E. B. Potter (1908–1997)

E.B. Potter once again did an excellent job on his biography of William Halsey. Halsey was responsible for the onsite turn around of the Pacific war. He took over during Guadalcanal and got the Allies going in the war against Japan. Until that point, the effort was bogged down and moral was low. Halsey then began to utilize his navy commands and make progress toward Japan. There was however several controversies. Not once but twice, during his command of the 3rd fleet did he fail to avoid show more typhoons. Both times his ships received significant damage and personnel were injured. This, in my opinion, was gross command negligence and should have been dealt with more severely. Halsey, however was a very popular figure in the U.S. as one of the fighting men of the Pacific and therefore not relieved. This was despite the second board of inquire's recommendation to do so. You couple the two typhoon incidents with his controversial decisions during the Leyte Gulf battle, and it is very surprising that he was later given his 5th star. I realize that there are a lot of historians that would argue against my stand but it is my opinion that Spruance was a much more deserving Admiral for the 5th star.

Potter does an excellent job of covering all of these incidents and more as he details the life of Halsey. It is interesting to note that since Potter had also written a biography on Chester Nimitz, he was able to relay both sides of view between Halsey & Nimitz. Overall, it is a really good book for WWII historians and enthusiast. show less

E.B. Potter is one of the best Naval historians of this period. He consistently has shown with biographies about Admirals Nimitz, Halsey and now, Burke, his master of the period.

Admiral Burke was a dynamic and larger than life figure. During WWII he was chief of staff to the carrier command master, Marc Mitscher. Together they commanded the 3rd and 5th fleet carrier operations from Guadalcanal to the Japanese defeat.

After the war, Burke continued his career and rose to the highest job - show more Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). He served 3 tours (unheard of at that time) and left the office when he retired.

Admiral Burke's high energy and drive helped to lead the Navy through the post-WWII era. He was key in implementing the strategy for the cold war with his support of the Navy's Polaris program and the nuclear navy.

E.B. Potter does an excellent job of demonstrating how Admiral Burke impacted not only the navy but those around him. An excellent read for anyone interested in Naval history. show less

This was the textbook for my first naval science class in college over 30 years ago. I found a copy of it at a thrift store for 98 cents, so naturally I had to buy it. It covers the history of naval warfare from earliest times (galley warfare) through the Cold War. As a student of military history, I devoured every page back then, and it is nostalgic going through it now . It contains lots of maps and diagrams of ship formations and has very informative overviews of nearly every major naval show more engagement in the 200 year time period from 1750-1980. show less

Read Chapters 11 through 22 as assigned reading during War at Sea in the Age of Steam elective in the fall/winter while at the NWC. Served as a textbook for half of the course. Many of the readings were repetitive when taking in at the same time as the assigned readings from "In Peace and War." As such, I did a lot of skimming. Despite that, this was a helpful tool during the course and I appreciated it more as a textbook to reference than a book that was enjoyable to sit down and read.