by Eric Jay Dolin

Winner of NOUS' 2023 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

The best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters reclaims the daring freelance sailors who proved essential to the winning of the Revolutionary War. The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told before, yet missing from most maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels, from 20-foot whaleboats to 40-cannon men-of-war, that truly revealed the new nation’s character―above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos. In Rebels at Sea, Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, though often seen as profiteers at best and pirates at worst, were in fact critical to the Revolution’s outcome. Armed with cannons, swivel guns, muskets, and pikes―as well as government documents granting them the right to seize enemy ships―thousands of privateers tormented the British on the broad Atlantic and in bays and harbors on both sides of the ocean. Abounding with tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Rebels at Sea presents the American Revolution as we have rarely seen it before.

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Liveright (imprint of W. W. Norton), 2022

by Lewis F. McIntyre

Finalist for NOUS' 2023 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

The US Navy’s “Take Charge and Move Out” (TACAMO) mission provides essential airborne communications to the US nuclear deterrence forces. Today it is a thriving community, respected by the Navy and the US strategic defense forces.

But it wasn’t always so. Despite the enormous importance of the mission, for the first decade of their existence, the TACAMO squadrons did not provide a viable career path for officers, instead being a “one and done” tour for the junior officers who found themselves unluckily so assigned. A second tour in the squadrons was considered to be professional suicide. But in 1975, inspired by a significant commanding officer, a handful of lieutenants put their faith in a community that did not yet exist, betting their careers on that second tour. From their faith and courage was born the TACAMO community.

This is the story of the birth of TACAMO, in the words of those who built the community from scratch.

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Publisher: Casemate, 2022

by Thomas Sheppard

Finalist for NOUS' 2023 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Commanding Petty Despots: The American Navy in the New Republic tells the story of the creation of the American Navy. Rather than focus on the well-known frigate duels and fleet engagements, Thomas Sheppard emphasizes the overlooked story of the institutional formation of the Navy. Sheppard looks at civilian control of the military, and how this concept evolved in the early American republic. For naval officers obsessed with honor and reputation, being willing to put themselves in harm’s way was never a problem, but they were far less enthusiastic about taking orders from a civilian Secretary of the Navy. Accustomed to giving orders and receiving absolute obedience at sea, captains were quick to engage in blatantly insubordinate behavior towards their superiors in Washington.

The civilian government did not always discourage such thinking. The new American nation needed leaders who were zealous for their honor and quick to engage in heroic acts on behalf of their nation. The most troublesome officers could also be the most effective during the Revolution and the Quasi and Barbary Wars. First Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert tolerated insubordination from “spirited” officers who secured respect for the American republic from European powers. However, by the end of the War of 1812, the culture of the Navy’s officer corps had grown considerably when it came to civil-military strains. A new generation of naval officers, far more attuned to duty and subordination, had risen to prominence, and Stoddert’s successors increasingly demanded recognition of civilian supremacy from the officer corps. Although the creation of the Board of Navy Commissioners in 1815 gave the officer corps a greater role in managing the Navy, by that time the authority of the Secretary of the Navy—as an extension of the president—was firmly entrenched.

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Publisher: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2022

by James Stavridis

Finalist for NOUS' 2023 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

From one of the great naval leaders of our time, a master class in decision-making under pressure through the stories of nine famous acts of leadership in battle, drawn from the history of the United States Navy, with outcomes both glorious and notorious.

At the heart of Admiral James Stavridis’ training as a naval officer was the preparation to lead sailors in combat, to face the decisive moment in battle whenever it might arise. In To Risk it All, he offers up nine of the most useful and enthralling stories from the US Navy’s nearly 250-year history, and draws from them a set of insights that we can all put to use when confronted with fateful choices.

Conflict. Crisis. Risk. These words have a distinct meaning in a military context that we hope will never apply identically in our own lives. But at the same time, as Admiral Stavridis shows with great clarity, many lessons are universal.

To Risk it All is filled with thrilling and heroic exploits, but it is anything but a shallow exercise in myth burnishing. Every leader in this book has real flaws, as all humans do, and the stories of failure, or at least the decisions that have been defined as such, are as crucial as the stories of success. In the end, when this master class is concluded, we will be better armed for hard decisions both expected and not.

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Publisher: Penguin Press, 2022

by Beverly Weintraub

Finalist for NOUS' 2023 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

On Feb. 2, 2019, the skies over Maynardville, Tennessee, filled with the roar of four F/A-18F Super Hornets streaking overhead in close formation. In each aircraft were two young female flyers, executing the first all-woman Missing Man Formation flyover in Navy history in memory of Captain Rosemary Mariner — groundbreaking Navy jet pilot, inspiring commander, determined and dedicated leader — whose drive to ensure the United States military had its choice of the best America had to offer, both men and women, broke down barriers and opened doors for female aviators wanting to serve their country. Selected for Navy flight training as an experiment in 1972, Mariner and her five fellow graduates from the inaugural group of female Naval Aviators racked up an impressive roster of achievements, and firsts: first woman to fly a tactical jet aircraft; first woman to command an aviation squadron; first female Hurricane Hunter; first pregnant Navy pilot; plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that overturned limits on women's ability to fulfill their military duty. Leading by example, and by confrontation when necessary, they challenged deep skepticism within the fleet and blazed a trail for female aviators wanting to serve their country equally with their male counterparts. This is the story of their struggles and triumphs as they earned their Wings of Gold, learned to fly increasingly sophisticated jet fighters and helicopters, mastered aircraft carrier landings, served at sea and reached heights of command that would have been unthinkable less than a generation before. And it is the story of the legacy they left behind, one for which the women performing the Navy’s first Missing Woman Flyover in Mariner’s memory owe a debt of gratitude.

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Publisher: Lyons Press, 2021

by M. Ernest Marshall

Winner of NOUS' 2020 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Suspecting a war with Japan somewhere over the horizon, the American Navy needed a means of conducting surveillance of the vast Pacific Ocean to guard against invasion. Surface vessels were too slow, and the Navy had too few of them, and airplanes lacked the range to cover the Pacific Ocean. The Navy turned to airships (dirigibles) as a solution - vehicles that could range for thousands of miles in the air on a single tank of fuel. Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley and Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl - close friends - were with the Navy's airship program from beginning to end. After the loss of the Navy's last airship, Rosendahl went on to develop the blimp program that guarded America's entire coastline during WW II.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2019

by Christopher McKee

Finalist for NOUS' 2019 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Ungentle Goodnights uses the records of the United States Naval Asylum (later the United States Naval Home), a residence for disabled and elderly sailors and Marines established by the U.S. government, to recover the lives of the 541 men who were admitted there as lifetime residents between 1831 and 1866. The records of the Naval Asylum are an especially rich source for discovering these lower-deck lives because would-be residents were required to submit summaries of their naval careers as part of the admission process. Using these and related records, published and manuscript, it is possible to reconstruct the veterans' lives from their teenage years (and sometimes earlier) until their deaths. Previous historians who have written about the pre-Civil War naval enlisted force have depended on published nineteenth-century sailor and Marine autobiographies, which may not accurately reflect the realities of enlisted life. Ungentle Goodnights seeks to discover the life experiences of real Marines and naval sailors, not a few of whom were misbehaving, crafty, and engaging individuals who feature prominently in the book.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2018

by George Michelsen Foy

Finalist for NOUS' 2019 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a massive American cargo ship disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm. The ship, its hundreds of shipping containers, and its entire crew plummeted to the bottom of the ocean, three miles down. It was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II. The massive ship had a seasoned crew, state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and advance warning of the storm. It seemed incomprehensible that such a ship could sink so suddenly. How, in this day and age, could something like this happen?

Relying on Coast Guard inquest hearings, as well as on numerous interviews, George Michelsen Foy brings us “the most insightful exploration of this unthinkable disaster” (Outside), a story that lasts only a few days, but which grows almost intolerably suspenseful as deep-rooted flaws leading to the disaster inexorably link together and worsen. We see captain, engineers, and crew fight for their lives, and hear their actual words (as recorded on the ship’s black box) while the hurricane relentlessly tightens its noose around the ship. We watch, minute by minute, all that is happening on board—the ship’s mysterious tilt to one side, worried calls to the engine room, ship-to-shore reports, the courage of the men and women as they fight to survive, and the berserk ocean’s savage consumption of the massive hull. And through it all, the pain and ultimate resilience of the families of El Faro’s crew. Now with a new afterword, this “tour de force of nautical expertise” (Ocean Navigator) is a masterwork of stunning power.

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Publisher: Scribner, 2018

by Scott Mobley

Finalist for NOUS' 2019 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

This study examines how intellectual and institutional developments transformed the U.S. Navy from 1873 to 1898. The period was a dynamic quarter-century in which Americans witnessed their Navy evolve. Cultures of progress--clusters of ideas, beliefs, values, and practices pertaining to modern warfare and technology--guided the Navy's transformation.

The agents of naval transformation embraced a progressive ideology. They viewed science, technology, and expertise as the best means to effect change in a world contorted by modernizing and globalizing trends. Within the Navy's progressive movement, two new cultures--Strategy and Mechanism--influenced the course of transformation. Although they shared progressive pedigrees, each culture embodied a distinctive vision for the Navy's future.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2018

by Stephen M. Younger

Finalist for NOUS' 2019 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

USS Nevada (BB-36) was America's first modern battleship. When her keel was laid in 1912, kings and emperors still ruled much of the world. When she finally slipped beneath the waves in 1948, America was the undisputed global superpower.

Nevada was revolutionary for her time: the first "superdreadnought"; the first U.S. warship to be oil fired; the first to have a triple-gun main turret; and, the first to have all-or-nothing armor. In World War I, she was based in Queenstown, Ireland, to provide protection for American convoys bringing troops to Europe. She survived the naval reduction treaties of the 1920s and was rebuilt in 1928 with the latest technology. The only battleship to get underway at Pearl Harbor, suffered damage from Japanese bombs and torpedoes and sank in shallow water. Raised and repaired, she did convoy duty in the North Atlantic before joining the invasion fleet for D-Day and the landings in Southern France. Shifting to the Pacific, Nevada provided bombardment support at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The end of the war saw her outgunned and outmoded, but her contributions were not over. In 1946, she survived not one but two atomic tests, the second of which left the battleship too radioactive for scrapping. On a sunny day in 1948, Nevada was towed off the coast of Oahu and used for target practice. After five days of pounding by everything the Navy could throw her, Nevada was dispatched by a torpedo. She died a warrior's death.

Silver State Dreadnought is the story of a remarkable ship, but it is also the story of the remarkable men who sailed in her. Nevada's first captain, William S. Sims, brought his unique style of leadership to America's premiere battleship and set the tone for what became known as the "Cheer Up Ship." As Nevada aged, the ship gained the affectionate name "The Old Maru," beloved by all who served in her.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2018

by John Wukovits

Winner of NOUS' 2018 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

An epic narrative of World War II naval action that brings to life the sailors and exploits of the war's most decorated destroyer squadron. When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron 21) to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring resume; it was the people serving aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to treat his patients at sea, epitomize the sacrifices made by all the men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron and its men who bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to Tokyo.

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Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2017

by Jeffrey Cox

Finalist for NOUS' 2018 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Following the disastrous Java Sea campaign, the Allies stopped the Japanese advance at Coral Sea and Midway. But the Japanese still threatened to build a network of bases in the South Pacific and threatened to cut off Australia. In response, Allies made a desperate move by starting their first offensive of the Pacific War. Their first target: a new Japanese airfield in a relatively unknown place in the Solomon Islands called Guadalcanal.

Hamstrung by obsolete pre-war thinking and a bureaucratic mind-set, the US Navy had to adapt on the fly in order to compete with the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy. Starting with the amphibious assaults on Guadalcanal and Tulagi and continuing with the worst defeat in US Navy history, the campaign quickly turned into a see-saw struggle where the evenly matched foes struggled to gain the upper hand and grind out a victory.

Following on from his hugely successful book Rising Sun, Falling Skies, Jeffrey R. Cox tells the gripping story of the first Allied offensive of the Pacific War, as they sought to regain dominance in the Pacific.

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Publisher: Osprey Publishing, 2018

by Mark Bowden

Finalist for NOUS' 2018 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

The first battle book from Mark Bowden since his #1 New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968 is the story of the centerpiece of the Tet Offensive and a turning point in the American War in Vietnam. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched over one hundred attacks across South Vietnam in what would become known as the Tet Offensive. The lynchpin of Tet was the capture of Hue, Vietnam’s intellectual and cultural capital, by 10,000 National Liberation Front troops who descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. Within hours the entire city was in their hands save for two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the Front’s presence, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II.

With unprecedented access to war archives in the U.S. and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over 24 days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. Hue 1968 is a gripping and moving account of this pivotal moment.

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Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017

by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Finalist for NOUS' 2018 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

On October 27, 1942, four “Long Lance” torpedoes fired by the Japanese destroyers Makigumoand Akigumo exploded in the hull of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). Minutes later, the ship that had launched the Doolittle Raid six months earlier slipped beneath the waves of the Coral Sea. Of the pre-war carrier fleet the Navy had struggled to build over 15 years, only three were left: USS Enterprise, which had been badly damaged in the battle of Santa Cruz; the USS Saratoga (CV-3), which lay in dry dock, victim of a Japanese submarine torpedo; and the USS Ranger (CV-4), which was in mid-Atlantic on her way to support Operation Torch.

For the American naval aviators licking their wounds in the aftermath of this defeat, it would be difficult to imagine that within 24 months of this event, Zuikaku, the last survivor of the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor, would lie at the bottom of the sea. Alongside it lay the other surviving Japanese carriers, sacrificed as lures in a failed attempt to block the American invasion of the Philippines, leaving the United States to reign supreme on the world's largest ocean.

This is the fascinating account of the Central Pacific campaign, one of the most stunning comebacks in naval history as in just 14 months the US Navy went from the jaws of defeat to the brink of victory in the Pacific.

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Publisher: Osprey Publishing, 2017

by Gary J. Ohls

Finalist for NOUS' 2018 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

American Amphibious Warfare offers analysis of the early amphibious landing operations from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. Through a case study approach, the operational and strategic significance of each action is analyzed and its impact on the development of the United States is assessed. By focusing on seven major campaigns, Gary J. Ohls provides readers with a richer appreciation of the origins of American amphibious warfare.

For many Americans, the concept of amphibious warfare derives from the World War II model in which landing forces assaulted foreign shores and faced determined resistance. These actions usually resulted in very high casualty rates, yet they proved uniformly successful. The circumstances of geography coupled with the weapons and equipment available at that time dictated this type of warfare. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no such equipment or weapons existed for assaulting defended beaches. Commanders attempted to land their forces in areas where the resistance would be light or nonexistent. The initiative and maneuverability inherent in naval forces permitted the delivery of combat power to the point of attack faster that the land-based defenders could react. Ohls explains how amphibious traditions began in this era and shows how they compare with modern amphibious forces, particularly the tactics of today's U.S. Marine Corps.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2017

by Richard Snow

Winner of NOUS' 2017 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, took a radical step to combat the Union blockade, building an iron fort containing ten heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project, and, in panicky desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship. Rushed through to completion in just one hundred days, it mounted only two guns, but they were housed in a shot-proof revolving turret. The ship hurried south from Brooklyn, only to arrive to find the Merrimack had already sunk half the Union fleet—and would be back to finish the job. When she returned, the Monitor was there. She fought the Merrimack to a standstill, and, many believe, saved the Union cause. As soon as word of the fight spread, Great Britain—the foremost sea power of the day—ceased work on all wooden ships. A thousand-year-old tradition ended and the naval future opened.

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Publisher: Scribner, 2016

by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Finalist for NOUS' 2017 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

An account of the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea by the First Marine Division from November to December 1950, following the intervention of Red China in the Korean War. 

Based on first-person interviews from surviving veterans who came to be known as the “Frozen Chosen,” this is the incredible story of heroism and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, as a handful of Marines fought desperately against wave after wave of Chinese forces. Sometimes forced into desperate hand-to-hand fighting in intense cold, cut off from reinforcements, and with dwindling supplies and ammunition, the fighting retreat from Chosin marked one of the darkest moments for Western forces in Korea, it but would go on to resonate with generations of Marines as a symbol of the Marine Corps' dogged determination, fighting skill, and never-say-die attitude on the battlefield.

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Osprey Publishing, 2016

by Thomas Alexander Hughes

Finalist for NOUS' 2017 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

William Halsey, the most famous naval officer of World War II, was known for fearlessness, steely resolve, and impulsive errors. In this definitive biography, Thomas Hughes punctures the popular caricature of the fighting admiral to present a revealing human portrait of his personal and professional life as it was lived in times of war and peace.

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Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2016

by Paul E. Pedisich

Finalist for NOUS' 2017 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Offers a new look at the nexus of U.S. politics, economics, and the funding and creation of what is thought of as the "modern" U.S. Navy. Filling in significant gaps in prior economic histories of the era, Paul Pedisich analyzes the role played by nine presidencies and cabinets, sixteen Navy secretaries, and countless U.S. congressmen whose work and actions shaped and funded our forces at sea.

Surveying the development of the new steel Navy from 1881 to 1921, Pedisich's narrative begins with James Garfield's appointment of William Hunt as Secretary of the Navy and the formation of the forty-seventh Congress in March 1881, and continues on to the reduction of the naval forces by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921.

While the main acts in U.S. political history often privilege the actions of the President and his cabinet, the author brings to light the individual rationales, voting blocs, agendas, and political intrigue that drove this process of making a modern Navy.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2016

by John Prados

Finalist for NOUS' 2017 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

As Allied ships prepared for the invasion of the Philippine island of Leyte, every available warship, submarine and airplane was placed on alert while Japanese admiral Kurita Takeo stalked Admiral William F. Halsey’s unwitting American armada. It was the beginning of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf—the greatest naval battle in history. 
 
Acclaimed historian John Prados gives readers an unprecedented look at both sides of this titanic naval clash, demonstrating that, despite the Americans’ overwhelming superiority in firepower and supplies, the Japanese achieved their goal, inflicting grave damage on U.S. forces. And for the first time, readers will have access to the naval intelligence reports that influenced key strategic decisions on both sides.
 
Drawing upon a wealth of untapped sources—U.S. and Japanese military records, diaries, declassified intelligence reports and postwar interrogation transcripts—Prados offers up a masterful narrative of naval conflict on an epic scale.

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Publisher: Caliber, Penguin Group (USA), 2016

by Chuck Veit

Sea Miner is the reconstructed story of the U.S. Navy’s ultra-secret torpedo development program of 1862-3, which resulted in a ship-launched rocket-powered kinetic energy projectile a century ahead of its time. The brainchild of Army Major Edward B. Hunt, the veil of secrecy lasted over 150 years, until an odd newspaper headline provided the first hint that such advanced research had been successfully undertaken at so early a date. Sea Miner received the 2016 Award in Narrative Non-fiction from the Independent Publishers of New England.

Other books of interest include A Dog Before a Soldier, which tells the story of the U.S. Navy in the War of the Rebellion, and Raising Missouri, that presents the never-before-told epic of the loss and salvage of one of our first two steam-powered warships.

Ordering Info: chuckveitbooks.com  Amazon

Published: 2016

by Tim McGrath

Winner of NOUS' 2016 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

America in 1775 was on the verge of revolution—or, more likely, disastrous defeat. After England’s King George sent hundreds of ships to bottle up American harbors and prey on American shipping, John Adams of Massachusetts proposed a bold solution: The Continental Congress should raise a navy.

“A meticulous, adrenaline-filled account of the earliest days of the Continental Navy.”—New York Times Bestselling Author Laurence Bergreen

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: NAL; Reprint edition 2015

by Suzanne Geissler

Finalist for NOUS' 2016 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Gallons of ink have been used analyzing Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan's thoughts, his naval theories, and his contribution to sea power. One vital aspect of his life, however, has been ignored or misunderstood by many scholars: his religious faith. Mahan was a professing Christian who took his faith with the utmost seriousness, and as a result, his worldview was inherently Christian. He wrote and spoke extensively on religious issues, a point frequently ignored by many historians. This is a fundamental mistake, for a deeper and more accurate understanding of Mahan as a person and as a naval theorist can be gained by a meaningful examination of his religious beliefs. 

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2015

by Stephen L. Moore

Finalist for NOUS' 2016 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Amid a seeming stalemate, a small group of U.S. Navy dive-bombers is called upon to help determine the island’s fate. When their carriers are lost, they are forced to operate from Henderson Field, a small dirt-and-gravel airstrip on Guadalcanal. 

They help form the Cactus Air Force, tasked with making dangerous flights from their jungle airfield while holding the line against Japanese air assaults, warship bombardments, and sniper attacks from the jungle. When the Japanese launch a final offensive to take the island, these dive-bomber jocks answer the call of duty—turning back an enemy warship armada, fighter planes, and a convoy of troop transports. 

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: New American Library (Penguin Random House), 2015

by Vincent O'Hara

Finalist for NOUS' 2016 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

World War II had many superlatives, but none like Operation Torch—a series of simultaneous amphibious landings, audacious commando and paratroop assaults, and the Atlantic’s biggest naval battle, fought across a two thousand mile span of coastline in French North Africa. The risk was enormous, the scale breathtaking, the preparations rushed, the training inadequate, and the ramifications profound.

Torch was the first combined Allied offensive and key to how the Second World War unfolded politically and militarily. Nonetheless, historians have treated the subject lightly, perhaps because of its many ambiguities. As a surprise invasion of a neutral nation, it recalled German attacks against countries like Belgium, Norway, and Yugoslavia. The operation’s rationale was to aid Russia but did not do this. It was supposed to get Americans troops into the fight against Germany but did so only because it failed to achieve its short-term military goals. There is still debate whether Torch advanced the fight against the Axis, or was a wasteful dispersion of Allied strength and actually prolonged the war.

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Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2015

by John Wukovits

Finalist for NOUS' 2016 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

On April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey heroically withstood twenty-two kamikaze attacks at Okinawa in what the US Navy called "one of the great sea epics of the war." Using scores of personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members, and the sailors' wartime correspondence, historian John Wukovits breathes life into this nearly forgotten event and makes the ordeal of the Laffeyand her crew a story for the ages.

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2015

by Craig Symonds

Winner of NOUS' 2015 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort, involving transports, escorts, gunfire support ships, and landing craft of every possible size and function. The obstacles to success were many. In addition to divergent strategic views and cultural frictions, the Anglo-Americans had to overcome German U-boats, Russian impatience, fierce competition for insufficient shipping, training disasters, and a thousand other impediments, including logistical bottlenecks and disinformation schemes. Symonds includes vivid portraits of the key decision-makers, from Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill, to Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who commanded the naval element of the invasion. Indeed, the critical role of the naval forces--British and American, Coast Guard and Navy--is central throughout. 

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014

by Jeffry Cox

Finalist for NOUS' 2015 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

A fresh look at the disastrous Java Sea Campaign of 1941–42 which heralded a wave of Japanese naval victories in the Pacific but which eventually sowed the seeds of their eventual change in fortunes. 

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Osprey Publishing, 2014

by Ed Offley

Finalist for NOUS' 2015 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II.

A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Basic Books, 2014

by Bing West

Finalist for NOUS' 2015 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature

Battalion 3/5 suffered the highest number of casualties in the war in Afghanistan. This is the story of one platoon in that distinguished battalion.

“West shows the reality of modern warfare in a way that is utterly gripping.”—Max Boot, author of Invisible Armies

Bing West, a Marine combat veteran, served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. He has been on hundreds of patrols in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan

Ordering Info: Amazon

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2015