Love Jr., Robert W. History of the U.S. Navy. Volume 2: 1942-1991

This sweeping recasting of American naval history is a bold departure from the conventional "sea power" approach. Volume Two of History of the U.S. Navy shows how the Navy in World War II helped to upset the traditional balance in Europe and Asia. Days after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Ernest J. King took command of a navy overwhelmed by the demands of war. King devised grand strategies to defeat the Axis and promoted a cadre of fighting admirals - Halsey, Spruance, Hewitt, Kincaid, and Turner - who waged unprecedented in complexity and violence. New sources provide an entirely fresh look at the Battle of the Atlantic, the invasion of Europe, and the great naval campaigns in the Pacific. This book contains the first comprehensive interpretation of the U.S. Navys role in the Cold War, when the United States found itself the global bailiff. Love demonstrated that the Navys abiding priority was to capture and maintain a share of the strategic bombardment mission by building new ships, planes, submarines, and mission to deliver nuclear weapons. The dawn of the New World Oder found the Navy still on duty as the mailed fist of American foreign policy, standing watch in the Persian Gulf and, at the same time, off the coast of West Africa during Liberias violent civil war. Fresh challenges, the author argues, call for a newly balanced fleet and continued attention to Americas first line of defense.

New sources provide an entirely new insight into the Battle of the Atlantic, the invasions of North Africa and the European continent, and the major naval campaigns in the Pacific. This book contains the first comprehensive interpretation of the U.S. Navy's role in the Cold War, when the United States found itself as one of two superpowers in the world. Love shows how the U.S. Navy struggled not to lose its strategic role in the world to the U.S. Air Force with its bombers and missiles or the U.S. Army during the Cold War era. The construction of new ships, aircraft, submarines and the potential to deploy nuclear weapons was intended to secure the role of the U.S. Navy as a globally operating force in the future. Even after the end of the Cold War and the threats and challenges of the present, the U.S. Navy is ready at all times to realise the foreign policy goals of the USA wherever a military presence and striking power is needed in the shortest possible time, whether in the Persian Gulf or at the same time off the coast of West Africa or during the violent civil war in Liberia.