The Fleet at Flood Tide Quotes

“The only thing worse than a bad idea that gets implemented is a good one that is never broached.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“He believed that the quality of experience one has as a member of any team depends on the caliber and motivation of the people one serves with.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“When they get in trouble, they send for the sons-of-bitches”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Although he had a directing hand in everything, he always remained a student at heart.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Unlike Sparta and Rome”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“As Secretary of War Stimson wrote with neither sadness nor spite”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“No nation surrenders until it is shown that there is no better option.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Ours was not a nation with a kamikaze mentality,” Tibbets would write. “When our bombers took off”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“a War Department study noted”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Three out of every four tons of supplies shipped to Calcutta would go toward maintaining the air bridge”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“The operation in Normandy”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“The surge was so great that it might have strained the wine industry’s capacity to make bottles to smash against prows on launching day.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“The question of morality in warfare is vexing. Is there a moral way to kill someone? Is a bullet preferable to starvation, starvation to incineration? By law or by norm, who is a legitimate target in a war in which one side will not yield?”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“When a man is in command, he sits in a position where he cannot have friend or foe. Regular human relationships do not figure into it. So you can’t worry about what people think of you, and you can’t lie awake and have sleepless nights. The job of being in command is lonely by definition.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Courage could arise from an ability to let go of fear for your own life and limbs.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

“Neither triumphalism, condemnation, nor apology does intellectual or emotional justice to the brute reality of this savage war, the outcome of which could not have been known in the moment.”
― James D. Hornfischer, The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945