History of United States Naval Operations in World War II

"Several authoritative writers—including Richard Frank, Rick Atkinson and Ian W. Toll—are at work on trilogies about that war. But only Morison will ever be, in Baldwin’s words, “a modern Thu­cydides.” James Hornfischer, author of Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Neptune's Inferno."

This is the official history of the US Navy in World War II. It was written by the historical scholar Samuel Eliot Morrison and sponsored by the US government at the authors suggestion. It contains information based on interviews conducted in several theaters as well as actual service as what is now called an "embedded reporter" in several units.

The full series is a fifteen volume set. A summery is also published called The Two Ocean War for those who wish to go to less effort. The whole series is written in a magisterial style and gives encyclopedic information about the war. To this day it has not become dated and is still respected by military historians as the go-to book for naval warfare.

The volumes are: "The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939 - May 1943 Operations in North African Waters, October 1942 - June 1943 The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 - April 1942 Coral Sea, Midway, and Submarine Actions, May 1942 - August 1942 The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942 - February 1943 Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942 - 1 May 1944 Aleutians, Gilberts, and Marshalls, June 1942 - April 1944 New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944 - August 1944 Sicily - Salerno - Anzio, January 1943 - June 1944 The Atlantic Battle Won, May 1943 - May 1945 The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944–1945 Leyte, June 1944 - January 1945 The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945 Victory in the Pacific, 1945 Supplement and General Index"

And the abridgement "The Two Ocean War"


 * Backed by the Pentagon: Naturally, as it is an official history.
 * Badass: Tons of badasses and lots of badassery
 * Badass Navy: The US Navy obviously. Other navies as well perhaps but this is naturally the focus
 * Big Badass Battle Sequence: Several naturally.
 * Badass Bookworm: Samuel
 * Big Book of War
 * Deadpan Snarker: The author several times.
 * Doorstopper: Every single volume is a doorstopper. And yes folks that's right, it has a whole volume for the index. And even the "short summery" The Two Ocean War is still a doorstopper.
 * Earth Is a Battlefield
 * Father Neptune: Morrison already liked sailing before the war, and personally sailed to several places researching earlier books. Even if that were not the case no one could spend as much time doing hands on research as the author did without ending up as a Father Neptune. Several of the sailors and officers he meets are this as well.
 * Flaunting Your Fleets
 * Gentleman and a Scholar: The author
 * Intrepid Reporter: The author
 * Must Have Caffeine: Or as the author says, "The navy could probably win a war without coffee but it wouldn't like to try."
 * Patriotic Fervor: Naturally to be expected from a '40s-'50s New Englander.
 * Purple Prose
 * Rated "M" for Manly
 * Semper Fi
 * Stuff Blowing Up
 * Trope Codifier: One of the first World War II naval histories and still refered to. If World War II naval history was a religion then this would be its "Bible".
 * Yanks With Carriers
 * World War II