Robert Stem: 3 books

Fast, manoeuvrable and heavily armed, destroyers were the most aggressive surface warships of the twentieth century. Although originally conceived as a defensive screen to protect the main battlefleet from torpedo attack, the gamekeeper soon turned poacher, and became primarily a weapon of offence....

By late 1944 the war in the Pacific had turned decisively against the Japanese, and overwhelming Allied forces began to close in on the home islands. At this point Japan unveiled a terrifying new tactic: the suicide attack, or Kamikaze, named after the ‘Divine Wind’ which had once before, in medieval...

Although the defeat of Japan was the US Navy’s greatest contribution to the Second World War, it also played a significant role in the battle against Hitler. Even before Germany declared war in 1941, US naval vessels were actively engaged in Atlantic convoy battles, and suffered their first casualties...