The Lonely Ships: The Life and Death of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet

by Edwin P. Hoyt

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679505784
• ISBN13: 9780679505785
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: David McKay Company
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fills a needed - to - fill gap in the Pacific War

This book describes adequately the last vestiges of the U.S. Pacific fleet in the Far East just before and during the early part of WWII. It is exciting and well-written, and follows a logical sequence. The only shortcoming I felt was a lack of maps in its pages. Add this one to your shelf on the Pacific War.

Infighting caused the demise of the Asiatic Fleet in 1942

The United States Asiatic Fleet lasted almost a hundred years until two strong-willed, headstrong men, Admiral Thomas C. Hart and General Douglas MacArthur, brought about its untimely demise. The death of the Asiatic Fleet in the Battle of the Java Sea wasn't just because of the rivalry between Hart and MacArthur but not that far from it. According to Hart's chief of staff, Admiral Ira Glassford, MacArthur's assessment of the situation in the Philippines was wildly optimistic. MacArthur believed that the United States Army in the Philippines could hold out until the U.S. Navy fought its way across thousands of miles of the Pacific to do battle with the Japanese. That had been the plan from 1898 to 1941. Nobody told MacArthur that the rules had changed and that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by aircraft carriers and not battleships.Admiral Yamamoto had revised his country's plans for war with the United States. The United States, up until the attack on Pearl Harbor, was still wedded to the idea of unilateral disarmament and peace at any cost.