April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Third Reich is collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are overpowering the once-mighty Japanese Empire in the Pacific. For a group of young pilots trained in the twilight of the war, their greatest worry is that it will end before they have a chance to face the enemy.
They call themselves Tail End Charlies: They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail end of chow lines, and now they are catching the tail end of the war. What they don’t know is that they will be key players in the bloodiest and most difficult of naval battles—not only of World War II but in all of American history.
The Twilight Warriors relives the drama of the world’s last great naval campaign. From the cockpit of a Corsair fighter we gaze down at the Japanese task force racing to destroy the American amphibious force at Okinawa. Through the eyes of the men on the destroyers assigned to picket ship duty, we experience the terror as wave after wave of kamikazes crash into their ships. Standing on the deck of the legendary superbattleship Yamato, we watch Japan’s last hope for victory die in a tableau of gunfire and explosions.
The fate of the Americans at Okinawa, including a twenty-two-year-old former art student, an intrepid fighter pilot whose life abruptly changes when his Corsair goes down off the enemy shore, and a young Texan lieutenant who volunteers for the most dangerous flying job in the fleet—intercepting kamikazes at night over the blackened Pacific—is intertwined with the lives of the “young gods”: the honor-bound kamikaes forces who swarm like killer bees toward the U.S. ships.
The ferocity of the Okinawa fighting stuns the world. Before it ends, the long battle will cost more American lives, ships, and aircraft than any naval engagement in U.S. history. More than simply the account of a historic battle, The Twilight Warriors brings to life the human side of an epic conflict. It is the story of young Americans at war in the air and on the sea—and of their enigmatic, fanatically courageous enemy.
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November 2, 2010 -
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- ISBN: 9780767932431
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- ISBN: 9780767932431
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
October 4, 2010
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. -
Kirkus
September 15, 2010
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 kamikaze force whose suicide missions testified simultaneously to Japan's will and her desperation. By no means comprehensive—Gandt checks in only periodically with the halting advance of Simon Buckner's 10th Army—the 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 kamikaze missions; the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Buckner and famed correspondent Ernie Pyle; the peculiar susceptibility of the wooden-decked U.S. carriers to kamikaze attack; 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 USS Laffey, still afloat after six kamikaze crashes. 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 (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
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Library Journal
October 1, 2010
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.
Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Kirkus
September 15, 2010
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 kamikaze force whose suicide missions testified simultaneously to Japan's will and her desperation. By no means comprehensive--Gandt checks in only periodically with the halting advance of Simon Buckner's 10th Army--the 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 kamikaze missions; the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Buckner and famed correspondent Ernie Pyle; the peculiar susceptibility of the wooden-decked U.S. carriers to kamikaze attack; 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 USS Laffey, still afloat after six kamikaze crashes. 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 (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
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