NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The extraordinary story of the World War II air, land, and sea campaign that brought the U.S. Navy to the apex of its strength and marked the rise of the United States as a global superpower

One of America’s preeminent military historians, James D. Hornfischer has written his most expansive and ambitious book to date. Drawing on new primary sources and personal accounts by Americans and Japanese alike, here is a thrilling narrative of the climactic end stage of the Pacific War, focusing on the U.S. invasion of the Mariana Islands in June 1944 and the momentous events that it triggered.

With its thunderous assault into Japan’s inner defensive perimeter, America crossed the threshold of total war. From the seaborne invasion of Saipan to the stunning aerial battles of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, to the largest banzai attack of the war and the strategic bombing effort that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Marianas became the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—with consequences that forever changed modern war.

These unprecedented operations saw the first large-scale use of Navy Underwater Demolition Teams; a revolution in the fleet’s ability to sustain cross-hemispheric expeditionary warfare; the struggle of American troops facing not only a suicidal enemy garrison but desperate Japanese civilians; and the rise of the U.S. Navy as the greatest of grand fleets. From the Marianas, B-29 Superfortresses would finally unleash nuclear fire on an enemy resolved to fight to the end.

Hornfischer casts this clash of nations and cultures with cinematic scope and penetrating insight, focusing closely on the people who rose to the challenge under fire: Raymond Spruance, the brilliant, coolly calculating commander of the Fifth Fleet; Kelly Turner, whose amphibious forces delivered Marine General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith’s troops to the beaches of Saipan and Tinian; Draper Kauffman, founder of the Navy unit that predated today’s SEALs; Paul Tibbets, who created history’s first atomic striking force and flew the Enola Gay to Hiroshima; and Japanese warriors and civilians who saw the specter of defeat as the ultimate test of the spirit.

From the seas of the Central Pacific to the shores of Japan itself, The Fleet at Flood Tide is a stirring and deeply humane account of World War II’s world-changing finale.

Praise for The Fleet at Flood Tide

“This is a masterful account of the barbaric last year of the Pacific War, combining original scholarship, engaging prose, excellent historical judgment, and empathy for the soldier, to explain why defeating the Japanese proved so costly—and how American military forces performed so effectively and, in the end, humanely. The Fleet at Flood Tide is, quite simply, popular and scholarly military history at its best.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture, senior fellow in classics and military history, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

“We have here a carefully researched and well-written account of key stages and events in the final portion of the war in the Pacific that includes a careful look at the Japanese side as well as the American. The campaign in the Marianas and the background and reality of the atomic bomb are exceptionally thoughtfully presented.”—Gerhard L. Weinberg, author of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, professor emeritus of history, University of North Carolina

詹姆斯•D.霍恩費捨爾

 美國知名曆史學傢

 《紐約時報》暢銷書作者

 “太平洋戰爭最佳記錄者”

詹姆斯•D.霍恩費捨爾，美國海軍協會和美國海軍聯閤會成員，被譽為“第二次世界大戰海軍史的權威”，同時也是美國作傢協會會員。他畢生緻力於研究第二次世界大戰太平洋戰爭史，是《紐約時報》暢銷書《海神的地獄》《幽靈船》和《萊特灣大海戰》的作者，曾獲得塞繆爾•埃利奧特•莫裏森奬和美國海洋文學奬。

霍恩費捨爾齣生在馬薩諸塞州，畢業於科爾蓋大學和得剋薩斯大學法律學院，目前在得剋薩斯州奧斯汀居住。

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