Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue by Bob Drury, Tom Clavin

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In December 1944, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey and the U.S. 3rd Fleet confronted an onslaught as relentless and deadly as any Japanese attack. A powerful typhoon, surging with 150 mile-per-hour winds, struck the warships in the deepest, most shark-infested waters of the Pacific. Tossed around like playthings, dozens of ships suffered severe damage; but the fate of three destroyers was even worse. The USS Hull, USS Monaghan, and USS Spence capsized in the 70-foot waves, each trapping its crew in a giant steel coffin. In all, 790 men died. Using recently declassified official documents, Halsey's Typhoon captures the unfolding of this "natural" wartime calamity.

From the Publisher

A gripping true account of courage and survival at sea against impossible odds—and one of the finest untold World War II sagas of our time.

In December 1944, while on a mission to support MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey unwittingly steered his fleet of 170 ships into the teeth of a massive typhoon. The storm ultimately inflicted twice as much destruction and loss of life as the Battle of Midway, but Navy brass suppressed the scope of the disaster so as not to compromise the American advance on Tokyo. After the ensuing Court of Inquiry, Halsey never spoke again of the disaster.

It is only now, thanks to documents declassified sixty years after the events and scores of firsthand accounts from survivors, that the story finally has been told.

Publishers Weekly

At the height of the Second World War in 1944, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was struck by a typhoon that sank three destroyers and drowned 800 sailors. Drury (The Rescue Season) and Clavin (Dark Noon: The Final Voyage of the Fishing Boat Pelican) draw on proceedings of a navy board of inquiry and eyewitness recollections to recreate the catastrophe. On the one hand, this is an absorbing if disjointed maritime disaster saga in which shrieking winds and monstrous waves batter warships to pieces. It's also a study in judgment under pressure, as hard-charging Adm. William "Bull" Halsey (motto: "Kill Japs") keeps his fleet positioned in the storm's path because of faulty weather reports, accusations that he improperly left his station during the earlier Battle of Leyte Gulf and general overaggressiveness. Closer to the waterline, the authors contrast the fecklessness of Capt. James Marks of the U.S.S. Hull, which sank, to the steadiness of Capt. Henry Plage of the U.S.S. Tabberer, which braved mountainous seas to rescue survivors. The trumped-up leadership parable is perhaps unfair to Halsey and Marks. Still, the authors make their account a vivid tale of tragedy and gallantry at sea. Photos. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

AGERANGE: Ages 15 to adult.

Admiral William “Bull” Halsey was the very image of a pugnacious hell-for-leather sea warrior, and he personified the desperate naval struggle that finally devastated Imperial Japan’s dream of empire. Yet even as the world was ringing with his fame, two incidents almost destroyed his reputation and threatened him with the humiliation of a court martial. The first of these took place during the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf, when Halsey fell for a Japanese ruse and abruptly abandoned General MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines in order to chase down and destroy four empty enemy carriers. The battle was won anyway and the invasion succeeded, but very little of this was due to Halsey’s actions. What happened next might have been written by Shakespeare: the chastened admiral, on his way to refurbish his exhausted forces, led his Third Fleet straight into the teeth of the most intense Pacific cyclone of the century. Shrieking winds and mountainous waves smashed into Halsey’s ships, damaging his largest men-of-war and capsizing three destroyers, which were lost with all of their crewmen. The maritime tragedy was later immortalized by Herman Wouk in The Caine Mutiny. The authors have taken this high drama and presented it in a way that will appeal to a generation now far removed from these events. In their narrative the entire climax of the Pacific War comes to life again, the battles meticulously recast and explained in enough detail to satisfy the most astute military scholar, yet with enough excitement to please YA readers. In particular, they have presented all of the evidence of the oncoming storm that was available to Halsey at the time, in all of itscontradictions and uncertainties. Should the Third Fleet continue on its course, or flee? Ultimately the decision came down to Halsey’s own judgment, and the reader is left to decide if it was prudent or flawed from the outset. In all, this is an excellent piece of military reporting, recommended to all YA and adult collections. Reviewer: Raymond Puffer, Ph.D.
March 2008 (Vol. 42, No.2)

Kirkus Reviews

A tale of natural disaster, bad judgment and heroism during World War II. In December 1944, a typhoon overtook a U.S. naval fleet that, under the leadership of Admiral William Halsey, was sailing in the Philippine Sea. The catastrophe was legendary-indeed, some believe it to be the basis for Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Caine Mutiny. All told, three ships were destroyed, and almost 800 men died. Drawing on recently declassified documents, Drury (The Rescue Season, 2001, etc.) and Clavin (Dark Noon, not reviewed, etc.) recreate the terrifying days during which the crew battled the elements. But this is not just a tale of men against nature. It's also a tale of men for, and against, other men: Lieutenant Commander Henry Lee Plage of the USS Tabberer flouted orders in a daring rescue effort. The most moving scenes come at the end of the book, as the survivors reckon with the fate of their many dead comrades. Sailors on the USS Knapp, having recovered a body so mutilated by sharks that it was unidentifiable, recited a service from the Book of Common Prayer, and committed the body back to the sea. Moments later, another body floated up from the depths-it was Lieutenant Lloyd Rust, and he, miraculously, was still alive. The authors' prose is often vivid: The typhoon created not just waves, but "vertical sheet[s] of ocean," slamming against the ships, and the sun that beat down on men struggling to stay afloat is "a red dahlia." Drury and Clavin have managed to avoid the problems that so often plague books with two authors-jerky breaks in the narrative, chapters cast in radically different voices. Still, the book is marred by weak characterization-even the heroic Plage neverbecomes three-dimensional. The inherent drama of the events compensates for the sometimes lackluster storytelling. Agent: Nat Sobel/Sobel Weber Associates

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641934459
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641934452
• Format: Hardcover, 322pp
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
• Pub. Date: January 2007
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 374