Neptune's Inferno

the long version

While the Battle of Midway is perhaps more well known, the Battle of Guadalcanal was a far larger, longer, and more brutal struggle which marked the turning point in the Pacific War. It was an all out fight on land, sea, and air which lasted for over 4 months, into which both sides poured all the resources they could summon. This book is about the many major naval battles which to a large extent determined the outcome. At the beginning, the US Navy was still emerging from its peacetime slumber, and it was ravaged by the much more experienced Japanese in some of the worst defeats in US naval history. However, as crews and commanders learned from very painful experience, the tide was turned, and eventually the Japanese were forced to withdraw as they couldn't sustain their enormous losses in ships and sailors. The book vividly describes the hell that both sides went through as human beings lived and died in hailstorms of hot steel.