Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal

by James D. Hornfischer

One lesson arrived swiftly: that war is the craft of putting ordnance on target decisively, and it is really nothing else. This lesson was being learned the world over in more than a dozen languages. The rigmarole of military life, after all, was designed in part to shape the character of men to respond effectively in that half second where a vital decision must rise instantly from habit. A ship full of pilothouse philosophers, sailors’ lieutenants, and colorful China hands who inspire great fiction will lose a fight in an eye’s blink to a quick, tight, fast-firing crew who snaps their weapons on target and delivers direct fire by the express route. The victors in every battle from Pearl Harbor to El Alamein to Stalingrad had learned this important truth, and now Admiral Scott was among them. On the other side of the world, the Wehrmacht was locked in a death grip with the Russians at Stalingrad. In North Africa, British forces were winning a decisive victory over the Afrika Korps at El Alamein. Such a turning point was soon to be at hand in the South Pacific.