Quotes from James D. Hornfischer

The leading navies of the world were situated in a challenging period between the age of fighting sail and the age of nuclear propulsion when fuel was consumable and therefore a critical limit on their reach. Once the term steaming replaced sailing in the naval lexicon, the concept of an operating radius took root. "If an enemy lay beyond that radius, the fleet might as well be chained to a post," a maritime historian wrote.

When a man is in command, he sits in a position where he cannot have friend or foe. Regular human relationships do not figure into it. So you can't worry about what people think of you, and you can't lie awake and have sleepless nights. The job of being in command is lonely by definition.

Neither triumphalism, condemnation, nor apology does intellectual or emotional justice to the brute reality of this savage war, the outcome of which could not have been known in the moment.

The journalist and critic I. F. Stone would call the state of mind that permitted the Pearl Harbor attack "sheer stodgy unimaginative bureaucratic complacency.

This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.

The question of morality in warfare is vexing. Is there a moral way to kill someone? Is a bullet preferable to starvation, starvation to incineration? By law or by norm, who is a legitimate target in a war in which one side will not yield?

Courage could arise from an ability to let go of fear for your own life and limbs.

For reasons of electoral calculation—to preserve his Democratic majorities in a congressional midterm election—Roosevelt wanted American troops fighting Germans before the end of the year. "We failed to see," Marshall would write, "that the leader in a democracy has to keep the people entertained. The people demand action.

When great men blunder, they count their losses in pride and reputation and glory. The underlings count their losses in blood. —Theodore C. Mason, Battleship Sailor (1982)

The lack of a consensus within American ranks effectively left Germany-first to exist only in the minds of politicians. The numbers spoke for themselves: At the end of 1942, the United States would field nearly 25 percent more combat troops in the Pacific than it did in England and North Africa, 464,000 to 378,000.

Criticism of basic concepts in the Imperial Navy would have impugned the top-level admirals, and brought instant dismissal of the critic," Hara wrote.

The after turret, with no such restraints, kept firing, however, and as it trained straight aft the wash of fire from her barrels set fire to her two floatplanes, fantail-mounted on catapults. The small bonfires raged briefly before the next salvo blew them right off the ship.

An escort carrier was built on a cargo ship's hull. Shipbuilding magnate Henry J. Kaiser was the Lee Iacocca of his day, a visionary industrialist whose name was a household word.

It was downright harrowing to be airborne while battleships offshore were bombarding targets ashore. Pilots flying gunnery spotting missions became sandwiched in an invisible corridor between salvos from the big ships offshore. While they spotted shell bursts and called in corrections, fourteen-hundred-pound battleship shells flew overhead in trios, plainly visible to the eye. Below, the smaller warheads of the cruisers whizzed past.

Having tasted defeat, the Navy was starting to come back to appreciating the unpolished strengths of the Georgia farm boys who found themselves under gentle persecution on board Commander Wylie's Fletcher. A rebel yell and a blast of powder. That and a little planning and technical proficiency would carry the day.

Ghormley wary about the threat of espionage. No doubt mindful of the role that spies played in the surprise attacks at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, Ghormley wrote his staff, "Loose talk is a stupid habit.… Some would risk the lives of their friends by a silly effort to impress others in public places.

Burdens grew heavier the higher one ascended in rank. Captains concerned themselves with ships and crews, commodores with squadrons, task force commanders with objectives, and theater commanders with campaigns. The burdens of sailors weighed mostly on the muscles. The weight of leadership was subtler and heavier. It could test the conscience.

Distinctions were being drawn between officers who were battle-minded and those whose savage instincts were reserved for advancing their own careers. Qualities that got you ahead in peacetime were yielding to skills equally ageless, but prized only in desperate times: a glint in the eye, a forward-leaning, balls-of-the-feet bearing, a constitutional aspect of professionalized aggression.