On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines waded ashore in the Solomons, defended by warships of the U.S. Navy. The amphibious landing was the first major American ground campaign of the Pacific War, intended to prevent the Japanese from establishing naval and air bases in the island chain and to establish Allied bases for future operations. Most famously—and most gruelingly—the invasion marked the beginning of the months-long Guadalcanal campaign. Caught off guard, the Japanese swiftly regrouped for a seaborne counterattack on the night of August 8–9. The result was one of the worst American naval defeats of the war after Pearl Harbor. In this meticulous minute-by-minute retelling of the First Battle of Savo Island, Lawrence De Graw covers the navy’s role in the initial landings on Guadalcanal before setting the stage for the naval clash that would come the next night. On the eighth, the American commander, fearing Japanese attacks and cautious about fuel levels, withdrew his aircraft carriers and let his cruisers and destroyers—exhausted from two days of high alert and combat—operate with only half their crews on duty. The navy was unaware the Japanese had been training to fight at night. The American ships were sitting ducks when the Japanese fleet steamed through “The Slot” between Savo Island and Guadalcanal and into what became known as “Ironbottom Sound.” In little more than thirty minutes, the Japanese sent three U.S. (and one Australian) heavy cruisers to the bottom and damaged three other vessels. The American fleet withdrew from the area for the foreseeable future and limited shipments of men and materiel to the daytime, helping turn the battle of Guadalcanal into a long, hard slog. Sitting Ducks at Guadalcanal is naval history, featuring a colorful narrative that covers the big picture as well as stories of individual vessels and sailors as well as a careful analysis of the battle and just what went wrong for the U.S. Navy off the island of Guadalcanal.

On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines waded ashore in the Solomons, defended by warships of the U.S. Navy. The amphibious landing was the first major American ground campaign of the Pacific War, intended to prevent the Japanese from establishing naval and air bases in the island chain and to establish Allied bases for future operations. Most famously--and most gruelingly--the invasion marked the beginning of the months-long Guadalcanal campaign. Caught off guard, the Japanese swiftly regrouped for a seaborne counterattack on the night of August 8-9. The result was one of the worst American naval defeats of the war after Pearl Harbor. In this meticulous minute-by-minute retelling of the First Battle of Savo Island, Lawrence De Graw covers the navy's role in the initial landings on Guadalcanal before setting the stage for the naval clash that would come the next night. On the eighth, the American commander, fearing Japanese attacks and cautious about fuel levels, withdrew his aircraft carriers and let his cruisers and destroyers--exhausted from two days of high alert and combat--operate with only half their crews on duty. The navy was unaware the Japanese had been training to fight at night. The American ships were sitting ducks when the Japanese fleet steamed through "The Slot" between Savo Island and Guadalcanal and into what became known as "Ironbottom Sound." In little more than thirty minutes, the Japanese sent three U.S. (and one Australian) heavy cruisers to the bottom and damaged three other vessels. The American fleet withdrew from the area for the foreseeable future and limited shipments of men and materiel to the daytime, helping turn the battle of Guadalcanal into a long, hard slog. Sitting Ducks at Guadalcanal is naval history, featuring a colorful narrative that covers the big picture as well as stories of individual vessels and sailors as well as a careful analysis of the battle and just what went wrong for the U.S. Navy off the island of Guadalcanal.

Martin Bowman’s considerable experience as a military historian has spanned over forty years, during which time he has spent hundreds of hours interviewing and corresponding with numerous men and women and their relatives, in Britain, America and beyond, resulting in a wealth of material on the war at sea from World War One to the Falklands and the wars on terror. All these narratives have been woven into a highly readable and emotional outpouring of life and death in action in all his titles, as here, in World War Two, where the men of the Fleet Air Arm and the US Navy fighter (operating bomber and torpedo carrying aircraft) describe the compelling, gripping and thought-provoking narrative of the air war in the freezing Atlantic wastes to the waters of the mighty Pacific.

"Casemate has a long history of publishing high quality military history non-fiction. Lately, they have expanded their range of work to include well written novels using wartime settings." – WWII History MagazineRe-deployed from convoys in the Atlantic, the men of PC-450 must face Japanese submarines and air attacks as they support the U.S. Marines island-hopping across the Pacific. Twice torpedoed during the Battle of the Atlantic, LT. Tony Colombo USNR, a former merchant marine officer, is appointed to command a new Navy ship, PC-450, a 173 foot, steel-hulled and much advanced submarine chaser carrying five officers and sixty-five men. After a period of escorting convoys up and down the Atlantic coast, Tony suddenly finds himself escorting ships loaded with Marine Corps equipment all the way to Wellington, New Zealand and then to Brisbane, Australia. Once arrived, he is instantly ordered to begin escorting small convoys up and down the Australian coast. Some weeks later, Tony and PC-450 engage in battle with a dangerous Japanese midget submarine which is attempting to penetrate Brisbane Harbor. In the summer of 1942, as PC-450 begins to escort numerous convoys from Australia to Noumea in New Caledonia, the United States suddenly invades Guadalcanal with the result that Tony begins guiding convoys north in support of the invasion while fending off the multiple day and night air raids that the Japanese throw down The Slot. Subsequently, following the hard fought victory on Guadalcanal, PC-450 participates in the invasion of the Russell Islands and then, during the grinding fight for New Georgia, PC-450 not only helps to fend off Japanese air attacks on the fleet but twice engages in surface actions when the Japanese attempt to infiltrate troops onto the island. Wounded in a sudden air attack that radar could not detect in advance, Tony and Baldy are returned to Brisbane for convalescence and new assignments.

True stories of courage and the horrors of World War Ttwo.

There were 231,000 men and 10,000 women who served in the Coast Guard during World War II. – and 1,918 of them did not return home. At its height, the Coast Guard manned 802 ocean going cutters, 351 naval vessels, 288 Army watercraft, smaller vessels assigned to escort and port security, and 165 aircraft. Stephen C. Stripe, an amateur historian whose father, Max E. Stripe, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, tells the fascinating story of LST 791 and her Coast Guard crew, from commissioning to the end of the war in this book. The book focuses on Okinawa, which was the site of the largest amphibious invasion during the war in the Pacific. LST 791 delivered Marines and supplies to the invasion beaches. Its crew manned weapons during a kamikaze assault to protect a nearby hospital ship. When the war ended, the crew shifted from preparing to invade Japan to transporting occupation troops to the string of islands. The book includes the memoirs of Skipper Lt. Cmdr. A. Duncan to provide firsthand observations and details on the important role that LST 791 played.

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