A Ship To Remember

In the one short year of life allotted to it, the carrier Hornet placed itself in the illustrious company of such ships as the Constitution, the Merrimar, the Monitor, Admiral Dewey’s Olympia, and the iron-clad Oregon.

Untried and still on her shakedown cruise, the Hornet was plunged into the Battle of the Pacific with orders to defend by attack while the main power of the Pacific fleet was being resurrected from Pearl Harbor. How she did it is attested by her casualty lists at Midway, her raids on Japanese supply lines, her breathless ferrying job to within 800 miles of Japan with Doolittle’s bombers. She left the wreckage of 18 enemy ships and countless enemy planes behind her in the course of her short career.

Alexander R. Griffin tells his throbbing story with restraint and true affection. It is an adventure narrative that out-thrills fiction.

“This book is a distinct addition to the literature of the war. It tells a magnificent story in sharp and realistic fashion; and all the officers and men aboard the Hornet throughout her career are given their just due. It is from books like this that the American public must piece together the real history of the war.”—Lincoln Colcord, The New York Times Herald Tribune

“A swift-paced narrative of history and humor, of biography and battle of salt-spray, tropical dawns and fighting young yankees…it is one long spectacle of action from the day the Hornet emerged from Hampton Roads on her shakedown cruise to the fateful afternoon of her death thousands of miles distant and over in the Pacific.”—Charles Lee, Philadelphia Record

“Here is much naval history that has not been told before. Mr. Griffin, writing from a detached viewpoint, does not get the reader all entangled in the rigging. A SHIP TO REMEMBER is a must for those who like to read their history contemporaneously and get it straight.”—Foster Hailey, The New York Times