Reviewed by Robert P. Largess. Once, a much-esteemed young man, then in his all-knowing 20’s, asked me “How can you keep on reading books on WWII? Don’t you already know everything there is to know?” Now, decades later, the perfect answer has appeared in the form of Richard Frank’s immensely learned
For two months after its shocking defeat at the Battle of Savo Island, the USN conceded control by night of the waters around Guadalcanal to the Japanese surface navy. But on October 11, 1942, Rear Adm. Norman Scott moved in his cruiser/destroyer force to challenge this control for the first time. Just before midnight, he
By John Burton, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD (2006) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Since Billy Mitchell’s sinking of the “Ostfriesland” in 1921, the US Army Air Force argued the case for the power of large bombers to defeat naval forces. At the beginning of WWII, British, German, Japanese, and Italian air forces shared this
By Dr. Alfred Price, First published by William Kimber 1967, expanded 1977, revised 2005, reissued 2017 by Frontline Books, S. Yorkshire, England. Available from the USNI Press. Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Although Dr. Alfred Price died in January of 2017, it is entirely fitting that the first brilliant book by this superb analyst and
Thomas J. Cutler, Series Ed., Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD (2016) Reviewed by: Robert P. Largess The U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings has been a pillar of intelligent discourse on naval science, events, technology and history since its first issue in 1874. Always imaginative, open, thoughtful, Proceedings is a goldmine of high-quality material for the naval
By Arthur Mokin, Amazon Digital Services LLC, Original Publisher, Presidio Press, Novato CA, (1991) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Searching “Monitor and Merrimac” on Amazon brought up twenty-five books of popular history or historical fiction, seventeen of which were in print or available on Kindle, including Arthur Mokin’s 1991 novel, Ironclad. Why so many? Obviously,
By Jim Stempel, McFarland and Co., Publishers, Jefferson, NC (2011) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Writing years after the Civil War, Gideon Welles remarked of William B. Cushing: “…the great chief of the American Navy, Farragut…said to me that while no navy had braver or better officers than ours, young Cushing was the hero of
By Bruce Ware Allen, ForeEdge: An Imprint of the University Press of New England, NH, (2015) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess On May 18, 1565, a Turkish fleet of 193 ships arrived off the arid, searing hot island of Malta, at the crossroads of the Mediterranean between Africa and Sicily. Its target was the Knights
Chuck Veit, Self Published (2016) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Chuck Veit is something of a master in recreating the world of Civil War America and the personality of real individuals of that time through contemporary newspapers, letters, speeches, and diaries. In The Yankee Expedition to Sevastopol, he did a remarkable job of bringing salvor,
By Norman Polmar and Edward Whitman, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD (2015) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess In a page-long “Perspective” prefacing this unusual book, the authors express the reason for its writing: “Since the early decades of the last century, several hundred non-fiction books have been written about submarines and submarine warfare.” This substantial
By Chuck Veit, published through Lulu.com (2014) Reviewed by Robert P. Largess Forty years ago, I picked Commander Edward Ellsberg’s On the Bottom off the bookshelf of an elderly friend, a favorite from his own boyhood. The story of the raising of the submarine S-51 from 132 feet of seawater off Block Island in 1925
