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From America's preeminent naval historian, the first full-length portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the Pacific in World War Two—"destined," says Andrew Roberts, "to be the defining life of Chester Nimitz for a long time to come." Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate available, and some, including his new boss, U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, considered him a "desk admiral," more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. Yet FDR's selection proved nothing less than inspired. From the precarious early months of the war after December 7th 1941 to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay nearly four years later, Nimitz transformed the devastated and dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding naval force in history. From the start, the pressures on Nimitz were crushing. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him. He had to corral independent-minded subordinates—including Admiral Bill "Bull" Halsey and General Holland "Howlin' Mad" Smith—and keep them focused on shared objectives. He had to maintain a sometimes-fraught relationship with his Army counterpart Douglas MacArthur, and cope with his superiors, including the formidably prickly King and the inscrutable FDR. He had to navigate the expectations of a nation impatient for revenge and eventual victory. And of course, he also confronted a formidable and implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy, which, until the Battle of Midway, had the run of the Pacific. Craig Symonds' Nimitz at War reveals how the quiet man from the Hill Country of Texas eventually surmounted all of these challenges. Using Nimitz's headquarters—the eye of the hurricane—as his vantage point, Symonds covers all the major campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. He captures Nimitz's composure, discipline, homespun wisdom, and most of all his uncanny sense of when to assert authority and when to pull back. In retrospect it is difficult to imagine anyone else accomplishing what Nimitz did. As Symonds' absorbing, dynamic, and authoritative portrait reveals, it required qualities of leadership exhibited by few other commanders in history, qualities that are enduringly and even poignantly relevant to our own moment.

Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune, (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds has established himself as one of the finest naval historians at work today. World War II at Sea represents his crowning achievement: a complete narrative of the naval war and all of its belligerents, on all of the world's oceans and seas, between 1939 and 1945. Opening with the 1930 London Conference, Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up, as Europe erupted into conflict once more and its navies were brought to bear against each other. World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina-at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world-and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; the struggles of the Russian Navy and the scuttling of the French Fleet in Toulon in 1942; the landings in North Africa and then Normandy. Here as well are the notable naval leaders-FDR and Churchill, both self-proclaimed "Navy men," Karl Dönitz, François Darlan, Ernest King, Isoroku Yamamoto, Erich Raeder, Inigo Campioni, Louis Mountbatten, William Halsey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of seamen and officers of all nationalities whose live were imperiled and lost during the greatest naval conflicts in history, from small-scale assaults and amphibious operations to the largest armadas ever assembled. Many have argued that World War II was dominated by naval operations; few have shown and how and why this was the case. Symonds combines precision with story-telling verve, expertly illuminating not only the mechanics of large-scale warfare on (and below) the sea but offering wisdom into the nature of the war itself.

Seventy years ago, more than six thousand Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a fifty-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost. Most accounts of this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6, 1944. In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of planning and intense debate. In the dark days after the evacuation of Dunkirk in the summer of 1940, British officials and, soon enough, their American counterparts, began to consider how, and, where, and especially when, they could re-enter the European Continent in force. The Americans, led by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, wanted to invade as soon as possible; the British, personified by their redoubtable prime minister, Winston Churchill, were convinced that a premature landing would be disastrous. The often-sharp negotiations between the English-speaking allies led them first to North Africa, then into Sicily, then Italy. Only in the spring of 1943, did the Combined Chiefs of Staff commit themselves to an invasion of northern France. The code name for this invasion was Overlord, but everything that came before, including the landings themselves and the supply system that made it possible for the invaders to stay there, was code-named Neptune. Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort, involving transports, escorts, gunfire support ships, and landing craft of every possible size and function. The obstacles to success were many. In addition to divergent strategic views and cultural frictions, the Anglo-Americans had to overcome German U-boats, Russian impatience, fierce competition for insufficient shipping, training disasters, and a thousand other impediments, including logistical bottlenecks and disinformation schemes. Symonds includes vivid portraits of the key decision-makers, from Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill, to Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who commanded the naval element of the invasion. Indeed, the critical role of the naval forces--British and American, Coast Guard and Navy--is central throughout. In the end, as Symonds shows in this gripping account of D-Day, success depended mostly on the men themselves: the junior officers and enlisted men who drove the landing craft, cleared the mines, seized the beaches and assailed the bluffs behind them, securing the foothold for the eventual campaign to Berlin, and the end of the most terrible war in human history.

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever. In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice. Symonds begins with the arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese attack, and describes the key events leading to the climactic battle, including both Coral Sea--the first battle in history against opposing carrier forces--and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling portraits of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance and numerous other Americans, as well as the leading Japanese figures, including the poker-loving Admiral Yamamoto. Indeed, Symonds sheds much light on the aspects of Japanese culture--such as their single-minded devotion to combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety measures on their ships--that contributed to their defeat. The author's account of the battle itself is masterful, weaving together the many disparate threads of attack--attacks which failed in the early going--that ultimately created a five-minute window in which three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink. Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a matter of luck, pointing out that Nimitz had equal forces, superior intelligence, and the element of surprise. Nimitz had a strong hand, Symonds concludes, and he rightly expected to win.

America's preeminent naval historian offers a history of the Second World War based on the experiences of the young officers--fresh out of the United States Naval Academy--who served on its front lines. They arrived in Annapolis as teenagers the year Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland and graduated as young men the week the British Army evacuated Dunkirk. Annapolis Goes to War tells the story of their four transformative years at the Naval Academy, and then four more annealing years in the cauldron of war. More than a hundred of them were on duty in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Ten of them died that day-seven remain entombed in the USS Arizona still. Over the next four years, these former Midshipmen participated in virtually every significant engagement in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, from North Africa to Normandy. They were at the front edge of the war in battleships, carriers, destroyers, submarines, and airplanes, and led Marine Corps units ashore. Some experienced the war as prisoners of the Japanese. Fifty-six of them died in the Second World War, the greatest wartime loss any service academy ever experienced. Taking readers into and through the lives of these young men in wartime, Craig Symonds offers a poignant and powerful story of adjustment, growth, pain, loss, and eventually triumph. Using their diaries, memoirs, and letters, he evokes unforgettably their trials and bonds, their loss of innocence and their discovery of the meaning of sacrifice. Annapolis Goes to War is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the experience of fighting the bloodiest war in human history.

From America's preeminent naval historian, the first full-length portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the Pacific in World War TwoD "destined," says Andrew Roberts, "to be the defining life of Chester Nimitz for a long time to come." "Nimitz at War is the greatest biography yet written about the greatest admiral in American history." - Ian Toll Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate available, and some, including his new boss, U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, considered him a "desk admiral," more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. Yet FDR's selection proved nothing less than inspired. From the precarious early months of the war after December 7th, 1941 to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay nearly four years later, Nimitz transformed the devastated and dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding naval force in history. From the start, the pressures on Nimitz were crushing. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him. He had to corral independent-minded subordinatesD including Admiral Bill "Bull" Halsey and General Holland "Howlin' Mad" SmithD and keep them focused on shared objectives. He had to maintain a sometimes-fraught relationship with his Army counterpart Douglas MacArthur, and cope with his superiors, including the formidably prickly King and the inscrutable FDR. He had to navigate the expectations of a nation impatient for revenge and eventual victory. And of course, he also confronted a formidable and implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy, which, until the Battle of Midway, had the run of the Pacific. Craig Symonds' Nimitz at War reveals how the quiet man from the Hill Country of Texas eventually surmounted all of these challenges. Using Nimitz's headquartersD the of the hurricaneD as his vantage point, Symonds covers all the major campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. He captures Nimitz's composure, discipline, homespun wisdom, and most of all his uncanny sense of when to assert authority and when to pull back. In retrospect it is difficult to imagine anyone else accomplishing what Nimitz did. As Symonds' absorbing, dynamic, and authoritative portrait reveals, it required qualities of leadership exhibited by few other commanders in history, qualities that are enduringly and even poignantly relevant to our own moment. Nimitz at War has sold over 25,000 copies in hardcover and ebook combined.

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever. In this riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice. Symonds begins with the arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese attack, and describes the key events leading to the climactic battle, including both Coral Sea--the first battle in history against opposing carrier forces--and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling portraits of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance and numerous other Americans, as well as the leading Japanese figures, including the poker-loving Admiral Yamamoto. Indeed, Symonds sheds much light on the aspects of Japanese culture--such as their single-minded devotion to combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety measures on their ships--that contributed to their defeat. Symond's account of the battle itself is masterful, weaving together the many disparate threads of attack--attacks which failed in the early going--that ultimately created a five-minute window in which three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink. Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a matter of luck, pointing out that Nimitz had equal forces, superior intelligence, and the element of surprise. Nimitz had a strong hand, Symonds concludes, and he rightly expected to win.

This fast-paced narrative traces the emergence of the United States Navy as a global power from its birth during the American Revolution through to its current superpower status. The story highlights iconic moments of great drama pivotal to the nation's fortunes: John Paul Jones' attacks on the British during the Revolution, the Barbary Wars, and the arduous conquest of Iwo Jima. The book illuminates the changes--technological, institutional, and functional--of the U.S. Navy from its days as a small frigate navy through the age of steam and steel to the modern era of electronics and missiles. Historian Craig L. Symonds captures the evolving culture of the navy and debates between policymakers about what role the institution should play in world affairs. Internal and external challenges dramatically altered the size and character of the navy, with long periods of quiet inertia alternating with rapid expansion emerging out of crises. The history of the navy reflects the history of the nation as a whole, and its many changes derive in large part from the changing role of the United States itself.

This fast-paced narrative traces the emergence of the United States Navy as a global power from its birth during the American Revolution through to its current superpower status. The story highlights iconic moments of great drama pivotal to the nation's fortunes: John Paul Jones' attacks on the British in the Revolution, the Barbary Wars, and the arduous conquest of Iwo Jima. The book illuminates the changes--technological, institutional, and functional--of the U.S. Navy from its days as a small frigate navy through the age of steam and steel to the modern era of electronics and missiles. Historian Craig L. Symonds captures the evolving culture of the Navy and debates between policymakers about what role the institution should play in world affairs. Internal and external challenges dramatically altered the size and character of the Navy, with long periods of quiet inertia alternating with rapid expansion emerging out of crises. The history of the navy reflects the history of the nation as a whole, and its many changes derive in large part from the changing role of the United States itself.

Continuing in the vein of his Lincoln Prize-winning book Lincoln and His Admirals, acclaimed naval historian Craig L. Symonds presents a masterful history of the Civil War navies--both Union and Confederate--and places them within the broader context of the emerging industrial age. Symonds begins with an account of the dramatic pre-war revolution in naval technology--the advent of steam propulsion, the screw propeller, and larger and more powerful rifled guns that could fire explosive shells as well as solid shot. These extraordinary changes were epitomized in the famous "Battle of the Ironclads"--one of the great stories of the Civil War--pitting USS Monitor against the larger and more heavily armed CSS Virginia (also known as Merrimack). Symonds also offers an overview of Lincoln's blockade of the South, a vast campaign involving as many as 500 ships and 100,000 men; discusses the fierce naval war for control of the rivers in the West; and looks at the important siege of Charleston, which would last three years and involve 40,000 men and sixty warships. Symonds concludes with three key episodes from the end of the war--the dramatic Battle of Mobile Bay, where Farragut delivered his famous cry: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"; the battle of Wilmington, where combined naval and army forces successfully overran Fort Fisher, a giant earthwork fort called by one historian "the mightiest fortress in America"; and the remarkable cruise of the CSS Shenandoah, a round-the-world voyage of 58,000 miles, during which she captured thirty-eight prizes--mostly after Lee had surrendered, alas. The Civil War at Sea illuminates a little-discussed and greatly undervalued aspect of America's national conflict. Concise yet comprehensive, this volume is a lively addition to the field of naval history.

D-Day--June 6, 1944--is seared into popular consciousness: 160,000 Allied troops landed along 50 miles of French coastline to battle German forces on the beaches of Normandy, suffering devastating losses in an invasion that would eventually lead to the liberation of Western Europe. Though it has been studied, discussed, and debated extensively, histories of D-Day have typically overlooked the incredible naval operation necessary for the invasion to succeed: Operation Neptune. Involving over five thousand ships and nearly half a million personnel, Neptune was the largest seaborne assault in human history, without which the battles at Normandy never could have taken place. In Neptune, renowned historian Craig L. Symonds brilliantly traces the central thread of this Olympian event from the first tentative conversations by British and American officers in Washington in the winter of 1941 to the storming of the beaches in the summer of 1944. With characteristically vivid narration, he uncovers the various components of the operation, including the strategic unity, industrial productivity, sea control, and organizational execution on which the Allied armies in Normandy depended. Symonds follows key personalities, both British and American, from the well-known--Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall, and "Ike " Eisenhower--to the less-prominent--Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and his American counterpart Admiral Ernest J. King--to offer an intimate look at the men involved in this exceptional campaign. Operation Neptune was never a sure-thing, as Symonds shows, and Neptune explores the disputes of the Anglo-American allies, the demands of Russia, the dangers of German U-boats, and the hundreds of logistical bottlenecks that could have undone the operation at any time. From the suppressing of the U-boat menace in the Battle of the Atlantic to the gearing up of the industrial machine to produce the ships, tanks, landing craft, and other tools of war that would make an invasion possible, Symonds' riveting narrative uncovers the means by which Neptune was brought to fruition, and presents for the first time a comprehensive history of the greatest naval operation of the 20th century.

This work provides an assessment of the crucial roles played by the Union and Confederate navies in the Civil War. From Craig Symonds, author of the 2009 Lincoln Prize award-winner Lincoln and His Admirals, comes a fascinating look at the era when American naval power came of age. Thoroughly researched and excitingly written, it brings to light a wealth of new information on a pivotal aspect of the Civil War. The Civil War at Sea covers navies on both sides of the conflict, examining key issues such as the impact of emergent technologies, the effectiveness of the Union's ambitious strategy of blockading, the odyssey of Confederate commerce raiders, the role of naval forces on the western rivers, and the difficulty of conducting combined sea and ground operations against the major Southern port cities. For Civil War buffs, fans of military and technological history, and other interested readers, it is insightful, essential reading.

General Joseph E. Johnston was in command of Confederate forces at the South's first victory—Manassas in July 1861—and at its last—Bentonville in April 1965. Many of his contemporaries considered him the greatest southern field commander of the war; others ranked him second only to Robert E. Lee. But Johnston was an enigmatic man. His battlefield victories were never decisive. He failed to save Confederate forces under siege by Grant at Vicksburg, and he retreated into Georgia in the face of Sherman's march. His intense feud with Jefferson Davis ensured the collapse of the Confederacy's western campaign in 1864 and made Johnston the focus of a political schism within the government. Now in this rousing narrative of Johnston's dramatic career, Craig L. Symonds gives us the first rounded portrait of the general as a public and private man.

To Jefferson Davis, he was the "Stonewall of the West"; to Robert E. Lee, he was "a meteor shining from a clouded sky"; and to Braxton Bragg, he was an officer "ever alive to a success." He was Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, one of the greatest of all Confederate field commanders.An Irishman by birth, Cleburne emigrated to the United States in 1849 at the age of 21. He achieved only modest success in the peacetime South, but rose rapidly in the wartime army to become the Confederacy's finest division commander. He was admired by peers and subordinates alike for his leadership, loyalty, honesty, and fearlessness in the face of enemy fire. The valor of his command was so inspirational that his unit alone was allowed to carry its own distinctive battle flag.In Stonewall of the West, Craig Symonds offers the first full-scale critical biography of this compelling figure. He explores all the sources of Cleburne's commitment to the Southern cause, his growth as a combat leader from Shiloh to Chickamauga, and his emergence as one of the Confederacy's most effective field commanders at Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap, and Pickett's Mill. In addition, Symonds unravels the "mystery" of Spring Hill and recounts Cleburne's dramatic and untimely death (at the age of 36) at Franklin, Tennessee, where he charged the enemy line on foot after having two horses shot from under him.Symonds also explores Cleburne's role in the complicated personal politics of the Army of Tennessee, as well as his astonishing proposal that the decimated Confederate ranks be filled by ending slavery and arming blacks against the Union.Symonds' definitive and immensely readable narrative casts new light on Cleburne, on the Army of Tennessee, and on the Civil War in the West. It finally and firmly establishes Cleburne's rightful place in the pantheon of Southern military heroes.

From the Battle of Flamborough Head during the American Revolution to the naval air wars over Vietnam and Kuwait, this historical atlas charts the course of the U.S. Navy across its entire history. Laid out here are the frigate duels of the War of 1812, the confrontation of ironclads during the Civil War, the World War II carrier battles in the Pacific, and the amphibious landings in Korea. Depicted also are campaigns, operations, and interwar interventions-like the cruise of the Susquehanna, Perry's mission to Japan, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Desert Storm-all helping to make this cartographic portrait of U.S. naval actions understandable at a glance. The maps in this large-format, high quality book are presented in full colour and show the deployment of ships, their tracks, and even some shore activity. Each map has facing text that describes the action and its political, economic, and strategic significance. The atlas is organized chronologically into ten eras with each section preceded by a thoughtful essay about that historical period and accompanied by relevant illustrations of ships, battles, and portraits of significant individuals.

A leading historian of both the American Civil War and American naval history takes a fresh look at Franklin Buchanan, the U.S. Naval Academy’s first superintendent who went on to become the Confederate Navy’s first admiral. Buchanan’s resignation from the U.S. Navy in April 1861 as the nation teetered on the brink of Civil War is one of the many dramatic episodes in this revealing biography. Convinced that his native state of Maryland was about to secede from the Union, Buchanan gave up his commission but, when Maryland did not secede, desperately tried to get it back. Unsuccessful, he eventually went South where, as the Confederacy’s only full admiral, he helped mold Southern naval strategy and took command of both the Virginia (Merrimack) in the battle of Hampton Roads in 1861, and the Tennessee in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864 when Farragut damned the torpedoes. While Buchanan’s Civil War experiences helped define the drama of the period, his fifty-year naval career illuminates the sweeping changes in the U.S. Navy of the antebellum years. This stimulating and authoritative biography chronicles Buchanan’s life as a midshipman on the square-rigged sailing frigate Java and as a commander at the helm of the coal-burning side-wheel steamer Susquehanna. It examines his pivotal role in the establishment of the Naval Academy and his experiences as the first American to set foot in Japan and the first to command a U.S. Navy warship up the Yangtze River. More than a record of events in Buchanan’s career, this biography helps readers understand Buchanan’s character and appreciate the broader issues of politics, slavery, loyalty, and professionalism in the era of America’s greatest national trauma.