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Harm's Way (novel)
''Harm's Way'' is a 1962 war novel by James Bassett. Set in the Pacific theater during World War II, it follows the exploits of Captain Rockwell "Rock" Torrey as he plans and carries out naval operations against the Japanese. The book was adapted into the 1965 film ''In Harm's Way'', which was produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starred John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. Plot summary A regular United States Navy officer in the Pacific theater is assigned to command an operation to seize a group of strategic islands from the Japanese. The novel opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor which catches the US Navy unaware. Captain Rockwell Torrey is in command of a heavy cruiser known only as ''Old Swayback'' (an obvious reference to the ), which is off the Hawaiian coast near Pearl Harbor, running another set of exercises in a long string of them. Lieutenant (junior grade) William "Mac" McConnell is assigned as Officer of the Day aboard a destroyer, USS ''Cassiday'', tied up in Pearl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Bassett (author)
James Elias Bassett Jr. (October 18, 1912 – September 26, 1978) was an American newspaper editor and author, most notably of the best-selling novel ''Harm's Way (novel), Harm's Way'', which was later adapted into the motion picture ''In Harm's Way''. Biography The son of James E. and Lucille R. Bassett, Bassett was born in Glendale, California. Raised in Mamaroneck (town), New York, Mamaroneck, New York, from 1914 on, in 1934 he graduated ''cum laude'' from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society, Phi Beta Kappa. After college, he returned to Los Angeles and joined the ''Los Angeles Times'' as a reporter. He later served the paper as aviation writer, political analyst and director of the editorial pages until he was named associate editor in 1971. At the ''Mirror'', the ''Times sister publication, he held the posts of political editor, feature editor and city editor. Bassett entered the United States Navy as lieutenant (junior grade) in Febr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battleship Row
Battleship Row was the grouping of eight U.S. battleships in port at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked on 7 December 1941. These ships bore the brunt of the Japanese assault. They were moored next to Ford Island when the attack commenced. The ships were , , , , , , , and . A repair ship (former coal ship), , was also present, moored next to ''Arizona''. Creation When the United States Navy decided in 1919 to establish a major naval base in Pearl Harbor, the southeastern side of Ford Island was ceded from control of the Army Air Service at the behest of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Due to its location in the center of the harbor, where the water was deepest and the potential for maneuvering greater than along the shores, this coast of Ford Island became the de facto mooring location for the Pacific Fleet's battleships and took on the nickname "Battleship Row". Attack and aftermath ''Arizona'', ''California'', ''Oklahoma'', and ''West Virginia'' were sunk d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capital, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands (archipelago), which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands. The islands have been settled since at least some time between 30,000 and 28,800 BCE, with later waves of migrants, notably the Lapita people, mixing and producing the modern indigenous Solomon Islanders population. In 1568, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to visit them. Though not named by Mendaña, it is believed that the islands were called ''"the Solomons"'' by those who later receiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater of Operations and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. It is the third-most produced bomber of all time, behind the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88. It was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft. In a USAAC competition, Boeing's prototype Model 299/XB-17 outperformed two other entries but crashed, losing the initial 200-bomber contract to the Douglas B-18 Bolo. Still, the Air Corps ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation, then introduced it into service in 1938. The B-17 evolved through numerous design advances but from its inception, the USAAC (later, the USAAF) promoted the aircraft a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rear Admiral (lower Half)
A rear admiral in the uniformed services of the United States is either of two different ranks of commissioned officers: one-star flag officers and two-star flag officers. By contrast, in most other countries, the term "rear admiral" refers only to an officer of two-star rank. Rear admiral (lower half) Rear admiral (lower half) (abbreviated as RDML), is a one-star flag officer, with the pay grade of O-7 in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. Navy: grades above chief warrant officer, W–5 Grades and ratings Pay grades: assignment to; general rules Rear admiral (lower half) ranks above captain and below rear admiral. Rear admiral (lower half) is equivalent to the rank of brigadier general in the United States Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force and equivalent to the rank of commodore in most other navies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Navy Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Selected Reserve (SELRES), the Training and Administration of the Reserve (TAR), the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), or the Retired Reserve. Organization The mission of the Navy Reserve is to provide strategic depth and deliver operational capabilities to the Navy and Marine Corps team, and to the Joint forces, in the full range of military operations from peace to war. The Navy Reserve consists of 59,152 officers and enlisted personnel who serve in every state and territory as well as overseas as of September 2020. Selected Reserve (SELRES) The largest cohort, the Selected Reserve (SELRES), have traditionally drilled one weekend a month and performed two weeks of active duty annual training during the year, receiving base pay and certa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō north of Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential". Hoping to lure the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free French Forces
__NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, label=none or FFL) during World War II. The military force of Free France, it participated in the Italian and Tunisian campaigns before landing in France with the allies liberating the country and occupying Germany until it had forced its capitulation in 1945. History The French Liberation Army was created in 1943 when the Army of Africa () led by General Giraud was combined with the Free French Forces of General de Gaulle. The AFL participated in the campaigns of Tunisia and Italy; during the Italian campaign the AFL was known as the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy ( ''en Italie or CEFI)'' making a quarter of the troops deployed. The AFL was key in the liberation of Corsica, the first French metropolitan department to be liberate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chester Nimitz
Chester William Nimitz (; February 24, 1885 – February 20, 1966) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II. Nimitz was the leading US Navy authority on submarines. Qualified in submarines during his early years, he later oversaw the conversion of these vessels' propulsion from gasoline to diesel, and then later was key in acquiring approval to build the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, , whose propulsion system later completely superseded diesel-powered submarines in the US. He also, beginning in 1917, was the Navy's leading developer of underway replenishment techniques, the tool which during the Pacific war would allow the US fleet to operate away from port almost indefinitely. The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Navigation in 1939, Nimitz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court-martial
A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment. In addition, courts-martial may be used to try prisoners of war for war crimes. The Geneva Conventions require that POWs who are on trial for war crimes be subject to the same procedures as would be the holding military's own forces. Finally, courts-martial can be convened for other purposes, such as dealing with violations of martial law, and can involve civilian defendants. Most navies have a standard court-martial which convenes whenever a ship is lost; this does not presume that the captain is suspected of wrongdoing, but merely that the circumstances surrounding the loss of the ship be made part of the official record. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depth Charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth charges use explosive, high explosive charges and a fuze set to detonate the charge, typically at a specific depth. Depth charges can be dropped by ships, patrol aircraft, and helicopters. Depth charges were developed during World War I, and were one of the first viable methods of attacking a submarine underwater. They were widely used in World War I and World War II, and remained part of the anti-submarine arsenals of many navies during the Cold War, during which they were supplemented, and later largely replaced, by anti-submarine homing torpedoes. A depth charge fitted with a nuclear warhead is also known as a "nuclear depth bomb". These were designed to be dropped from a patrol plane or deployed by an anti-submarine missile from a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
