The most authoritative and revealing examination yet of the way intelligence--of all kinds--was instrumental in defeating Japan. Prados gives a new picture of the war in the Pacific, one which will challenge many previous conceptions about that conflict, and one which will be irresistible to those readers who find histories of that period fascinating. 16 pages of photos.

The Battle of Midway is traditionally held as the point when Allied forces gained advantage over the Japanese. In Islands of Destiny, acclaimed historian and military intelligence expert John Prados points out that the Japanese forces quickly regained strength after Midway and continued their assault undaunted. Taking this surprising fact as the start of his inquiry, he began to investigate how and when the Pacific tide turned in the Allies’ favor. Using archives of WWII intelligence reports from both sides, Prados offers up a compelling reassessment of the true turning in the Pacific: not Midway, but the fight for the Solomon Islands. Combat in the Solomons saw a series of surface naval battles, including one of the key battleship-versus-battleship actions of the war; two major carrier actions; daily air duels, including the aerial ambush in which perished the famous Japanese naval commander Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku; and many other hair-raising exploits. Commencing with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal, Prados shows how and why the Allies beat Japan on the sea, in the air, and in the jungles.

A military intelligence expert examines the most formative battle of World War II. The Battle of Normandy was the greatest offensive campaign the world had ever seen. Millions of soldiers battling for control of Europe were thrust onto the front lines of a massive war unlike any experienced in history. But the greatest of clashes would prove to be the crucible in which the outcome of World War II would be decided. Author John Prados tells the story of how and why the tactics and battle plans of Normandy proved so formative, and reconstructs the climactic Allied Normandy breakout from both sides of the battle lines.

In this provocative history, James B. Wood challenges the received wisdom that Japan's defeat in the Pacific was historically inevitable. He argues instead that it was only when the Japanese military prematurely abandoned its original sound strategic plan—to secure the resources Japan needed and establish a viable defensible perimeter for the Empire—that the Allies were able to regain the initiative and lock Japanese forces into a war of attrition they were not prepared to fight. The book persuasively shows how the Japanese army and navy had both the opportunity and the capability to have fought a different and more successful war in the Pacific that could have influenced the course and outcome of World War II. It is therefore a study both of Japanese defeat and of what was needed to achieve a potential Japanese victory, or at the very least, to avoid total ruin. Wood's argument does not depend on signal individual historical events or dramatic accidents. Instead it examines how familiar events could have b

Elliot Carlson’s award-winning biography of Capt. Joe Rochefort is the first to be written about the officer who headed Station Hypo, the U.S. Navy’s signals monitoring and cryptographic intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor, and who broke the Japanese navy’s code before the Battle of Midway. The book brings Rochefort to life as the irreverent, fiercely independent, and consequential officer that he was. Readers share his frustrations as he searches in vain for Yamamoto’s fleet prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but share his joy when he succeeds in tracking the fleet in early 1942 and breaks the code that leads Rochefort to believe Yamamoto’s invasion target is Midway. His conclusions, bitterly opposed by some top Navy brass, are credited with making the U.S. victory possible and helping to change the course of the war. The author tells the story of how opponents in Washington forced Rochefort’s removal from Station Hypo and denied him the Distinguished Service Medal recommended by Admiral Nimitz. In capturing the interplay of policy and personality and the role played by politics at the highest levels of the Navy, Carlson reveals a side of the intelligence community seldom seen by outsiders. For a full understanding of the man, Carlson examines Rochefort’s love-hate relationship with cryptanalysis, his adventure-filled years in the 1930s as the right-hand man to the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, and his return to codebreaking in mid-1941 as the officer in charge of Station Hypo. He traces Rochefort’s career from his enlistment in 1918 to his posting in Washington as head of the Navy’s codebreaking desk at age twenty-five, and beyond. In many ways a reinterpretation of Rochefort, the book makes clear the key role his codebreaking played in the outcome of Midway and the legacy he left of reporting actionable intelligence directly to the fleet. An epilogue describes efforts waged by Rochefort’s colleagues to obtain the medal denied him in 1942—a drive that finally paid off in 1986 when the medal was awarded posthumously.

By October 1944, the US Navy had driven the devastated Japanese fleet across the far Pacific. But with each defeat, Japanese commanders became even more determined to destroy the Americans in a final decisive battle. In Storm Over Leyte, acclaimed historian John Prados gives readers an unprecedented look at both sides of this titanic naval clash. Drawing upon a wealth of untapped sources Prados offers up a masterful narrative that breaks new ground in our understanding of the greatest naval clash in history.