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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Audie Award Nominee, History, 2013
The planning, the strategy, the sacrifices and heroics - on both sides - illuminating the greatest naval war in history. On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss.
Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative. Ian W. Toll's dramatic narrative encompasses both the high command and the "sailor's-eye" view from the lower deck. Relying predominantly on eyewitness accounts and primary sources, Pacific Crucible also spotlights recent scholarship that has revised our understanding of the conflict, including the Japanese decision to provoke a war that few in the country's highest circles thought they could win. The result is a pause-resistant history that does justice to the breadth and depth of a tremendous subject.
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- Lee G
- 2020-08-01
Fascinating account of war in the Pacific
Engrossing from start to finish. It is humbling to think of all the young men that lost their lives so that we could enjoy the freedoms and luxury that is too often taken for granted.
I really enjoyed learning about the incredible complexities of carrier combat, fog of war, and how the outcome of a battle can often hinge on luck.
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