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"This dramatic tour of war at sea presents stories of naval combat around the world and through the ages. Lost Warships traces the three-thousand-year archaeological history of these events, from ancient conflicts in the Mediterranean and on China's rivers and lakes to the lost ships and sea battles of the Second World War.
Time has made famous the names of the great sea battles - Actium, Lepanto, the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar, Jutland, Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Battle of the Atlantic. But the battlefields of the ocean are often vast and unmarked.
Lost Warships plumbs the eerie and often forlorn depths of that great, rarely visited underwater museum. It pictures the ocean's floor and the lost warships that lie there. James P. Delgado brings to life archaeologists' reconstructions of the past, including legendary events such as the Pharaoh Ramses' defeat of the Sea Peoples, the last desperate sea battle of Antony and Cleopatra, and Kublai Khan's seaborne invasion of medieval Japan. Delgado offers fresh insights into the Viking raids; Henry VIII's carrack Mary Rose, capsized going into battle in 1545; British ships of the line lost in colonial wars; the ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, both lost during the American Civil War. He also provides a new look at the bomb-ravaged USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, as well as the aircraft carrier Saratoga, sunk by a nuclear explosion in 1946 in the first naval tests of atomic weapons.
Lavishly illustrated, Lost Warships includes 69 full-color and 142 black-and-white reproductions of paintings, photographs, engravings and artifacts, some appearing for the first time in print. Clearly written, comprehensive and meticulously researched, this is a stunning book for anyone interested in history, war and the sea."

New York, NY, Checkmark Books:2001, ISBN 0-8160-4530-5 (hardcover)

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"December 1944, the Pacific theater. General Douglas MacArthur has vowed to return to the Philippines. He will need the help of Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey's Pacific Fleet. But at the height of the invasion, Halsey's ships are blind-sided by a typhoon of unprecedentedstrength and scope. Battleships are tossed like toys, fighter planes are blown off carriers, destroyers are capsized and hundreds of sailors are swept into the roiling shark-infested sea.
This is the story of World War II's most unexpected disaster, one of its most devastating tragedies, and a daring rescue mission - a heart-pounding true tale of men clashing against the ruthless forces of war and nature.
In the final days of 1944, Bull Halsey is the Pacific's most popular and colorful naval hero. After a string of victories, the 'Fighting Admiral' and his thirty-thousand-man Third Fleet are charged with protecting General MacArthur's flank during the invasion of the Philippine island of Mindoro. But in the midst of the landings, Halsey attempts a complicated refueling maneuver and unwittingly drives his 170 ships into the teeth of a massive typhoon.
His men find themselves battling 90-foot waves and 150-mph winds. The destroyer USS Hull is tossed from crest to trough until it eventually turns turtle as panicked sailors belowdecks attempt to claw their way free. The USS Spence absorbs so much punishment that it literally breaks in half, leaving scores of men scrambling for a few undamaged lifeboats. The fabled destroyer USS Monaghan implodes on itself, taking more than 90 percent of its crew to the seabed. And aboard the aircraft carrier USS Monterey, a young Gerald Ford dons a gas mask and leads a rescue team into an exploding hangar deck that is ablaze with the wreckage of loose aircraft slamming together.
Amid the chaos, nearly nine hundred of the fleet's sailors and officers are swept into the Philippine Sea. For three days, small bands of survivors battle dehydration, exhaustion, sharks, and the elements to await rescue at the hands of the courageous Lieutenant Commander Henry Lee Plage, who, defying orders, sails his tiny destroyer escort, the USS Tabberer, back into the storm to rescue drifting sailors.
The typhoon ultimately inflicts twice as much destruction and loss of life as the Battle of Midway. But stunned Navy brass suppress the scope of the disaster to preserve the American advance on Tokyo - as well as the famed Fighting Admiral's reputation back home. Following the ensuing Court of Inquiry, a chastened and angry Halsey never speaks of the investigation again.
Only now, thanks to documents that have been declassified after sixty years and scores of firsthand accounts from survivors - including those of President Ford - can the story finally be told. Informed by years of rigorous research and narrated with the immediacy of an action movie, Halsey's Typhoon is a gripping true tale of courage and survival against impossible odds - and one of the finest untold World War II sagas of our time."

New York, NY, Atlantic Monthly Press:2007, ISBN 0-87113-948-0 (hardcover)

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