Author: Walter G. Winslow
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612513018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
Recounting the last stand of the heavy cruiser Houston, this tale of survival brings to life the 1942 battle at Sunda Strait.
Author: Walter G. Winslow
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Recounting the last stand of the heavy cruiser Houston, this tale of survival brings to life the 1942 battle at Sunda Strait.
Author: James D. Hornfischer
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0307490882
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Son, we’re going to Hell." The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR’s favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn’t a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again–until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston—a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma–Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will–power—and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston’s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it’s easy to forget that every single word is true. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from James D. Hornfischer's Neptune's Inferno.
Author: W. G. Winslow
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 9781557509277
Category : Java Sea (Indonesia), Battle of the, 1942
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Recounting the last stand of the heavy cruiser Houston, this tale of survival brings to life the 1942 battle at Sunda Strait.
Author: Tom Womack
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476622671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
Though few realize it, the Netherlands East Indies were the object of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Likewise, their invasions of Guam, Wake Island and the Philippines were mainly diversionary operations to safeguard their main assault on Dutch and British colonies. Since the end of World War I, Japan had coveted the vast East Indies oil reserves, and the colony had feared invasion since Germany overran Holland in May 1940. Isolated politically the weakly defended archipelago was a tempting prize. The East Indies government initially maintained a strict policy of neutrality while desperately working to build up its military strength. As Japanese actions pushed the region toward war, the Dutch reluctantly embraced closer ties with America and Britain. For a brief period, the East Indies were key players in Pacific War strategy. This book details for the first time in English the Dutch prewar strategy, their efforts to counter Japanese espionage and their sizable though largely forgotten military contribution in the early months of the Pacific War.
Author: Donald M. Kehn
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 161234920X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560
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Book Description
In the Highest Degree Tragic tells the heroic story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet’s sacrifice defending the Dutch East Indies from the Japanese in the first three months of the Pacific War. Donald M. Kehn Jr.’s comprehensive narrative history of the operations involving multiple ships and thousands of men dramatically depicts the chaotic nature of these battles. His research has uncovered evidence of communications failures, vessels sinking hundreds of miles from where they had been reported lost, and entire complements of men simply disappearing off the face of the earth. Kehn notes that much of the fleet went down with guns blazing and flag flying, highlighting, where many others have failed to do so, the political and strategic reasons for the fleet’s deployment to the region in the first place. In the Highest Degree Tragic rectifies the historical record, showcasing how brave yet all-too-human sailors and officers carried out their harrowing tasks. Containing rare first-person accounts and anecdotes, from the highest command echelons down to the lowest enlisted personnel, Kehn’s book is the most comprehensive and exhaustive study to date of this important part of American involvement in World War II.
Author: Paul R. Bartrop
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429848471
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 866
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Book Description
The Routledge History of the Second World War sums up the latest trends in the scholarship of that conflict, covering a range of major themes and issues. The book delivers a thematic analysis of the many ways in which study of the Second World War can take place, considering international, transnational, and global approaches, and serves as a major jumping off point for further research into the specific fields covered by each of the expert authors. It demonstrates the global and total nature of the Second World War, giving due coverage to the conflict in all major theatres and through the lens of the key combatants and neutrals, examines issues of race, gender, ideology, and society during the war, and functions as a textbook to educate students as to the trends that have taken place in how the conflict has been (and can be) interpreted in the modern world. Divided into twelve parts that cover central themes of the conflict, including theatres of war, leadership, societies, occupation, secrecy and legacies, it enables those with no memory of war to approach it with a view to comprehending what it was all about and places the history of this conflict into a context that is international, transnational, and institutional. This is a comprehensive and accessible reference volume for anyone interested in the most up to date scholarship on this major conflict. Chapter 18 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com
Author: Jeffrey Cox
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472808347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
Author Jeffrey Cox conducts a thorough and compelling investigation of the Java Sea Campaign, the first major sea battle of the Pacific War, which inflicted huge costs on the Allies and set the stage for Japan's rout across the Pacific and Indian oceans. Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. The Japanese forces then continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands in the Pacific in their own blitzkrieg offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those suffered during the Java Sea Campaign, where a small group of Americans, British, Dutch, and Australians were isolated in the Far East – directly in the path of the Japanese onslaught. It would be the first major sea battle of World War II in the Pacific.
Author: John J. Domagalski
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526784424
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
The harrowing, triumphant true story of an antiquated light cruiser and its crew suddenly under fire in the Pacific as WWII erupted: “An engrossing tale.” —Naval Historical Foundation The old light cruiser Marblehead was living out her final years of naval service as a member of the United States Asiatic Fleet in 1941. The small group of mostly antiquated ships based in the Philippines sailed the waters of East Asia to show the American flag in places like China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. Then the sudden eruption of World War II in the Pacific put the warship on the front lines of the conflict as Imperial Japan unleased a series of devastating attacks across the region. On the morning of February 4, 1942, the warship was surprised by Japanese planes northeast of Java. Two large bombs slammed into Marblehead, causing fires and casualties and knocking out her steering gear. A third bomb exploded close by underwater. The near miss ripped a large gash into her hull, allowing a torrent of water to rush inside the ship. Escape from Java takes us throughout the ship as the story unfolds—next to gunners toiling to keep their guns firing, with medical staff tending to the wounded, and alongside damage control sailors working in flooded compartments. The Japanese confidently radioed that they had sunk the ship—but through courage, sacrifice, and superhuman effort, Marblehead would set out on a harrowing 13,000-mile journey back to the US . . . “An engrossing tale of an obsolescent ship’s survival amid great odds set against the brutal early fighting of the Pacific War. This book will appeal to a wide audience not only as high wartime adventure but simply as a story of gritty perseverance when the odds are heavily against.” —Naval Historical Foundation
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 636
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Book Description
