In this latest addition to his acclaimed U.S. warship design history series, Norman Friedman describes the ships and the craft of the U.S. amphibious force, from its inception in the 1920s through World War II to the present. He explains how and why the United States successfully created an entirely new kind of fleet to fight and win such World War II battles as D-Day and the island landings in the Pacific. To an extent not previously documented, his book lays out the differing views and contributions of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines as well as the British, and how they affected the development of prewar and wartime amphibious forces. Current and future amphibious forces and tactics are explained, together with their implications for ships and craft, from 40,000-ton amphibious carriers down to tracked amphibious vehicles.As in earlier volumes in the series, this study uses previously unpublished sources to illustrate not only what was actually built but what was planned and never brought into service. For example, the book offers the first comprehensive and fully illustrated account of abortive attempts in the 1960s and beyond to build new fire support ships (LFS). With nearly two hundred photographs and specially commissioned line drawings and extensive appendixes, the work conveniently brings together details of the ships and their service histories found elsewhere only in scattered official references.

“Not only a just appraisal of the campaigns waged by Marines in World War II; it is a documentation of the Marine struggle to prove the feasibility of amphibious warfare....Relentlessly accurate and impartial.”—N.Y. Times Originally published in 1951, this book is a widely regarded classic on US Marine amphibious doctrine and operations employed in the Pacific during the Second World War. The authors describe in detail the development of the theoretical aspects of amphibious assault in the inter-war period, but devote the vast majority of the narrative to the various landings and their core strategies, using Japanese documents “to sketch in the background of military decisions made by the enemy.” A must for those who wish to understand the American war against Japan.

The US armed forces were responsible for many tactical innovations during the years 1941–45, but in no field was US mastery more complete than amphibious warfare. In the vast, almost empty battlefield of the Pacific the US Navy and Marine Corps were obliged to develop every aspect of the amphibious assault landing in painstaking detail, from the design of many new types of vessel, down to the tactics of the rifle platoon hitting the beach, and the logistic system without which they could not have fought their way inland. This fascinating study offers a clear, succinct explanation of every phase of these operations as they evolved during the war years, illustrated with detailed color plates and photographs.

This collection of 51 essays provides a history of amphibious landings that include European, Asian, and American operations. It describes in detail some of history's most significant amphibious assaults, as well as planned attacks that were never carried out.