I am a member of the U.S. Naval Institute for two reasons: 1) I appreciate and support their mission to, “Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security” and, perhaps more importantly, 2) To buy books that advance that mission. It is the later that I am writing about here with the arrival of three books from a recent sale.
BATTLESHIP COMMANDER: THE LIFE OF WILLIS A. LEE JR.
There is no shortage of books covering American naval aviation in the Pacific during World War II. It his harder, however, to find scholarly works on the battleships of the Pacific Fleet. Some books, like James Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Infernal and Trent Hone’s Learning War, rightly provide focus away from the carriers. In Battleship Commander, Paul Stillwell takes us on a personal journey to write a biography of Vice Admiral Willis A. “Ching” Lee, Jr. that started over 40 years ago when Stillwell stepped aboard the battleship New Jersey as a young naval officer and read deck logs of Lee. Vice Admiral Lee led the Fast Battleship Division in some of the most crucial battles of World War II, including the Battle of Guadalcanal that saw the sinking of the Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser Kirishima. To write a biography of Lee was difficult as he eschewed interviews and wrote no memoirs before his untimely death just 10 days after the V-J Day. Stillwell’s book fills a gap in naval history that few have stepped forward to close.
History to Wargame Connection – Tokyo Express (Jon Southard, Victory Games, 1988). Can YOU sink Kirishima?
SUSTAINING THE CARRIER WAR: THE DEPLOYMENT OF U.S. NAVAL AIR POWER TO THE PACIFIC
In Sustaining the Carrier War, Stan Fisher teaches us that naval aviation maintenance played a major role in the U.S. victory over Japan in the Second World War. It took an institutional change to go from less than 10,000 maintainers to a force of nearly 250,000 before the end of the war. Fisher assert that the naval war against Japan did not achieve sustained success until enough aircraft maintainers were available to support aviation operations that carrier doctrine demanded. In this post-Ukraine Invasion world where the study of logistics in war has seen a renewed emphasis, Fisher’s Sustaining the Carrier War is a much needed study on the challenges institutions face in bringing weapon platforms to the battlefield—and then sustaining them there.
History to Wargame Connection – Federation & Empire (Stephen V. Cole, Amarillo Design Bureau, 1986). I always saw the rules about bringing fighter replacement points forward as fiddly but now I see a reason…
REAGAN’S WAR STORIES: A COLD WAR PRESIDENCY
I came of age in the Reagan Years. My father was a huge reader of the works of western pulp writer Louis L’Amour and I eagerly read books by a then-new author named Tom Clancy. As Ben Griffin in Reagan’s War Stories relates, Reagan’s view of the world and my influences and interests overlapped in places. Griffin explores the relationship between the President and the popular culture that Reagan consumed himself. While I had been aware of the influences of L’Amour and Clancy, Reagan’s War Stories helped me see the influence of science fiction on the President.
History to Wargame Connection – The Hunt for Red October (Douglas Niles, TSR, 1988). The Good Guys always win in the end, right?
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Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
1. I’ll play that F&E game with you, I’m a fan.
2. Loved the W.A. Lee biography when I read it. I was only sorry that it came out, because I always wanted to *write* that book.
3. I’d heard a podcast with the author of “Reagan’s war stories”, I missed that it was a book, too. Now on my to-read list.
I still have my copy of Federation Space, precursor to Federation and Empire. I think I only played it once or twice, although my brother might’ve gotten more use out of it. I hope to rectify that. Like the target audience in the review of Red October that you linked to, I’m pretty much looking for “fun” over crunch.