This narrative of the last months of the war in the Pacific follows a number of pilots from their initial training to their first combat. Although the Japanese Empire was clearly doomed, it was not giving up easily. The author is particularly expressive in recounting the American defense against kamikaze attacks. This book is largely, though not entirely, focused on the bitter fight for Okinawa and will be of most interest for aviation buffs and broader collections. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Military historian and novelist Gandt (Black Star Rising, 2007, etc.) chronicles the epic Battle of Okinawa.In the spring of 1945, as the Red Army approached Berlin, a ferocious land, sea and air battle raged in the Pacific, a dress rehearsal, many thought, for the upcoming invasion of Japan. The author credits the idea of bypassing the heavily fortified island of Formosa and seizing Okinawa to the brainy Adm. Raymond Spruance. Snapshots of Spruance, Marc Mitscher, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, Morton Deyo and Arleigh Burke, towering names in American naval history, dot these pages, complemented by similar sharp takes on the Japanese high command defending the island. The heart of Gandt's story, though, is the tale of the young aviators, the Tail End Charlies on the American side, fearful they'd never get into action, and the Japanese Thunder Gods, the kamikazeforce whose suicide missions testified simultaneously to Japan's will and her desperation. By no means comprehensiveGandt checks in only periodically with the halting advance of Simon Buckner's 10th Armythe narrative, nevertheless, consistently enlightens on numerous battle-related issues and incidents: the rivalry between the black shoe (seagoing) and the brown shoe (aviation) navy; how the Japanese consistently overestimated the destruction caused by the kamikazemissions; the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Buckner and famed correspondent Ernie Pyle; the peculiar susceptibility of the wooden-decked U.S. carriers to kamikazeattack; the sinking of the mighty battleship Yamato; the exploits of American ace Al Lerch, who shot down seven planes in a single mission; the strength of the USSLaffey, still afloat after six kamikazecrashes. The appalling price in lives lost, men wounded, ships sunk and aircraft destroyed made Okinawa "the costliest naval engagement in U.S. history." Three months later the atomic bomb would fall on Hiroshima.A fine popular account of history's last great sea battle.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Its context the Okinawa battle of 1945, Gandt's latest aviation history fits in with his Intrepid (2008), an account of the aircraft carrier that survived kamikaze strikes to become the museum today moored at New York City. He zeroes in on one of the ship's squadrons, VFB-10 in naval jargon, and follows its pilots from training through their experiences of combat. From interviews he conducted with veterans of the squadron, Gandt derives great immediacy about their experiences in the war and their recollections of comrades who died in the Okinawa campaign. Integrating the eyewitness testimony into an overall battle narrative clearly synthesized from extant works about Okinawa, Gandt changes scene from the Intrepid to the headquarters of American and Japanese commanders to show VFB-10's place in the larger picture of the brutal, merciless battle. Gandt's focus on aviation detail, such as specifications of the squadron's warplane, the Corsair, and the exact maneuvers the pilots flew in dogfights and bombing runs, is exactly the wide-eyed action his audience expects from this type of work, the unit-level military history.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist

Former navy pilot and military historian Gandt (Season of Storms) is a first-rate storyteller, and here he focuses on an aspect of the Battle of Okinawa sometimes overshadowed by the bitter fighting on land: Okinawa was the most expensive naval battle in American history, with almost 10,000 American casualties. Thirty ships were lost, and over 350 more were damaged, many beyond repair. Gandt uses operational history to structure the naval campaign's human dimensions. He describes Japan's development of a kamikaze force so effective that American admirals deployed picket lines of small, expendable warships to absorb the attacks' initial impact. The author portrays senior officers aged beyond their years by the unending stresses of command. He recreates fighter cockpits as carrier pilots tackle the kamikazes and the escorts determined to bring them through. He boards ships desperately fending off attackers no less determined to make their dying count. On the waters off Okinawa it was kill or be killed. As Gandt ably shows, Okinawa taught President Truman a grim lesson: "any weapon," even an atomic bomb, "was preferable to an invasion" of Japan. B&w photos, maps. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.