A comprehensive overview of the strategy, operations and vessels of the United States Navy from 1941 to 1945. Although slowly building its navy while neutral during the early years of World War II, the US was struck a serious blow when its battleships, the lynchpin of US naval doctrine, were the target of the dramatic attack at Pearl Harbor. In the Pacific Theatre, the US was thereafter locked into a head to head struggle with the impressive Imperial Japanese Navy, fighting a series of major battles in the Coral Sea, at Midway, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa in the struggle for supremacy over Japan. Having avoided the decisive defeat sought by the IJN, the US increased industrial production and by the end of the war, the US Navy was larger than any other in the world. Meanwhile in the west, the US Navy operated on a second front, supporting landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and in 1944 played a significant part in the D-Day landings, the largest and most complex amphibious operation of all time. Written by an acknowledged expert and incorporating extensive illustrations including photographs, maps and colour artwork, this book offers a detailed look at the strategy, operations and vessels of the US Navy in World War II.

Building on the official Navy chronologies, this book presents a year-by-year summary of significant naval activities from 1775 to the present. Key historical entries, along with significant operations, technological advances, and narratives of the women and men instrumental in shaping the organisation, are written by leading experts in each subject. With a distinctive battleship cover and 1000 photographs, this authoritative and encyclopaedic account of the U S Navy is an important addition to any military history collection.

As the United States grew into an empire in the late nineteenth century, notions like "sea power" derived not only from fleets, bases, and decisive battles but also from a scientific effort to understand and master the ocean environment. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and concluding in the first years of the twentieth, Jason W. Smith tells the story of the rise of the U.S. Navy and the emergence of American ocean empire through its struggle to control nature. In vividly told sketches of exploration, naval officers, war, and, most significantly, the ocean environment, Smith draws together insights from environmental, maritime, military, and naval history, and the history of science and cartography, placing the U.S. Navy's scientific efforts within a broader cultural context. By recasting and deepening our understanding of the U.S. Navy and the United States at sea, Smith brings to the fore the overlooked work of naval hydrographers, surveyors, and cartographers. In the nautical chart's soundings, names, symbols, and embedded narratives, Smith recounts the largely untold story of a young nation looking to extend its power over the boundless sea.

'United States Navy Aircraft since 1911' has been completely revised and updated and, like the earlier editions, will become the standard reference work covering all the aircraft of the US Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

Published to coincide with the centennial celebration of U.S. Navy Aviation, this book chronicles Navy aviation from its earliest days, before the Navy’s first aircraft carrier joined the fleet, through the modern jet era marked by the introduction of the F-18 Hornet. It tells how naval aviation got its start, profiles its pioneers, and explains the early bureaucracy that fostered and sometimes inhibited its growth. The book then turns to the refinement of carrier aviation doctrine and tactics and the rapid development of aircraft and carriers, highlighting the transition from propeller-driven aircraft to swept wing jets in the period after WW II. Land-based Navy aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft and rigid airships, and balloons are also considered in this sweeping tribute.

Ten years after the close of World War II, the U.S. Navy published a chronology of its operations in the war. Long out of print, the work focused on what were then defined as critical and decisive events. It ignored a multitude of combat actions as well as the loss or damage of many types of U.S. ships and craft—particularly auxiliaries, amphibious ships, and district craft—and entirely omitted the U.S. submarine campaign against Japanese shipping, This greatly expanded and updated study, now available in paperback with an index, goes far beyond the original work, drawing on information from more than forty additional years of historical research and writing. Massive, but well organized, it addresses operational aspects of the U.S. Navy’s war in every theater.

This brisk narrative charts the history of the United States Navy from its birth during the American Revolution through its emergence as a global power amid the world wars of the twentieth century and finally to its current role as a superpower in the twenty-first century.

Learning War examines the U.S. Navy’s doctrinal development from 1898–1945 and explains why the Navy in that era was so successful as an organization at fostering innovation. A revolutionary study of one of history’s greatest success stories, this book draws profoundly important conclusions that give new insight, not only into how the Navy succeeded in becoming the best naval force in the world, but also into how modern organizations can exploit today’s rapid technological and social changes in their pursuit of success. Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.

This is a musician’s tale: the story of a boy growing up on the Iron Range, playing his guitar at family gatherings, coming of age in the psychedelic seventies, and honing his craft as a pro in Minneapolis, ground zero of American popular music in the mid-eighties. “There is a drop of blood behind every note I play and every word I write,” Paul Metsa says. And it’s easy to believe, as he conducts us on a musical journey across time and country, navigating switchbacks, detours, dead ends, and providing us the occasional glimpse of the promised land on the blue guitar highway. His account captures the thrill of the Twin Cities when acts like the Replacements, Husker Dü, and Prince were remaking pop music. It takes us right onto the stages he shared with stars like Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, and Bruce Springsteen. And it gives us a close-up, dizzying view of the roller-coaster ride that is the professional musician’s life, played out against the polarizing politics and intimate history of the past few decades of American culture. Written with a songwriter’s sense of detail and ear for poetry, Paul Metsa’s book conveys all the sweet absurdity, dry humor, and passion for the language of music that has made his story sing.