Uss Arizona: Warship, Tomb, Monument Review

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(More customer reviews)I would recommend this book to anybody that's into WWII. It's very informative and has some great pictures.

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The story of the USS Arizona encompasses far more than the milli-second BOOM! that split her hull and snuffed out the lives of 1177 men aboard her. The huge battleship led a fascinating life before her demise, and--as a poignant symbol of the attack that thrust the United States into World War II--has impacted millions of lives since. She lays where she sank, in the silt of Pearl Harbor, spanned now by a graceful white memorial that pays tribute to her dead. MacKinnon Simpson's newest book, USS Arizona - Warship Tomb  Monument, pays tribute to the ship, her crews, and her symbolism through the years. Packed with many rarely-before seen images, the book includes such unlikely characters as Elvis Presley, whose benefit concert helped trigger the fund-raising for the Memorial, and Henry Williams, a three-year-old boy who placed the first bolt in her keel in 1915 and read a newspaper by the light of her raging fires as a lieutenant at Pearl Harbor in 1941. USS Arizona - Warship Tomb Monument tells a story that needed to be told, of why the Arizona is still so important to people from around the world who trek to visit her each year.

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Battleship Oklahoma BB-37 Review

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(More customer reviews)I too wanted a book dealing with the older US Battleships other than the USS Arizona. I happened to see this book at my local bookstore and bought it hoping to get more information about the pre-WW2 Battleships. I was surprised at how this book immediately grabbed my attention.
The first portion of the book deals with the design, building, and early sea trials of the Oklahoma. Though at times the author seems to rush the story, he traces the story chronologically. His ultimate aim of the book deals with what made the Oklahoma famous: her capsizing at Pearl Harbor. But before that fateful day in Dec 7, there was so much more that I didn't know about her. Example: The Oklahoma's presence during an earthquake in San Pedro, Ca and how the crew helped the police to prevent looting.
The attack of Pearl Harbor is the main focus of the author and covers roughly 2/3 of the book. The story is told through the lives of those who were there on board. The author fills you in with the details of the sailors who survived the attack, and mentions those who perished that day. He even fills you in with the events that made a couple of sailors on board Oklahoma the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor (posthumously). As I read the book, the author gives you in the appendix the fate of the crew on board during Dec 7. Whenever the author mentioned names I turned the pages so I can see if they survived or not. Those who did not survive, the author lists them as MIA because most who perished were not identified. This is how well written this book is: it drew me into the lives of these sailors.
I highly recommend this book. It is unfortunate that we remember the Oklahoma for her death at Pearl. This book allows her to once more live; we should never forget about her and her gallant crew.

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The comprehensive history of the USS Oklahoma from its christening in 1914 to its final loss in 1947. The authors tell how the Oklahoma served in World War I, participated in the Great Cruise of 1925, and evacuated refugees from Spain in 1936. But the most memorable event of the ship's history occurred on December 7, 1941.

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Battleship Arizona's Marines At War: Making the Ultimate Sacrifice, December 7, 1941 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have several uncles who fought in WWII, including my father. My living uncle is proud of the way this book was presented, through the eyes of the Marines. In addition, his brother, my uncle, is found several times throughout the book with accurate accounts of the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It is a very fascinating read even if you are not a war buff.

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On December 7, 1941, about twenty minutes into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an armor-piercing bomb struck the USS Arizona, penetrating four decks before exploding. An immense fire, fed by ammunition and fuel oil, swept through the ship, instantly killing hundreds of men. The Arizona quickly settled to the bottom of the harbor, taking most of her crew of 1,514 with her. Of the 88 Marines assigned to the battleship, only 15 survived. This account of the Arizona's Marines on that fateful day, the first to tell their little-known story, also covers the broader history of shipboard Marines as well as the Arizona from her launch in World War I to the dawn of America's entry into World War II.

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Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor Review

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(More customer reviews)I tried to think of a way to avoid the Paul Harvey-ish cliché of "the rest of the story," but it's hard to do. Nearly all general histories of the Pearl Harbor attack either end with the close of the attack, or move into the (necessarily more important) aspect of America starting to respond to the changed world situation and coming to grips with the onset of war. Epilogues sometimes report that most of the damaged ships actually returned to the battle lines, but in-depth reports of what happened at Pearl Harbor itself following the attack are pretty rare.
Daniel Madsen steps into this void with a book that, to use another cliché, reads like a novel. Where he could easily have gotten bogged down in damage reports or engineering minutia, he instead tells a surprisingly interesting story that turns as much on personalities as on mechanics. Amid the uncertainty of never knowing for sure whether the Japanese would return for a second strike at the fleet, civilian and naval engineers, divers, repair workers, and line officers devised innovative solutions to large and sometimes unprecedented problems. I can't speak too highly of how Madsen succeeds in weaving this into an interesting and well-paced narrative.
Readers familiar with the Pearl Harbor story will appreciate finding out what happened to the ships, and the base as a whole, in the weeks and months following the attack. Although the eyes of the world moved away from Pearl and onto the wider theater of war after the first days of December, 1941, the story of what happened there is still one well worth telling. I commend Daniel Madsen for the fine job he did telling it, and recommend his work to students of the attack and naval history buffs generally.

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