The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of t

Description: The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS "Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthurs vulnerable invasion force were the "Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history.In the tradition of the #1 "New York Times bestseller "Flags of Our Fathers, James D. Hornfischer paints an unprecedented portrait of the Battle of Samar, a naval engagement unlike any other in U.S. history—and captures with unforgettable intensity the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory."From the Hardcover edition. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS "Samuel B. Roberts" on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthurs vulnerable invasion force were the "Roberts" and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history.In the tradition of the #1 "New York Times" bestseller Flags of Our Fathers, James D. Hornfischer paints an unprecedented portrait of the Battle of Samar, a naval engagement unlike any other in U.S. history—and captures with unforgettable intensity the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory."From the Hardcover edition." Back Cover Desperately fought on the morning of October 25, 1944, the Battle off Samar is one of the most celebrated engagements in United States naval lore. Facing overwhelming firepower, with no prospect of reinforcement, thirteen American warships began a fight they couldnt win-and fought it to the death. Weaving together extensive interviews with veterans, unpublished eyewitness accounts, declassified documents, and rare Japanese sources, James D. Hornfischer has created an unprecedented account of a naval engagement unlike any other in American history. A resonant portrait of the Navy mans indomitable spirit and a stirring tale of heroism in the face of hopeless odds, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors unforgettably captures the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory. Author Biography James D. Hornfischer is a writer, literary agent, and former book editor. The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, his first book, won the 2004 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and their three children. "From the Hardcover edition." Review "One of the finest WWII naval action narratives in recent years, this book follows in the footsteps of Flags of Our Fathers. . . . Exalting American sailors and pilots as they richly deserve. . . . Reads like a very good action novel."--Publishers Weekly "Reads as fresh as tomorrows headlines. . . . Hornfischers captivating narrative uses previously classified documents to reconstruct the epic battle and eyewitness accounts to bring the officers and sailors to life."--Texas Monthly "Hornfischer is a powerful stylist whose explanations are clear as well as memorable. . . . A dire survival-at-sea saga."--Denver Post "In The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James Hornfischer drops you right into the middle of this raging battle, with 5-inch guns blazing, torpedoes detonating and Navy fliers dive-bombing. . . . The overall story of the battle is one of American guts, glory and heroic sacrifice."--Omaha World Herald Review Quote "One of the finest WWII naval action narratives in recent years, this book follows in the footsteps of Flags of Our Fathers.... exalting American sailors and pilots as they richly deserve.... Reads like a very good action novel." --Publishers Weekly "Reads as fresh as tomorrows headlines.... Hornfischers captivating narrative uses previously classified documents to reconstruct the epic battle and eyewitness accounts to bring the officers and sailors to life." --Texas Monthly "Hornfischer is a powerful stylist whose explanations are clear as well as memorable.... a dire survival-at-sea saga." --The Denver Post "In The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James Hornfischer drops you right into the middle of this raging battle, with 5-inch guns blazing, torpedoes detonating and Navy fliers dive-bombing.... The overall story of the battle is one of American guts, glory and heroic sacrifice." --The Omaha World Herald From the Hardcover edition. Excerpt from Book October 25, 1944 San Bernardino Strait, the Philippines A giant stalked through the darkness. In the moonless calm after midnight, the great fleet seemed not so much to navigate the narrow strait as to fill it with armor and steel. Barely visible even to a night-trained eye, the long silhouettes of twenty-three warships passed in a column ten miles long, guided by the dim glow of the channel lights in the passage threading between the headlands of Luzon and Samar. That such a majestic procession should move without challenge was surprising, inexplicable even, in light of the vicious reception the Americans had already given it on its journey from Borneo to this critical point. Having weathered submarine ambush the night before, and assault by wave after wave of angry blue aircraft the previous afternoon, Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita, steward of the last hopes of the Japanese empire, would have been right to expect the worst. But then Kurita knew that heavenly influences could be counted upon to trump human planning. In war, events seldom cooperate with expectation. Given the dependable cruelty of the divine hand, most unexpected of all, perhaps was this fact: Unfolding at last after more than two years of retreat, Japans ornate plan to defend the Philippines appeared to be working perfectly. For its complexity, for its scale, for its extravagantly optimistic overelegance, the Sho plan represented the very best and also the very worst tendencies of the Imperial Navy. The Japanese militarys fondness for bold strokes had been evident from the earliest days of the war: the sudden strike on Pearl Harbor, the sprawling offensive into the Malay Peninsula, the lightning thrust into the Philippines, and the smaller but no less swift raids on Wake Island, Guam, Hong Kong and northern Borneo. Allied commanders believed the Japanese could not tackle more than one objective at a time. The sudden spasm of advances of December 1941, in which Japan struck with overwhelming force in eight directions at once, refuted that fallacy. In the wars early days, Japan had overwhelmed enemies stretched thin by the need to defend their scattered colonies throughout the hemisphere. But as the war continued, the geographical breadth of its conquests saddled Japan in turn with the necessity of piecemeal defense. America rallied, the home fronts spirits boosted by the gallant if doomed defense of Wake Island and by Jimmy Doolittles raid on Tokyo. As heavier blows landed--the Battle of the Coral Sea, the triumph at Midway, the landings on Guadalcanal and the leapfrogging campaign through the Solomons and up the northern coast of New Guinea--Japans overstretched domain was in turn overrun by the resurgent Americans. The hard charge of U.S. Marines up the bloody path of Tarawa, the Marshalls, and the Marianas Islands had put American forces, by the middle of 1944, in position to sever the vital artery connecting the Japanese home islands to their resource-rich domain in East Asia. The Philippines were that pressure point. Their seizure by the Americans would push the entire Japanese empire toward collapse. The strength America wielded in its counteroffensive was the nightmare prophecy foretold by Admiral Isoraku Yamamoto and other far-sighted Japanese commanders who had long dreaded war with an industrial giant. As two great American fleets closed in on the Philippines in October, with Gen. Douglas MacArthurs troops spearheading the ground assault on the Philippine island of Leyte, Japan activated its own last-ditch plan to forestall the inevitable defeat. It was unfolding now. Admiral Kurita was its linchpin. The Sho plans audacity--orchestrating the movements of four fleets spread across thousands of miles of ocean and the land-based aircraft necessary to protect them--was both its genius and its potentially disastrous weakness. Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, leading the remnants of Japans once glorious naval air arm, would steam south from Japan with his aircraft carriers and try to lure the American fast carrier groups north, away from Leyte. With the U.S. flattops busy pursuing the decoy, two Japanese battleship groups would close on Leyte from the north and south and deal MacArthur a surprise, killing blow. Admiral Kurita had departed Brunei on October 22 with his powerful Center Force, led by the Yamato and Musashi, the two largest warships afloat, aiming to slip across the South China Sea, pass through San Bernardino Strait above Samar Island, and close on the Leyte beachhead from the north. Meanwhile, the Southern Force, led by Vice Adm. Shoji Nishimura and supported by Vice Adm. Kiyohide Shima, would cross the Sulu Sea and approach Leyte from the south, through Surigao Strait. In the morning, after their thousand-mile journeys through perilous waters, Kuritas and Nishimuras battleship groups would rendezvous at 9:00 a.m. off Leyte islands eastern shore, encircling the islands like hands around a throat. Then they would turn their massive guns on MacArthurs invasion force. Japan would at last win the decisive battle that had eluded it in the twenty-eight months since the debacle at Midway. Kuritas grandfather had been a great scholar of early Meiji literature. His father too had been a distinguished man of learning, author of a magisterial history of his native land. Now Takeo Kurita, who preferred action to words, would make his own contribution to it. Off Samar Gathered around the radio set in the combat information center of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts, they listened as a hundred miles to their south, their heavier counterparts in the Seventh Fleet encountered the first signs that the Japanese defense of the Philippines was underway. There was no telling precisely what their countrymen faced. It was something big--that much was for sure. And yet, until the scale of the far-off battle became too apparent to ignore, they would pretend it was just another midwatch. By the routine indications, it was. They watched the radar scopes and the scopes watched back, bathing the darkened compartment in cathode-green fluorescence but revealing no enemy nearby. The southwest Pacific slept. But something was on the radio, and it put the lie to the silent night. The tactical circuit they were using to eavesdrop was meant for sending and receiving short-range messages from ship to ship. Officers used it to trade scuttlebutt with other vessels about what their radar was showing, about their course changes, about the targets they were tracking. By day, the high-frequency Talk Between Ships signal reached only to the line of sight. But tonight, the earths atmosphere was working its magic and the TBS broadcasts from faraway ships were propagating wildly, bouncing over the horizon to the small warships vigilant antennae. They had come from small places to accomplish big things. As the American liberation of the Philippines unfolded, the greenhorn enlistees who made up majority of the Samuel B. Robertss 224-man complement could scarcely have guessed at the scope of the drama to come. On the midnight-to-four-a.m. midwatch, the Robertss skipper, Lt. Cdr. Robert W. Copeland, his executive officer, Lt. Everett E. "Bob" Roberts, his communications officer, Lt. Tom Stevenson, and the young men under them in the little ships combat information center (CIC) had little else to do than while away the night as the destroyer escort zigzagged lazily off the eastern coast of Samar with the twelve other ships of its task unit. When morning warmed the eastern horizon, the daily routine would begin anew: run through morning general quarters, then edge closer to shore with the six small aircraft carriers that were the purpose of the flotillas existence and launch air strikes in support of the American troops advancing into Leyte Island. With a mixture of pride and resignation, the men of the Seventh Fleet called themselves "MacArthurs Navy." The unusual arrangement that placed the powerful armada under Army command was the product of the long-standing interservice rivalry. The two service branches, each wildly successful, were beating divergent paths to Tokyo. From June 1943 to August 1944, MacArthurs forces had leapfrogged across the southern Pacific, staging eighty-seven successful amphibious landings in a drive from Dutch New Guinea and west-by-northwestward across a thousand-mile swath of islanded sea to the foot of the Philippine archipelago. Simultaneously, Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitzs fast carrier groups, accompanied by battle-hardened Marine divisions, had driven across the Central Pacific. The perpetual motion of the American industrial machine had built a naval and amphibious arsenal of such staggering size, range and striking power that the vast sea seemed to shrink around it. "Our naval power in the western Pacific was such that we could have challenged the combined fleets of the world," Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., would write in his memoirs. The rival commanders had used it so well that the Pacific Ocean was no longer large enough to hold their conflicting ambitions. There was little of the Pacific left to liberate. Behind them lay conquered ground. Ahead, looking westward to the Philippines and beyond, was a short watery vista bounded by the shores of Manchuria, China, and Indonesia. Once the Far East had seemed a world away. Allied soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen operating along the far Pacific rim early in the war--the Flying Tigers in China, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in Java, the marines on Wake Island, the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor--were consigned to oblivion, so desperately far from home. Now that U.S. forces had crossed that world, the greatest challenge was to agr Details ISBN0553381482 Short Title LAST STAND OF THE TIN CAN SAIL Publisher Bantam Language English ISBN-10 0553381482 ISBN-13 9780553381481 Media Book Format Paperback Illustrations Yes Year 2005 Publication Date 2005-03-31 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Alternative 9780736697477 DEWEY 940.542 Author James D. Hornfischer Pages 528 Edition Description Revised Imprint Presidio Press Subtitle The Extraordinary World War II Story of the Us Navys Finest Hour DOI 10.1604/9780553381481 Audience General/Trade UK Release Date 2005-03-29 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:145100320;

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