Fleet the Gods Forgot: The United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II (Bluejacket Books) [Paperback]

W. G. Winslow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1994 | Series: Bluejacket Books

The heroic story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet at the outbreak of World War II and their disastrous encounter with vastly superior Japanese forces.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155750928X
• ISBN-13: 978-1557509284
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,289,300 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Several short stories about those who gave their lives, September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fleet the Gods Forgot: The United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II (Bluejacket Books) (Paperback)

This was truly an outstanding book. It's filled with short stories about the few victories and many defeats suffered during the first few months of the war. It tells of how a few heroic men made their stand alone against a vastly superior enemy. We have learned and appreciated all of the successes and heroes from this war, but this book shows us how we can learn and appreciate from the real lives of men that history has largely forgotten.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good narrative but it's not history, September 19, 2001

By 

Michael Knight (Adelaide Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fleet the Gods Forgot: The United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II (Bluejacket Books) (Paperback)

I bought this book believing that I was purchasing a history of the Asiatic fleet. What I got was a series of interesting narratives which were only very broadly structured and gave you little or no opportunity to glean the historical sequence of events. Don't get me wrong the accounts, mostly from first hand sources are gripping reading, but I was left rather disappointed and with the impression that I had read a book of short stories rather than a historical record.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable collection of narratives, September 15, 2010

By 

Don Kehn, Jr. (Isola di Kizmiaz) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fleet the Gods Forgot: The United States Asiatic Fleet in World War II (Bluejacket Books) (Paperback)

I was lucky enough to meet Walter ("Windy" as he was nicknamed) Winslow in early 1994, and can state that he was a fine, thoughtful & proud man. He gladly inscribed both hardbound copies of his works for me, and spoke with me--a complete stranger--in an open, very unpretentious manner and even permitted me to give him an old volume on B-17 operations in the Philippines & Java as a gift of gratitude for his considerable efforts to commemorate the Asiatic Fleet.

Winslow's book THE FLEET THE GODS FORGOT is MUST-reading for any intrigued by the obscure, tragic fate of America's old Asiatic Fleet in its forlorn campaign against the Imperial Japanese Navy's superior air and sea forces in the first 90 days of WWII. This venerable fleet, not much larger than a task force by later war standards, was thrown into a mixed Allied naval command (the so-called ABDA forces) made up of ships and airplanes from four different nations, speaking different languages & with very different strategic & tactical imperatives. Not surprisingly the entire campaign was a mess from start to finish...and the finish was very harsh indeed.
Short of materiel but long on guts, the old Asiatic Fleet did the best they could with what they had, and may truly be said to have drained the cup of defeat to its
bitterest dregs. Walt Winslow was a participant & survivor of the campaign [serving as an aviator aboard the flagship USS HOUSTON (CA-30)] and it is to his diligence & earnest desire to record for posterity the stories and facts of the fleet's demise that we had, for many years, as good a picture as we did of our naval & air operations in the dark weeks of December 1941 to March 1942...

Few professionally trained "historians"--whatever that vague term really signifies--have tackled (before Winslow or after) this period. It is neither well-documented (lacking primary source evidence aplenty) nor edifying...in view of the sacrifical role played by the old ships of the Asiatic Fleet in ABDA. But quiet courage, experience, and tremendous resolve were displayed & earned. Winslow does a fine job of capturing these qualities in his narratives.

{For those with the blinkered mentality of acccountants who presume to know "real history" (when they count it, one assumes), they might be better off simply acquiring the Official USN Chronology of WWII, and avoiding the strain placed upon their minds by reading something other than lists of statistical tables & graphs; understanding, as only they can, that TRUTH is always revealed in numbers...}

Walt Winslow's books are both worth acquiring, and easily hold up to repeated readings, in addition to serving as sources for more in-depth research. One might bear in mind when getting this book--for what amounts to a pittance, from whatever source, after all!--that it is highly improbable that any single work will ever supersede this one as an overview of the ill-fated, but magnificent 'fleet the gods forgot'.