Victory at Sea: World War II in the Pacific

Dunnigan and Nofi (Dirty Little Secrets) have put together a reference book about the Pacific theater that WWII buffs will find handy. In a succinct, breezy style (one chapter is titled ``The Boring Stuff,'' another ``The Really Important Stuff''), they describe campaigns, assess the ships, planes and weapons on both sides, compare war aims and fighting styles, provide a who's who of officers and conclude with a daily ``chronolog'' from before Pearl Harbor to after V-J Day. Dunnigan and Nofi evaluate Allied and Japanese armies and subunits (they have something to say, for instance, about each of the six U.S. Marine divisions), analyze various conspiracy theories (some of the theories about the attack on Pearl Harbor ``rank right up there with Elvis sightings'') and clear up several common misconceptions (``The popular perception is that the Flying Tigers were volunteer American pilots fighting for the Chinese before the United States entered the war. Wrong on all counts...''). (June)