The Pacific War changed abruptly in November 1943 when Admiral Chester Nimitz unleashed a relentless 18-month, 4,000-mile offensive across the Central Pacific, spearheaded by fast carrier task forces and U.S. Marine and Army assault troops. The sudden American proclivity for amphibious frontal assaults against fortified islands astonished Japanese commanders, who called them “storm landings” because they differed so sharply from the limited landings of 1942-43. This is the story of seven epic assaults from the sea against murderous enemy fire—Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Each risky battle enhanced the U.S. capability to concentrate overwhelming naval force against a distant island and literally kick down the front door. While the assault forces learned priceless operational lessons from each landing, so did the Japanese. The ultimate U.S. victory in the seven “storm landings” came at the total cost of 100,000 killed and wounded. The survivors faced the prospect of even bloodier future beachheads against mainland Japan. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of analyzing U.S. and Japanese battle accounts, personal interviews with veterans, and his own amphibious warfare experience. Abounding with human-interest stories of colorful “web-footed amphibians,” his book vividly portrays the sheer drama of these naval battles whose magnitude and ferocity may never again be seen in this world.

On November 20, 1943, the U.S. military invaded the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands as part of the first American offensive in the Central Pacific region during World War II. This invasion marked more than one first, as it was also the introductory test of a doctrine developed during the interwar years to address problems inherent in situations in which amphibious assaults required support by naval gunfire rather than land-based artillery. In this detailed study, Donald K. Mitchener documents and analyzes the prewar development of this doctrine as well as its application and evolution between the years 1943–1945. The historical consensus is that the test at Tawara was successful and increased the efficiency with which U.S. forces were able to apply the doctrine in the Pacific theater for the remainder of the Second World War. Mitchener challenges this view, arguing that the reality was much more complex. He reveals that strategic concerns often took precedence over the lessons learned in the initial engagement, and that naval planners' failure to stay up to date with the latest doctrinal developments and applications sometimes led them to ignore these lessons altogether. U.S. Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific War presents an important analysis that highlights the human cost of misinterpreting strategic and tactical realities.

World War with China explodes in Hunter Killer, David Poyer's dramatic new thriller. The United States stands nearly alone in its determination to fight, rather than give into the expansionist demands of the aggressive new “People’s Empire.” The naval and air forces of the Associated Powers – China, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea – have used advanced technology and tactical nuclear weapons to devastate America's fleet in the Pacific, while its massive army forced humiliating surrenders on Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other crucial allies. Admiral Dan Lenson, commanding a combined US–South Korean naval force, and Commander Cheryl Staurulakis of USS Savo Island fight to turn the tide and prepare for an Allied counteroffensive. Meanwhile, SEAL operator Teddy Oberg escapes from a hellish POW camp and heads west through desolate mountains toward what he hopes will be freedom. Hector Ramos, an unwilling recruit, learns the Marine Corps has an ethos all its own. And in Washington, DC, Dan’s wife Blair Titus helps formulate America's political response to overwhelming setbacks in the Pacific and at on the home front. Filled with dramatic battle scenes, from ship, submarine, and air warfare to desperate hand-to-hand Marine Corps combat, and informed by the author's own background as a Navy captain and defense analyst, Hunter Killer is a powerful, all-too-believable novel about how the next world war might unfold.

Black Dragon recounts the experience of a single Marine rifle company—2-F-23, or “Fox” Company—and its drive through the central Pacific in World War II. Author Steven D. McCloud, through painstaking research of battlefield reports and extensive interviews with surviving members of Fox Company, has reanimated the grueling, day-by-day slog through the Pacific theater through the eyes of the US Marines who endured it. This is the story of American teenagers who left home, many for the first time, trained together, and formed a team that held strong until, at last, those who survived tried to leave it all behind as they dispersed, returned home, and sought to build their lives. Decades later, Fox Company re-formed through correspondence and reunions and also welcomed McCloud into their midst by telling him their stories. McCloud took notes, chased down company reports and other documents to fill in the gaps, and carefully reconstructed their journey. As one member of Fox Company recalled after returning to Iwo Jima half a century later, “I think the pilgrimage to Iwo has helped me conquer my black dragons—those bloody and stinking nightmares that made nightly uninvited visits for fifty-six years. My dreams were in color, predominantly bloody red. Those remaining are in black and white and shades of gray, not so violent and stinking. These I can live with.” Readers who reveled in Stephen Ambrose’s masterful oral history of E Company in the European theater will find similar heroism and heartbreak in the pages of Black Dragon.

Tracing the history of U.S. Marine Force and Battalion Reconnaissance from its formation in 1898 through its operations during the Vietnam War (1963-1971), this book provides insight into Force Recon's selection, training and deployment. Emphasis on actions with the South Vietnamese ARVN highlights important lessons for today's Special Forces community, illustrating the inter-service cooperation of Recon operations. Firsthand accounts of Marines who served are included, along with photographs, maps and appendices.