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The Twilight Warriors, by Robert Gandt
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The Twilight Warriors, winner of the 2011 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, is the engrossing, page-turning saga of a tightly knit band of naval aviators who are thrust into the final—and most brutal—battle of the Pacific war: Okinawa.
April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Third Reich is collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are overpowering the once-mighty Japanese Empire in the Pacific. For a group of young pilots trained in the twilight of the war, the greatest worry is that it will end before they have a chance to face the enemy. They call themselves Tail End Charlies. They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail end of chow lines, and now they are catching the tail end of the war. What they don’t know is that they will be key players in the bloodiest and most difficult of naval battles—not only of World War II but in all of American history.
The Twilight Warriors relives the drama of the world’s last great naval campaign. From the cockpit of a Corsair fighter we gaze down at the Japanese task force racing to destroy the American amphibious force at Okinawa. Through the eyes of the men on the destroyers assigned to picket ship duty, we experience the terror as wave after wave of kamikazes crash into their ships. Standing on the deck of the legendary superbattleship Yamato, we watch Japan’s last hope for victory die in a tableau of gunfire and explosions.
Among the Tail End Charlies are men such as a twenty-two-year-old former art student who grows to manhood on the day of his first mission over Japan and his best friend, a ladies’ man and intrepid fighter pilot whose life abruptly changes when his Corsair goes down off the enemy shore. Another is a young Texan lieutenant who volunteers for the most dangerous flying job in the fleet—intercepting kamikazes at night over the blackened Pacific. Their leader is a charismatic officer who rises to greatness in the crucible of Okinawa. Directing the vast armada of sea, air, and land forces is a cast of brilliant and flawed commanders—from the imperturbable admiral and master of carrier warfare to the controversial soldier assigned to command the land forces.
The fate of the Americans at Okinawa is intertwined with the lives of the “young gods”— the honor-bound Japanese airmen who swarm like killer bees toward the U.S. ships. The kamikazes are dispatched on their deadly one-way missions by a classic samurai warrior who vows that he will follow them to a warrior’s grave.
The ferocity of the Okinawa fighting stuns the world. Before it ends, the long battle will cost more American lives, ships, and aircraft than any naval engagement in U.S. history. More than simply the account of a historic battle, The Twilight Warriors brings to life the human side of an epic conflict. It is the story of young Americans at war in the air and on the sea—and of their enigmatic, fanatically courageous enemy.
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #337012 in Books
- Published on: 2011-11-08
- Released on: 2011-11-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .90" w x 5.20" l, .66 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 408 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Former navy pilot and military historian Gandt (Season of Storms) is a first-rate storyteller, and here he focuses on an aspect of the Battle of Okinawa sometimes overshadowed by the bitter fighting on land: Okinawa was the most expensive naval battle in American history, with almost 10,000 American casualties. Thirty ships were lost, and over 350 more were damaged, many beyond repair. Gandt uses operational history to structure the naval campaign's human dimensions. He describes Japan's development of a kamikaze force so effective that American admirals deployed picket lines of small, expendable warships to absorb the attacks' initial impact. The author portrays senior officers aged beyond their years by the unending stresses of command. He recreates fighter cockpits as carrier pilots tackle the kamikazes and the escorts determined to bring them through. He boards ships desperately fending off attackers no less determined to make their dying count. On the waters off Okinawa it was kill or be killed. As Gandt ably shows, Okinawa taught President Truman a grim lesson: "any weapon," even an atomic bomb, "was preferable to an invasion" of Japan. B&w photos, maps. (Nov.) (c)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Its context the Okinawa battle of 1945, Gandt’s latest aviation history fits in with his Intrepid (2008), an account of the aircraft carrier that survived kamikaze strikes to become the museum today moored at New York City. He zeroes in on one of the ship’s squadrons, VFB-10 in naval jargon, and follows its pilots from training through their experiences of combat. From interviews he conducted with veterans of the squadron, Gandt derives great immediacy about their experiences in the war and their recollections of comrades who died in the Okinawa campaign. Integrating the eyewitness testimony into an overall battle narrative clearly synthesized from extant works about Okinawa, Gandt changes scene from the Intrepid to the headquarters of American and Japanese commanders to show VFB-10’s place in the larger picture of the brutal, merciless battle. Gandt’s focus on aviation detail, such as specifications of the squadron’s warplane, the Corsair, and the exact maneuvers the pilots flew in dogfights and bombing runs, is exactly the wide-eyed action his audience expects from this type of work, the unit-level military history. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
"Military historian and novelist Gandt (Black Star Rising, 2007, etc.) chronicles the epic Battle of Okinawa.
In the spring of 1945, as the Red Army approached Berlin, a ferocious land, sea and air battle raged in the Pacific, a dress rehearsal, many thought, for the upcoming invasion of Japan. The author credits the idea of bypassing the heavily fortified island of Formosa and seizing Okinawa to the brainy Adm. Raymond Spruance. Snapshots of Spruance, Marc Mitscher, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, Morton Deyo and Arleigh Burke, towering names in American naval history, dot these pages, complemented by similar sharp takes on the Japanese high command defending the island. The heart of Gandt’s story, though, is the tale of the young aviators, the Tail End Charlies on the American side, fearful they’d never get into action, and the Japanese Thunder Gods, the kamikaze force whose suicide missions testified simultaneously to Japan’s will and her desperation. By no means comprehensive—Gandt checks in only periodically with the halting advance of Simon Buckner’s 10th Army—the narrative, nevertheless, consistently enlightens on numerous battle-related issues and incidents: the rivalry between the black shoe (seagoing) and the brown shoe (aviation) navy; how the Japanese consistently overestimated the destruction caused by the kamikaze missions; the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Buckner and famed correspondent Ernie Pyle; the peculiar susceptibility of the wooden-decked U.S. carriers to kamikaze attack; the sinking of the mighty battleship Yamato; the exploits of American ace Al Lerch, who shot down seven planes in a single mission; the strength of the USS Laffey, still afloat after six kamikaze crashes. The appalling price in lives lost, men wounded, ships sunk and aircraft destroyed made Okinawa “the costliest naval engagement in U.S. history.” Three months later the atomic bomb would fall on Hiroshima.
A fine popular account of history’s last great sea battle." -- Kirkus
“Written in a wonderful bold style, with pathos, humor, tragedy, and gripping suspense, Twilight Warriors captures the life and death struggle of sailors and airmen fighting the last great Pacific battle of World War II... A riveting masterpiece, a powerful tribute to all those sailors and pilots who went in harm's way. Five stars!" --Stephen Coonts, author of Flight of the Intruder
“This extremely well written history of the Battle of Okinawa is unusual in that it is perfect for both beginning students and for experts. It is a book that will leave you with unforgettable memories of the heroes who fought—on both sides—in the Okinawan twilight.” --Walter J. Boyne, former director of the National Air and Space Museum, author of The Wild Blue.
“Using the actual flying experience of the pilots of VBF-10 for center stage, Gandt broadens the scope of "The Twilight Warriors" by melding in Japanese air and sea operations with US operations to give us a complete view of the last big battle in the Pacific campaign. The detailed look at the personalities of American and Japanese warriors adds great insight into decisions made, both good and bad. It is both an informative and compelling read.” --Dave North, Editor-in-Chief, Aviation Week & Space Technology (ret), USS Intrepid pilot
From the Hardcover edition.
Most helpful customer reviews
109 of 111 people found the following review helpful.
The Last Battle
By Jeffrey T. Munson
By the spring of 1945, the Japanese had been driven west across the Pacific by the ever-increasing strength of the American Navy. Okinawa, only 350 miles from mainland Japan, was to be the final battle leading up to the invasion of Japan. Okinawa would serve as a major staging area as well as a base for aircraft. But before these preparations could be made, the Japanese garrison needed to be defeated. On April 1, 1945, the Americans stormed ashore. What laid ahead was the most costly naval battle of the war. Author Robert Gandt describes the naval aspect of the battle for Okinawa in "The Twilight Warriors".
I've read several books about the battle for Okinawa, and this one is unique from the previous ones I've read. This book focuses specifically on the naval aspect of the fighting, while only mentioning the land battle in broad terms. Gandt pays particular attention to the kamikaze attacks, the suicide mission of the battleship Yamato, and the numerous air battles that took place in the area. The pilots who flew the planes were called "Tail-End Charlies", due to their status as late-comers to the war. These men also flew at the back of formations, stood at the end of chow lines, and even had their own sleeping quarters called "boys' town".
Perhaps the area of greatest danger was the destroyer picket stations. These ships would intercept incoming kamikazes and radio ahead to the main fleet. The Japanese were soon setting out to destroy these ships, and many American destroyers were lost as a result of the kamikaze attacks.
I felt Gandt did an especially good job of describing the suicide mission of the Yamato. He devotes several chapters to this story, and I was amazed at the possibility of this ship actually reaching the beaches at Okinawa, beaching itself, and firing on the American soldiers and ships. Fortunately, the "Tail-End Charlies" and other flyers sank the ship before it was too late.
This is a fine work of World War II history. The writing is very good, and Gandt has done a thorough job of researching the aspects of the battle. Highly recommended.
56 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
NavAir and the Struggle for Okinawa!
By Mike O'Connor
The battle for Okinawa was the last great campaign of World War II, a bitterly-fought, duel-to-the death struggle that pitted hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors and marines against Japanese forces determined to save the Empire. As Americans soon found out, the most fearsome element of the Japanese forces defending Okinawa were swarms of kamikazes determined to "body crash" the American ships. Focusing on the U. S. Navy's involvement in the fight for Okinawa, author Robert Gandt interweaves the experiences of the Corsair pilots of VBF-10, assigned to USS Intrepid, against the backdrop of that epic land-sea-air struggle into a fascinating account of men at war.
TWILIGHT WARRIORS' storyline begins over a year before the first troops splashed ashore. While Eric Erickson and other young Americans were training to be naval aviators in September 1943, American brass were deciding the sequence of future operations in the Pacific and their Japanese counterparts were trying to devise strategies to stop the oncoming Americans. By the time Intrepid and Air Group 10 departed Pearl Harbor in March 1945, Japanese strategies and most of the the Emperor's fleet lay in ruins, their only effective weapon being kamikazes. The final months of the Navy's war saw hard-fought battles over Okinawa and the Japanese mainland. Air Group 10 and other Air Groups pounded the Japanese mainland, furnished CAP against never-ending kamikaze attacks, struck the remnants of the IJN fleet, etc. When VBF-10's war ended in May 1945, Erickson had won two DFCs, downed two e/a, helped sink BB Yamato and seen a half dozen squadronmates die in combat. In the Okinawa fighting, 12,520 Americans were killed or MIA including 4,907 USN personnel. Some 34 ships were sunk and 368(!) damaged including USS Intrepid. Japanese casualties were 110,000 military personnel alone.
With such a broad canvas, Gandt does a fine job of interweaving the various American and Japanese storylines, effortlessly taking the reader from the cockpit of an F4U to the bridge of USS Laffey under kamikaze attack to an Ie Shima foxhole where Ernie Pyle lay dying. There have been a number of Okinawa campaign books published but Gandt's certainly gets high marks for its wide-ranging scope and readability.
Naval and air combat buffs will enjoy THE TWILIGHT WARRIORS. It offers an informative and eminently readable account of the final battles waged in the Pacific. Recommended.
38 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Account of the Okinawa Campaign
By Bill Pilon
The Twilight Warriors by Robert Gant is an excellent book on the Okinawa Campaign. Gant covers the air, naval and ground aspects of the campaign, although I must say that the ground campaign gets kind of short shrift compared to the naval and air. Essentially this is the story of the Kamikaze attacks and the American response to them.
Gant frames the book around the experiences of the pilots of the USS Intrepid's fighter groups. We get fairly detailed information about the training and experiences of these guys and it forms a pretty good "hook" to provide context for the rest of the campaign. The book is really well written, detailed without bogging down and fairly balanced in its coverage of both the Japanese and American points of view. This book was detailed enough to teach even serious students of WWII something, while still being accessible to novices. Highly recommended.
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