“ Kurita knew that heavenly influences could be counted upon to trump human planning. In war, events seldom cooperate with expectation. Given James D. Hornfischer
“ When great men blunder, they count their losses in pride and reputation and glory. The underlings count their losses in blood. —Theodore C. Mason, Battleship Sailor (1982) James D. Hornfischer
“ The lack of a consensus within American ranks effectively left Germany-first to exist only in the minds of politicians. The numbers spoke for themselves: At the end of 1942, the United States would fi… James D. Hornfischer
“ One winter in Manila in the mid-1930s, Wylie walked into the wardroom of his ship, the heavy cruiser Augusta (Captain Chester W. Nimitz commanding), and encountered a fist-banging argument between two… James D. Hornfischer
“ Oldendorf’s fleet would hold its position astride the northern end of the strait and devour Nishimura’s column like a log thrust into the business end of a U.S. Navy wood chipper. James D. Hornfischer
“ Lee knew that the key to victory lay not only in terms of engineering or mathematics, but in a crew’s ability to adjust psychologically to the unexpected. James D. Hornfischer
“ War is unlike life, he said. It’s a denial of everything you learn life is. And that’s why when you get finished with it, you see that it offers no lessons that can’t be better learned in civilian lif… James D. Hornfischer
“ The previous day, December 6, Sprague had upbraided his crew for their sloppy performance during an intensive series of drills. He broke with his nature and let them have it. Gathering his officers in… James D. Hornfischer
“ The first time the South Dakota’s main battery was tested with a full nine-gun broadside, the wave of blast pressure pushed through the passageway where Captain Thomas Gatch was standing, tearing his… James D. Hornfischer
“ The awareness that one was in the presence of such an insurgent came at a pheromonal level. He didn’t have to be brash or intimidating. If he had the right qualities, they carried through the air arou… James D. Hornfischer
“ It was probably more dangerous to remain aboard the fuel- and explosive-laden jeep carrier than to take off and glide-bomb a Japanese capital ship. As Leonard Moser, a plane captain on the Fanshaw Bay… James D. Hornfischer
“ The portly Italian chief never talked much. Though he had played the royal baby at the crossing-the-line ceremony, he was the oldest man on the ship at forty-three and had little in common with boys t… James D. Hornfischer
“ The leading navies of the world were situated in a challenging period between the age of fighting sail and the age of nuclear propulsion when fuel was consumable and therefore a critical limit on thei… James D. Hornfischer
“ The journalist and critic I. F. Stone would call the state of mind that permitted the Pearl Harbor attack sheer stodgy unimaginative bureaucratic complacency. James D. Hornfischer
“ Lieutenant Pat McEntee in the Atlanta witnessed it: a Wildcat closing fast on a Betty from behind. The fighter was evidently out of ammunition, for its driver resorted to an unusual tactic. Down came… James D. Hornfischer
“ As Marine Corps aviator Samuel Hynes would observe, They go to war because it’s impossible not to. Because a current is established in society, so swift, flowing toward war, that every young man who s… James D. Hornfischer
