CARRIER CLASHThe Invasion of Guadalcanal &the Battle of the Eastern SolomonsAugust 1942Eric HammelThe Battle of the Eastern Solomons was historys third carrier clash. A collision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanalwhose airfield the United States desperately needed and the Japanese desperately wanted backthe battle was waged at sea and over Guadalcanals besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeter on August 24, 1942. Based upon the first half of Eric Ha...

ACES AGAINST JAPAN The American Aces Speak Eric Hammel In this superb, originally conceived offering, noted military historian, Eric Hammel brings us first-person accounts from thirty-nine American fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of the Pacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941, until the final air battles over Japan in August 1945. Coupled with a clear view of America's far-flung air war against Japan, Hammel's detailed interviews bring out the most thrilling ...

"An authoritative look at an event that has taken on a legendary status . . . [an] essential history for those wanting the truth behind the legend" ( Publishers Weekly).Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" photo is one of the best-known images of US war history—and a powerful symbol of patriotism. But the story of how the flag got there, and even the identity of the soldiers in the photo, has been muddied by history. Here, military historian Eric...

AMBUSH VALLEYI Corps, Vietnam, 1967the Story of a Marine Infantry Battalion's Battle for SurvivalEric HammelIn the summer of 1967, the Marines in I Corps, South Vietnams northernmost military region, were doing eveything they could to lighten the pressure on the besieged Con Thien Combat Base.Still fresh after months of relatively light action around Khe Sanh, the 3d Battalion, 26th Marines, was sent to the Con Thien region to secure the combat basess endangered main supply route. On Septembe...

Aces In CombatThe American Aces SpeakEric HammelAdding to his acclaimed in-the-cockpit series, The American Aces Speak, combat historian Eric Hammel comes through with yet another engrossing collection of first-person accounts by American fighter aces serving in World War II and the Korean War.As in the other four volumes, Aces In Combat is a highly charged excursion into life and death in the air, told by men who excelled at piston-engine and jet-engine aerial combat and lived to tell about ...

Although U.S. Marines had broken the back of the Japanese on Guadalcanal in furious combat between August 1942 and February 1943, much hard fighting remained to be endured on jungle-choked islands to the north. Between late 1942 and the end of 1943, the Marines on the ground and in the air took part in a series of battles and campaigns in the central and northern Solomon Islands, all part of the effort to reach and neutralize the Japanese regional air, naval and supply base at Rabaul, at t...

GUADALCANAL: Starvation Island by Eric Hammel =- The Japanese defeats at Midway and Guadalcanal decided the outcome of the Pacific War. Guadalcanal was the classic three-dimensional campaign. On land, at sea, and in the air, fierce battles were fought with both sides stretching their supplies and equipment to the breaking point. The campaign lasted six months, involved nearly one million men, and stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific. When the campaign began on August 7, 1942, no one on e...

GUADALCANAL: Decision at Sea, The Naval Battle of GuadalcanalNovember 1315,1942 by Eric Hammel = Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13 15, 1942, a crucial step toward Americas victory over the Japanese during World War II. = The three day air and naval action incorporated Americas most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which American battleships directly confronted ...

FIRE IN THE STREETS : The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968 by Eric Hammel = The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was the most important military campaign of the Vietnam War. The ancient capital city of Hue was a key objective of the surprise Communist offensive, but when the North Vietnamese launched their massive invasion of the city, instead of the general civilian uprising and easy victory they had hoped for, they were faced with a U.S.South Vietnamese counterattack and a devastating battle of attrit...

KHE SANH: Siege in the Clouds, An Oral History by Eric Hammel From critcally acclaimed military historian Eric Hammel comes a vivid oral history account of the Tet 1968 siege of the Khe Sanh Combat Base. The words of American fighting men caught up in the grueling, deadly seventy-seven-day ordeal create a harrowing tapestry of tragedy and triumph. = As two North Vietnamese Army divisions move to surround them, the vastly outnumbered U.S. Marines rush to strengthen their defenses at the isolat...

y late March 1945, the pathway to invasion of the southernmost major island of the Japanese archipelago, Kyushu, had been secured but for one necessary stepping stone American forces required to support their tactical air effort leading up to and overhead the projected invasion of Japan, set to begin in the autumn of 1945. The seizure of Okinawa and its airfields was vital to the land-based strategic bombing campaign that would precede and support the invasion of Japan and for close-in bas...

The American campaign in the western Pacific from the late summer 1944 to mid-1945 was a violent undertaking at every turn. The Japanese had been relentlessly pushed back throughout 1943 and 1944. Except for the western Caroline Islands, the Philippines, Formosa, a few islands near Japan, and Japan itself, there was very little left for them to defend. They had clearly lost their war of conquest in the Pacific and East Asia, but they could not bring themselves to settle gracefully; their w...