The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour

by James D. Hornfischer

Though distrust of the Japanese was widespread in the Navy, Sprague was among the first to appreciate exactly what the Japanese might do. In June 1928 the Lexington participated in a mock surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. By night the ship crept to within 250 miles of the great Pacific base and launched its planes at dawn. As the American planes flew close overhead, interrupting innumerable breakfasts with the rattling reverberations of their piston-driven engines and an onslaught of flour-filled sacks dropped from their bomb bays, the defenders on Oahu received a bracing glimpse of the future. To Sprague and others in naval aviation, it was proof enough of the hitting power of their new weapon. The following year the Lexington took part in a successful air raid drill on the Panama Canal. Slowly but steadily aircraft carriers were breaking the battleship’s monopoly in the business of projecting offensive power at sea. Sprague spent fourteen months aboard the Lexington before doing a tour on shore duty in May 1929. He was in the vanguard of the new wave. But if any lessons were distilled from those early mock assaults on the Pacific Fleet Headquarters, the Navy had all but forgotten them come December 7, 1941. That day, as captain of the seaplane tender Tangier, Sprague watched every ship tied up to Ford Island except his get hit during the Japanese attack. Loaded with torpedoes, an inferno awaiting its spark, the Tangier early in the battle became shrouded in smoke from the...