by Ian W. Toll
Admiral Yamamoto, official portrait taken in 1940 or 1941.
Zeros prepare to launch from a Japanese carrier, 1942. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
“The man with the blue eyes.” Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in a photograph taken c. 1940. Getty Images.
Nimitz with his son, Chet Junior. Photo taken in Texas, c. early 1920s, with unidentified man to right. Getty Images.
Official portrait of Admiral Nimitz, probably taken in 1940 or 1941, when he was Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Admiral Ernest J. King. Official portrait, taken in 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
The internationalist. Photo taken in the White House, early 1942. FDR Library.
Roosevelt and Churchill face the press, early 1942. Getty Images.
USS Hornet (CV-8), photographed in late 1941. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph.
The Doolittle Raid, April 18, 1942. An army B-25 claws its way into the sky from the USS Hornet. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
USS Yorktown (CV-5) in the South Pacific, c. April 1942. Photo taken by the crew of one of her own planes shortly after takeoff. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers. In 1942, this aircraft was the most potent weapon in the U.S. Navy’s arsenal. Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.
The USS Neosho, a fuel tanker. Fueling at sea was the bane of early American carrier operations in the Pacific War. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, commander of Kido Butai, Japan’s carrier striking force. Portrait photograph, taken c. 1941–42. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph.
USS Lexington (CV-2) during the Battle of the Coral Sea, May 1942, seen from the Yorktown. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Battle of the Coral Sea: the end of the Lexington. Shortly after the last of her crew abandoned ship, an explosion blew an aircraft over her side. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Battle of Midway, June 1942. Torpedo bombers prepare to launch from the deck of the USS Enterprise. Official U.S. Navy Photograph.
Battle of Midway. A Grumman F4F Wildcat takes off from Yorktown on the morning of June 4, 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph.
Battle of Midway. Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryu maneuvers to dodge bombs dropped by USAF B-17s, morning of June 4, 1942. U.S. Air Force photograph.
Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo plane. By 1942, this aircraft was disastrously obsolete. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
An Enterprise landing signal officer (LSO) guides a TBD Devastator in for landing. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Air attack on the Yorktown, afternoon of June 4, 1942. Japanese Type 97 torpedo planes fly past the ship after launching their torpedoes. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
Yorktown, struck by bombs and torpedoes, lists heavily to port. Late afternoon of June 4, 1942. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
SBD Dauntless dive-bombers from Hornet prepare to attack the Japanese cruiser Mikuma, June 6, 1942. Official U.S. Navy photograph.
A generation bred to take the hardships of war in stride. Children at a rehabilitation clinic in Arkansas, c. mid-1930s. FDR Library.
More Praise for
Pacific Crucible
“[A] diligently constructed history of the first seven months of the Pacific War. . . . Toll has an affinity for the detailed narrative of military conflict.”
—Michael Beschloss, New York Times Book Review
“Toll’s book does a good job of capturing strategy, tactics, weaponry and, especially, people, on the Japanese side as well as the American. . . . You won’t set [Pacific Crucible] aside.”
—Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Toll gives everyone involved in the conflict a chance to speak, bringing readers into the command centers and cockpits to reveal the humanity of combatants on both sides of the Pacific.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for
Six Frigates
Winner of the 2007 Samuel Eliot Morison Award
Winner of the 2007 William E. Colby Award
“In this account of the early history of the American navy, Ian Toll seeks to explain not just how [the War of 1812] happened, but also why. He succeeds splendidly. His factual story is as exciting as any of Patrick O’Brian’s fictional seafaring tales.”
—Economist
“[Six Frigates is] rousing, exhaustively researched history. . . . Toll provides perspective by seamlessly incorporating the era’s political and diplomatic history into his superlative single-volume narrative—a must-read for fans of naval history and the early American Republic.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A fluent, intelligent history of American military policy from the early 1790s . . . but the book’s real value, and the pleasure it provides, lies in Toll’s grasp of the human dimension of his subject. . . . Toll has plumbed diaries, letters and ships’ logs to give the reader a feel for the human quirks and harsh demands of life at sea in the Age of Sail. . . . [Toll] captures the zest for action that seized, and sometimes warped, young warriors on all sides.”
—Evan Thomas, New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“Sweeping in scope, full of vivid descriptions of naval battles and solidly grounded in the diplomatic landscape from the American Revolution through the War of 1812, Ian W. Toll’s Six Frigates is a masterly work . . . comprehensive, beautifully written and exciting to read. Every naval aficionado will want it.”
—Chris Pastilelis, Houston Chronicle
“A superb, page-turning history of America’s first truly difficult set of political military decisions. . . . A great, sprawling, and fascinating tale.”
—Admiral James Stavridis, U.S. Navy, Proceedings
“Ian W. Toll writes with an arresting energy. He evokes the world of Patrick O’Brian, the salt-stained ruthlessness of naval commanders, the carnage of the broadside and the surgeon’s saw, but also conjures a lost American landscape.”
—Tim Gardam, Guardian (UK)
“Above all, Toll writes with clarity and force. This was a book I did not want to finish. It is a magnificent, riveting achievement.”
—Michael Pembroke, Sydney Morning Herald
“Toll steers his readers handily through matters of policy and politics. . . . He quotes from piloting guides, considers the frigates’ sailing abilities, and remarks on spring fogs in Massachusetts Bay. He does not write that a ship headed offshore, but that it, the Chesapeake, ‘doubled Cape Henry and steered into the offing, dead east on the compass.’ ”
—Michael Kenney, Boston Globe
Copyright © 2012 by Ian W. Toll
All rights reserved
First printed as a Norton paperback 2012
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Toll, Ian W.
Pacific crucible : war at sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 / Ian W. Toll. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-393-06813-9 (hardcover)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area. 2. World War, 1939–1945—
Naval operations, American. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, Japanese. I. Title.
D767.T65 2012
940.54’26—dc23
2011028907
ISBN
978-0-393-34341-0 pbk.
eISBN: 978-0-393-08317-0
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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* It was later discovered that Lexington executive officer Mort Seligman had improperly shared a classified dispatch with Tribune reporter Stanley Johnston.
* Office of Price Administration; Office of Production Management; Defense Plant Corporation; War Production Board; War Resources Board; Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board.
* While reviewing this manuscript, Alan Zimm pointed out that the subsequent resurrection of the Kaga may not have been blameworthy, if the war-gaming exercises were being conducted as discrete events. He will address this subject in a forthcoming book, Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions.
* The building was torn down in 1970 and the land reclaimed as a handsome public park, which today includes the site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.