Naval battles are notoriously hard to describe. We cannot walk the battlefield, photograph bomb craters and trenches, or visit the graves of those who died there. The hallowed ground is impossible to map; it is not even ground. Historians must piece together life-or-death events from ship logs and survivor accounts.
In recent years, several naval historians have hit the rare high notes that make a story of sea combat so compelling. James D. Hornfischer’s magnificent “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” offers a gripping picture of the Battle off Samar, while in “Shattered Sword” Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully tell the story of Midway better than the movie versions ever did.
