Audiobook11 hours
Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II
Written by Barrett Tillman and Stephen Coonts
Narrated by Joe Barrett
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
The incredible true story of the most spectacular aircraft carrier battle in history-World War II's Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
In June, 1944, American and Japanese carrier fleets made their way toward one another in the Philippine Sea. Their common objective: the strategically vital Marianas Islands. During two days of brutal combat, the American and Japanese carriers dueled, launching wave after wave of fighters and bombers against one another. By day and night, hundreds of planes filled the skies. When it was over, the men of the American Fifth Fleet had claimed more than four hundred aerial combat victories, and three Japanese carriers lay on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Here is the true account of those great and terrible days-by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.
In June, 1944, American and Japanese carrier fleets made their way toward one another in the Philippine Sea. Their common objective: the strategically vital Marianas Islands. During two days of brutal combat, the American and Japanese carriers dueled, launching wave after wave of fighters and bombers against one another. By day and night, hundreds of planes filled the skies. When it was over, the men of the American Fifth Fleet had claimed more than four hundred aerial combat victories, and three Japanese carriers lay on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Here is the true account of those great and terrible days-by those who were there, in the thick of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Drawing upon numerous interviews with American and Japanese veterans as well as official sources, Clash of the Carriers is an unforgettable testimonial to the bravery of those who fought and those who died in a battle that will never be forgotten.
Author
Barrett Tillman
Barrett Tillman is a widely recognized authority on air warfare in World War II and the author of more than forty nonfiction and fiction books on military topics. He has received six awards for history and literature, including the Admiral Arthur Radford Award. He lives in Mesa, Arizona.
Related to Clash of the Carriers
Related audiobooks
Morning Star, Midnight Sun: The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War II August–October 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5World War II at Sea: A Global History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silver State Dreadnought: The Remarkable Story of Battleship Nevada Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pacific Thunder: The US Navy's Central Pacific Campaign, August 1943–October 1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deadly Deep: The Definitive History of Submarine Warfare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Carriers Fought: Carrier Operations in WWII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miracle at Midway Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tin Cans and Greyhounds: The Destroyers that Won Two World Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holding the Line: The Naval Air Campaign In Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Wake Island Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strong Men Armed: The United States Marines Against Japan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guadalcanal Diary: 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Wars & Military For You
The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Clash of the Carriers
Rating: 3.864864864864865 out of 5 stars
4/5
37 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I made it to around page 60. I was having too much difficulty following the author to continue. For me, there are too many well written Pacific World War II books that cover this subject matter to make this book worthwhile.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While a lot of naval books focus on the 'big' battles of war - Jutland, Midway, The Atlantic - this one is an in-depth study recollecting a US vs. Japan battle in the Philippine Sea in gaining control of the Guam and its island neighbours. The term 'Turkey Shoot' was coined by an airman after one of the dogfights during the week-long fight and is famous for being a totally fought in the air by two battle groups hundreds of miles apart where surface ships never saw sight of each other. While Midway became the real turning point in the Pacific War for the Americans when Japan lost a lot of its major 'flat tops', Philippine Sea all but sealed the deal as the Japanese, stretched at best, lost not only three more carriers, but somewhere close to 75% of its remaining seaborne aircraft, and more importantly experienced pilots.The recollection is very good in building up to the battle, the planning and sparring from both sides while putting into layman's terms what was happening, and what the risk was to both sides. Calling on interviews from survivors on both sides it is (almost) balanced in its reporting, however it does tend to lean towards the American side i bias, something which is probably easy to do when the author is a Yank, and the Yanks were deemed the victors. All in all a fascinating read that doesn't bore one with too much jargon and has a good focus on the thoughts and fears of those who dueled in the air. I have read many a book on war and more often than not I have sometimes wondered how the hell the Allies managed to win, what with poor planning, poor execution, and more often than not inter-service distrust. This book almost has you thinking the same thing, but the underlying tone in this is courage, and risk, and the Americans more than had this with near fatal results. Nothing to take away from the Japanese; hopelessly outnumbered and in inferior hardware, but if one chapter sticks out for me, it comes near the end when the American aircrews are left with no choice but to 'come home' in the dark. Thrilling stuff that makes it hard to put down...
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I rarely abandon a book, but this one I did. In the 50 pages I managed there was much about every aspect of WW2 carrier warfare except the ostensible subject of the book.Those first 50 pages are written as though by a bad sportswriter, with lots and lots and lots of facts and figures, connected only by being about WW2 naval operations, but presented in a painfully meandering style. It's as if he took his notes, threw them in the air, and wrote about them in the order he picked them up. Consequently there are lots of non sequiturs, un-referenced statements that seem bogus on their face, and an overall lack of clarity as to what point, exactly, he might be trying to make in any given paragraph/page/section/chapter. It doesn't help that he tried never to use the same word twice, or an ordinary one where jargon is available: the text is a mish-mash of four different vocabularies all at once: regular English, official US Navalese, US naval slang, and Japanese. Then there's the editing, which appears to have been performed solely by his word processor's spelling checker. In an unwonted grant of the benefit of the doubt, I actually gave it two stars because for all I know it gets better after page 50. But if I were you, I wouldn't risk your time on that chance.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating insite into the circumstances and men behind this WW2 battle.