Neptune's Inferno
The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors comes a “vivid and engaging” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal.
“A literary tour de force that is destined to become one of the . . . definitive works about the battle for Guadalcanal.”—San Antonio Express-News
The Battle of Guadalcanal has long been heralded as a Marine victory. Now, with his powerful portrait of the Navy’s sacrifice, James D. Hornfischer tells for the first time the full story of the men who fought in destroyers, cruisers, and battleships in the narrow, deadly waters of “Ironbottom Sound.” Here, in stunning cinematic detail, are the seven major naval actions that began in August 1942, a time when the war seemed unwinnable and America fought on a shoestring, with the outcome always in doubt. Working from interviews with survivors, unpublished eyewitness accounts, and previously unavailable documents, Hornfischer paints a vivid picture of the officers and enlisted men who opposed the Japanese in America’s hour of need.
Neptune’s Inferno does what all great battle narratives do: It tells the gripping human stories behind the momentous events and critical decisions that altered the course of history and shaped so many lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hornfischer (Ship of Ghosts) understands the human dynamics of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific war as well as any student of the subject. Here he focuses on the period when the Navy underwent its sternest test. The struggle for Guadalcanal, he writes, was "the most sustained and vicious fight of the Pacific war." It featured seven major naval actions and required the Navy to master a new kind of war: it was the first of the amphibious expeditionary campaigns charcteristic of the Pacific theater, combining air, land, and sea forces,and the U.S. was spectacularly unprepared to cope with its demands. Nor did the U.S. understand as yet how effective its Japanese opponent was eventually, this knowledge was purchased with blood, and Hornfischer gives an empathetic but balanced account of that process. He reconstructs the fighting in a masterful synthesis of technical analysis, operational narrative, and tales of courage. His listing of one set of commendations submitted by one ship after one action stands in particular for all "the men without rank" who made up for the shortcomings of ship designers, admirals, and captains in the waters of Ironbottom Sound. 16 pages of b&w photos, 9 maps.
