Acclaimed naval historian Don Keith tells one of the most inspiring sea stories of World War II: the Japanese attack on the American oiler USS Neosho and the crew’s struggle for survival as their slowly sinking ship drifted on the treacherous Coral Sea. May 1942: the United States closed in for the war’s first major clash with the Japanese Navy. The Neosho, a vitally important but minimally armed oil tanker was ordered away from the impending battle. But as the Battle of the Coral Sea raged two hundred miles away, the Neosho was attacked, setting the ship ablaze and leaving it listing badly. Scores of sailors were killed or wounded, while hundreds bobbed in shark-infested waters. Fires on board threatened to spark a fatal explosion, and each passing hour brought the ship closer to sinking. It was the beginning of a hellish four-day ordeal as the crew struggled to stay alive and keep their ship afloat. Only four of them would survive to be rescued after nine days. Working from eyewitness accounts and declassified documents, Keith offers up vivid portraits of Navy heroes in this tale of a ship as tough and resilient as its crew. The Ship That Wouldn’t Die captures the indomitable spirit of the American sailor—and finally brings to the surface one of the great untold sagas of the Pacific War.

Vice Admiral Allan Rockwell McCann left no reminiscences that might reveal a deeper sense of his extraordinary service, but naval historian Carl LaVO has filled that void by writing this revealing—and often inspiring—biography. Among McCann’s many accomplishments: Served as liaison officer for the modification of the antiquated O-12 submarine into the privately-leased Nautilus that made the first attempt to sail beneath the Arctic ice shelf in 1931; pioneered the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber; directed fire from the sub tender Pelias at Japanese aircraft attacking Pearl Harbor; commanded the battleship Iowa during the Battle of Leyte Gulf; was Chief of Staff of the Navy’s 10th Fleet that stymied a last ditch effort to attack North America via U-boats; headed the Navy task force that transported President Truman to the Potsdam conference; and as ComSubPac was aboard the first submarine to navigate under the polar ice in 1947. This book is an overdue appreciation of a significant admiral who has been all but ignored in naval history.

It was headline news on 8 April 1942: One of the Navys most famous destroyers, a ship which survived bombs, torpedoes and full scale battles, has been wrecked. That destroyer was HMS Havock, described in another newspaper as Britains No 2 Destroyer of this war second only in fame and glory to the Cossack.Havock had earned her reputation guarding the convoys across the Atlantic in 1939 and at Narvik in the abortive bid to stave off the German occupation of Norway in 1940. Havock was then transferred to the Mediterranean, fighting at the Battle of Cape Spada in 1940 and in 1941 at the Battle of Matapan and in the evacuations of Greece and Crete.Havocks duties in the Med continued, escorting the convoys to the besieged island of Malta and the equally beleaguered garrison at Tobruk. Then in the Battle of Sirte in 1942 Havock was badly damaged and she limped into Malta for repairs. There she was heavy bombed and when Havock made a bid to reach Gibraltar, she was wrecked off Cape Bon. Her crew was captured and imprisoned in the infamous Laghouat internment camp.The authors have tracked down fifty of the surviving crew and from interviews have been able to compile one of the most detailed, and certainly one of the most dramatic, histories of a destroyer during the Second World War. Destroyer at War tells the story of the battles and operations of a famous ship, and its sad destruction, through newspaper reports, official documents, and the words of the men who sailed and fought in HMS Havock as she earned an astonishing eleven battle honors in her brief but glorious career.

The opening months of World War II saw Britain's Royal Navy facing a resurgent German navy, the Kriegsmarine. Following the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in early April 1940, British and German destroyers would clash in a series of battles for control of the Norwegian coast. The operational environment was especially challenging, with destroyer crews having to contend with variable weather, narrow coastal tracts and possibility of fog and ship breakdowns. In two engagements at Narvik, the Royal Navy entered the harbour and attacked the loitering German destroyers who had dropped off mountain troops to support the German invasion. The raids were devastating, halving at a stroke the number at Hitler's disposal. Employing specially commissioned artwork and drawing upon a range of sources, this absorbing study traces the evolving technology and tactics employed by the British and German destroyer forces, and assesses the impact of the Narvik clashes on both sides' subsequent development and deployment of destroyers in a range of roles across the world's oceans.

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 eighteen crewmembers from the USS Quail who refused to surrender to the Japanese forces.