The early morning hours of July 6, 1943, found the USS "Helena" off the Solomon Islands in what would later be known as the Battle of Kula Gulf. But the ship s participation in the battle came to a swift end when three Japanese torpedoes suddenly struck. One hundred and sixty-eight sailors went down with the ship, many never surviving the initial torpedo hits. As the last of the "Helena" disappeared below the ocean s surface, the remaining crewmen s struggle for survival had only just begun."Sunk in Kula Gulf" tells the epic story of the "Helena" s survivors. Two destroyers plucked more than seven hundred from the sea in a night rescue operation as the battle continued to rage. A second group of eighty-eight sailors clustered into three lifeboats made it to a nearby island and was rescued the next day. A third group of survivors, spread over a wide area, was missed entirely. Clinging to life rafts or debris, the weary men were pushed away from the area of the sinking by a strong current. After enduring days at sea under the hot tropical sun, they finally found land. It was, however, the Japanese-held island of Vella Lavella and deep behind the front lines. The survivors organized and disappeared into the island s interior jungle. Living a meager existence, the group evaded the Japanese for eight days until the Marines and U.S. Navy evacuated the shipwrecked sailors in a daring rescue operation. Using a wide variety of sources, including previously unpublished firsthand accounts, John J. Domagalski brings to life this amazing, little-known story from World War II."

Military history. The story of the World War II warship dubbed "The Fightin'est Ship" -- the cruiser "Helena."

This highly regarded war memoir was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s and has long been treasured by historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The author was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the "Unsinkable Captain." A hero to his countrymen, Capt. Hara exemplified the best in Japanese surface commanders: highly skilled (he wrote the manual on torpedo warfare), hard driving, and aggressive. Moreover, he maintained a code of honor worthy of his samurai grandfather, and, as readers of this book have come to appreciate, he was as free with praise for American courage and resourcefulness as he was critical of himself and his senior commanders.

The story of Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, marooned on a South Pacific island, and his one-man war against Japanese forces

Esteemed Pacific War historian Jeffrey Cox has produced a fast-paced and absorbing read of the crucial New Georgia phase of the Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign during the Pacific War. Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. Determined not to repeat their mistakes at Guadalcanal, the Allies nonetheless faltered in their continuing efforts to roll back the Japanese land, air and naval forces. Dark Waters, Starry Skies is an engrossing history which weaves together strategy and tactics with a blow-by-blow account of every battle at a vital point in the Pacific War that has not been analyzed in this level of detail before. Using first-hand accounts from both sides, this book vividly recreates all the terror and drama of the nighttime naval battles during this phase of the Solomons campaign and the ferocious firestorm many Marines faced as they disembarked from their landing craft. The reader is transported to the bridge to stand alongside Admiral Walden Ainsworth as he sails to stop another Japanese reinforcement convoy for New Georgia, and vividly feels the fear of an 18-year-old Marine as he fights for survival against a weakened but still determined enemy.

"Sunken Ships of World War II" is truly one of the greatest compendiums of naval history that has ever been put together. Not only does it give an exhaustive chronology of events and actions of the United States Navy, it also contains listings of the Allies (American and English) and of the Axis (Japanese, German and Italian) naval losses wherever they took place. Each of the pages of this book is packed with minute information on each sunken vessel. Entries also include the most available information on the commanders, crews, size, displacement and location in degrees of each vessel, the battles, the forces, and just about any other particular information of interest on each vessel. By any measurement, "Sunken Ships of World War II" stands alone for its depth and breath of the information revealed in its detailed pages.

The tragedy of the loss in 1941 of two Royal Navy capital ships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, the core of Churchill's deterrent Force Z, stunned the world. Churchill had hoped that sending a small powerful squadron of ships to Singapore would deter a threatened Japanese invasion of Malaya and Thailand. He was to be proved tragically wrong. This book explores in detail the wrecks of these two vessels and narrates a summary of the Japanese threat.