The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy

About this book

Based on official records personal interviews private diaries and an impressive array of published works this classic study offers a complete record of the heated debates that took place over the concept of the fast carrier and the U.S. Navys metamorphosis from a battleship-oriented to a carrier-centered fleet during World War II. The battle of the air admirals such as Mitscher Towers Radford and the Shermans to gain control of the fleet from the battleship admirals in the midst of war is nowhere told more fully or with such an insiders grasp of personalities involved with the changing naval strategy. Clark G. Reynoldss thorough analysis of fast carrier operations takes the reader from the war rooms in Washington to the flight decks in the Pacific with ease and excitement. It is his willingness to pass critical judgment on personalities and events and his ability to communicate clearly the bureaucratic squabbles and the fight against the foreign enemy that puts this book far above any other work in its field. Now twenty-four years after its first publication The Fast Carriers remains essential reading for naval professionals and historians - evidence of its strong scholarship and enduring value in the face of a naval strategy again in flux. Illustrated with more than 90 photographs and completed with a dramatis personae extensive appendixes chapter notes and bibliographic essay this reprint introduces a new generation of readers to a frank and thoughtful study of the genesis of the carrier fleet.