among high-level naval officers in Washington that contributed to Japan's successful attack. Black-and-wh

Download or read book Pacific Payback written by Stephen L. Moore and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Deeply researched and well written....By far the most detailed account of USS Enterprise’s dive-bombers and their decisive role at the Battle of Midway.”* Sunday, December 7, 1941, dawned clear and bright over the Pacific.... But for the Dauntless dive-bomber crews of the USS Enterprise returning to their home base on Oahu, it was a morning from hell. Flying directly into the Japanese ambush at Pearl Harbor, they lost a third of their squadron and witnessed the heart of America’s Navy broken and smoldering on the oil-slicked waters below. The next six months, from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway—a dark time during which the Japanese scored victory after victory—this small band of aviators saw almost constant deployment, intense carrier combat, and fearsome casualties. Many were killed by enemy Zero fighters, antiaircraft fire, or deadly crash landings in the Pacific, while others were captured and spent years in POW camps. Yet the Enterprise’s Dauntless crews would be the first to strike an offensive blow against Japanese installations in the Marshall Islands, would be the first to sink a Japanese warship, and would shepherd the Doolittle Raiders’ bombing of Tokyo. Not until Midway, though, would Dauntless crews get the chance to settle the score...and change the course of World War II. Drawing on dozens of new interviews and oral histories, author Stephen L. Moore brings to life inspiring stories of individual sacrifice and bravery—and the sweeping saga of one of America’s greatest triumphs. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Download or read book Decision at Sea written by Craig L. Symonds and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-06-10 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From thunderous broadsides traded between wooden sailing ships on Lake Erie, to the carrier battles of World War II, to the devastating high-tech action in the Persian Gulf, here is a gripping history of five key battles that defined the evolution of naval warfare--and the course of the American nation. Acclaimed military historian Craig Symonds offers spellbinding narratives of crucial engagements, showing how each battle reveals the transformation of technology and weaponry from one war to the next; how these in turn transformed naval combat; and how each event marked a milestone in American history. - Oliver Hazard Perry's heroic victory at Lake Erie, one of the last great battles of the Age of Sail, which secured the Northwestern frontier for the United States - The brutal Civil War duel between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia, which sounded the death knell for wooden-hulled warships and doomed the Confederacy's hope of besting the Union navy - Commodore Dewey's stunning triumph at Manila Bay in 1898, where the U.S. displayed its "new navy" of steel-hulled ships firing explosive shells and wrested an empire from a fading European power - The hairsbreadth American victory at Midway, where aircraft carriers launched planes against enemies 200 miles away--and where the tide of World War II turned in the space of a few furious minutes - Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf, where computers, ship-fired missiles, and "smart bombs" not only changed the nature of warfare at sea, but also marked a new era, and a new responsibility, for the United States. Symonds records these encounters in detail so vivid that readers can hear the wind in the rigging and feel the pounding of the guns. Yet he places every battle in a wide perspective, revealing their significance to America's development as it grew from a new Republic on the edge of a threatening frontier to a global superpower. Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives--and the fate of nations--hanging in the balance.

Download or read book The Education of Corporal John Musgrave written by John Musgrave and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Marine's searing and intimate story—"A passionate, fascinating, and deeply humane memoir of both war and of the hard work of citizenship and healing in war’s aftermath. A superb addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War, and of its lessons” (Phil Klay, author of Redeployment). John Musgrave had a small-town midwestern childhood that embodied the idealized postwar America. Service, patriotism, faith, and civic pride were the values that guided his family and community, and like nearly all the boys he knew, Musgrave grew up looking forward to the day when he could enlist to serve his country as his father had done. There was no question in Musgrave’s mind: He was going to join the legendary Marine Corps as soon as he was eligible. In February of 1966, at age seventeen, during his senior year in high school, and with the Vietnam War already raging, he walked down to the local recruiting station, signed up, and set off for three years that would permanently reshape his life. In this electrifying memoir, he renders his wartime experience with a powerful intimacy and immediacy: from the rude awakening of boot camp, to daily life in the Vietnam jungle, to a chest injury that very nearly killed him. Musgrave also vividly describes the difficulty of returning home to a society rife with antiwar sentiment, his own survivor's guilt, and the slow realization that he and his fellow veterans had been betrayed by the government they served. And he recounts how, ultimately, he found peace among his fellow veterans working to end the war. Musgrave writes honestly about his struggle to balance his deep love for the Marine Corps against his responsibility as a citizen to protect the very troops asked to protect America at all costs. Fiercely perceptive and candid, The Education of Corporal John Musgrave is one of the most powerful memoirs to emerge from the war.

Download or read book Shattered Sword written by Jonathan Parshall and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange s bestselling "Miracle at Midway," Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, "Shattered Sword" makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida s "Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan," an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle. The authors examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading WWII naval historian John Lundstrom, "Shattered Sword" will become an indispensable part of any military buff s library. Winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and cited by "Proceedings" as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005."

Download or read book Valley Forge to Monmouth written by Jim Stempel and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From December 1777 through June 1778, the American Revolution achieved a remarkable turnaround. I these months the Continental Army recovered from abject demoralization at Valley Forge to achieve a stunning victory against the British at Monmouth Courthouse. This compelling history chronicles how the war began to turn--from the consequential leadership of General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette to the experiences of the men who marched and fought in the ranks--and reexamines one of the most controversial periods of early American history.