No Higher Honor: The U.S.S. Yorktown and the Battle of Midway [Hardcover]

Jeff Nesmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 1999

A detailed, moving account of the pivotal Battle of Midway, told through the voices and stories of the men who fought on the U.S.S. Yorktown.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This biography of a doomed aircraft carrier follows in the popular tradition of Stephen E. Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation--it's a book about sailors, not admirals. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeff Nesmith interviewed dozens of the men assigned to the USS Yorktown, which would sink to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean during the Battle of Midway "six months almost to the hour after the bombing of Pearl Harbor." Readers will learn more about men like Joe Fazio, an Italian American kid whose greatest ambition in high school was to become a chief petty officer in the Navy, than they will about the officers who sent him to war. Nesmith's real achievement on these pages is to recreate a sense of what it was like to serve aboard an aircraft carrier in the early days of the Second World War. No Higher Honor is full of original material, and the pages are heavy with dialogue. Midway was not an inglorious moment for the 2,000 men who would abandon ship early in the morning of June 4, 1942. They had fought gallantly in what Nesmith calls "one of the great naval battles of history, one that would turn the momentum of the war in the Pacific away from Japan in favor of the United States." They are well served by this engaging tribute. --John J. Miller

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Longstreet (April 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563525526
• ISBN-13: 978-1563525520
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,665,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good read for anyone interested in WW II., November 15, 1999

By 

Ed Kearney ([e-mail]) (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Higher Honor: The U.S.S. Yorktown and the Battle of Midway (Hardcover)

Mr. Nesmith includes first hand accounts of men who were aboard the USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway. He describes the innocense of the young sailors, the shock of the enemy attacks, the death and destruction, the patriotism, spirit and camaraderie among the crew of the Yorktown and of course their enormous courage. For anyone who is a student of WW II this is a must read. The book gave me a glimpse of the horrors my father witnessed as the Junior Medical Officer on the Yorktown during the Battle of the Coral Sea and at Midway. Along with the others in the medical department he saw the worst of what war can do to a human being. He did not often speak of his Navy service during the Battle of Midway. In the few times he did, he expressed the greatest respect and praise for the brave pilots whose each flight meant a chance with death, for the enlisted men whose duty it was to stand with their shipmates firing their anti-aircraft guns as the attacking enemy planes bore down on them and for the officers whose decisions during the battle meant life or death for scores of men. If understanding war, how it defines a man and what courage is, then read this book. If you want to know of typical unassuming Americans who rose to great heights of unsung heroism while defending their country for you and me then read this book. Mr. Nesmith has captured it all.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book, Confusing Title, February 3, 2000

By 

Jeffrey T. Munson (Dixon, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: No Higher Honor: The U.S.S. Yorktown and the Battle of Midway (Hardcover)

This book is the story of the USS Yorktown. However, contrary to the title of the book, It details the life of the Yorktown from 1941 until June 1942. Overall, this is a very good book. I was particularly interested by the personal stories and experiences of the crew members. I do feel that the book did not devote enough time to the battle of Midway. There are only about 120 pages or so that actually deal with the battle, while the rest of the book covers the Yorktown's earlier service, hence the "confusing title". There are other books available which go into much greater depth, but this book does a good job covering the basic aspects of the battle of Midway.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good human interest material; some extremely poor research, November 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: No Higher Honor: The U.S.S. Yorktown and the Battle of Midway (Hardcover)

Though the subtitle indicates this book deals with the aircraft carrier Yorktown at the Battle of Midway, it actually follows CV-5's career from late 1941 through its sinking in June 1942. The author provides depth and variety to his human interest coverage but makes a large number of egregious factual errors, all of which are avoidable. Just a few corrections: some US torpedo planes DID return to their carriers; Geo. Gay of VT-8 did NOT receive the Medal of Honor; SBD and TBD armament is incorrectly described; and for some vague reason the Yorktown dive bombing attack that sank the Japanese carrier Soryu is glossed over in one short paragraph. This is certainly a worthy topic, but the best books on the subject are Cressman's "That Gallant Ship" plus Cressman (et al) "A Glorious Page in Our History." Naval aviation history really needs to be written by naval or aviation people.