Customer Reviews

The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy

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WELL WRITTEN BOOK ABOUT THE WWII FAST CARRIERS AND THE MEN WHO COMMANDED THEM. ESPECIALLY INTERESTING IS THE AUTHOR'S DELVING INTO THEIR PERSONALITIES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR STAFF AND CREW. SHOWS WHICH ONES WERE REALLY THE FIGHTING ADMIRALS AND WHICH ONES JUST EXISTED ON THE JOB. THE BOOK DOES AN EXCELLENT JOB OF DETAILING THE EARLY YEARS BEFORE THE WAR AND THE BATTLE WITH THE NAVY'S "BATTLESHIP ADMIRALS" WHO COULDN'T SEE PAST THEIR BIG GUNS TO REALIZE THAT CARRIER AIR POWER WAS THE NAVY'S FUTURE. IN ONE SENSE PEARL HARBOR DID MORE FOR CARRIER AIR IN ONE DAY THAN ALL THE PLEADING HAD DONE UP TO THAT TIME. I SERVED ON THE CARRIER MIDWAY IN THE 50'S COMMANDED BY WWII CARRIER AIR ACE "TOMMY BLACKBURN" WHO COMMANDED THE FAMOUS "JOLLY ROGERS" CORSAIR SQUADRON VF-17. HE WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT FIGHTING ADMIRAL. A MUST HAVE BOOK FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN WWII NAVAL HISTORY

I'm a nut about aircraft carriers and the war in the South Pacific, and I think this is the best book I've ever read on the subject. The author starts with the development of fast carriers in the 20's and 30's, then talks the early days of World War II when both navys knew they had a powerful offensive weapon, didn't quite know how to use it. He finishes with America's success in developing carrier task forces and Air Admirals. If you are interested in this subject, you can't do better than this in one volume.

Unusually for a book on the carrier war, The Fast Carriers focuses on events from late 1943 onwards, when the Essex-class ships began coming on line. It is a unique work, but has flaws that beg for a revisionist account. Reynolds is very much a partisan in favor of the carrier admirals, so his account of their intra-service battles within the Navy is unbalanced. He also sheds little light on the carrier task force as a component in the combined-arms force. The post-1943 focus costs him a chance to track the changes in training and doctrine that occurred after the 1942 battles. And, finally, his account of the Philippine Sea is conventionally critical of Spruance, without giving proper weight to the issues at stake in moving TF58 to the west in pursuit. All in all, The Fast Carriers remains an essential work on the Pacific War, but its place in the literature is tenuous. One awaits Eric Bergerud's forthcoming work on the naval component of the Solomons battles for new insights.

This book is light on the details of the fast carriers from a hardware view,and heavy on the inside politics of the us navy.The events involving the carriers during the war were well covered.

This book is not a U.S. carrier development history in general. Although it touches some historical events before 1943, its focus really falls on the period of 1943 - 1945 when Essex class carriers became the backbone of U.S. Navy. The author provides a great mixure of internal politics and operation history to illustrate the emerging Air Navy's growing pains and delights. This is a well written book for history-oriented readers. Readers who are more into technical details should seek other books such as Norman Friedman's "U.S. Cruisers : An Illustrated Design History".

I generally agree with Ray Gronberg's review. I would have given this book 5 stars except for the polemic that Reynolds goes off on again and again regarding "traditionalist" vs. "meleeist" philosophies of naval warfare. He dumps on Adm. Spruance for being a traditionalist in the Mariannas operation. In so doing, Reynolds underplays how one-sided the American victory was in the Mariannas "turkey shoot" and in the invasion and occupation of the islands as well.

Also there is a parenthetical note regarding the F6F Hellcat that suggests that its design was influenced by the A6M Zero that was captured in the Aleutian Islands in June 1942. This zero wasn't completely evaluated until well into October 1942, and by that time, the Hellcat was already on the assembly lines.

1968's "The Fast Carriers" is historian Clark Reynolds outstanding study of the forging of a United States air navy. In this wide-ranging book, Reynolds captures the genesis of the concept of carrier aviation in the US Navy, and the proof of that concept and its accompanying doctrine in the fires of World War Two's Pacific theater.

Aircraft carriers have long been a symbol of America's ability to project power, but for most of the history of the US Navy, the battleship was the centerpiece of the fleet. In the 1920's, a few hardy pioneers experimented with the concept of flying aircraft off ships, leading to a purpose-built vessel, the aircraft carrier. As aircraft and doctrine matured, the aircraft carrier evolved from adjunct to the primary fighting ship. The loss of so many US battleships at Pearl Harbor, and the astonishing example of the Japanese carrier-based attack, hurried that evolution along. The US Navy would fight the Pacific war using a large force of highly capable "fast carriers" whose reach and lethality contributed much to the final defeat of Imperial Japan. and set the course of the postwar Navy.

Reynolds devotes considerable time to the personalties and the politics of a carrier-based Navy. Some of the names are familiar ones, like Admirals William Halsey, Marc Mitscher, John McCain, and Ted Sherman, the fighting task force admirals. Others are less known, such as John Towers, an outspoken advocate of naval aviation, and William Moffet, the "father of Naval Aviation." Reynolds also recounts the campaigns of the carriers around the Pacific, from Coral Sea to Tokyo Bay. The escort carriers, the so-called "night carriers", and the contributions of the British Royal Navy also get due mention.

Reynolds provides an even-handed critique of the Navy's growing pains with naval aviation, its sometimes uncertain handling of carrier forces during the war, and the clashes of its leading personalties. The narrative is fleshed out with an outstanding selection of photographs and a detailed bibliographic essay. This scholarly but very readable account is very highly recommended to the naval professional and to the student of the Second World War.

This book concentrates on the creation of the air navy during its most interesting period, 1941-45, and details the change from the battleship navy to the fast carrier battle groups of today. No matter how small your library, this book should be in it.

If you want a good detailed one volume book about the Aircraft Carriers then here you go. I really liked because it mentioned the part of the Royal Navy took in the Pacific war. You almost never hear about the that and its not really fair.