Mark Stille

During the Pacific War, the most successful component of the Imperial Japanese Fleet was its destroyer force. These ships were larger and, in most cases, better-equipped than their Allied counterparts. Armed with a powerful, long-ranged torpedo, they proved to be formidable opponents. Initially instrumental in an unbroken string of Japanese victories, it was not until the Guadalcanal campaign that these...

The second volume in a two-part illustrated study of the October 23-26 Battle of Leyte Gulf, which resulted in a decisive defeat for the Japanese. The Battle of Leyte Gulf—the largest naval battle in history—comprised four major actions conducted over the course of two days, plus several associated minor clashes. The size and complexity of this epic battle remains unmatched,...

This fully illustrated book assesses the trial of strength between US Navy PT boats and Japanese destroyers operating in the Solomon Islands during 1942–43. During the Solomons fighting, the IJN was forced to rely on destroyers to move men and materiel to its forward garrisons. Conducted at night to avoid American air power, these missions, first seen during the struggle...

An illustrated study of the design, development and eventual fates of the uncompleted super-battleships intended to be built before and during World War II. Before the start of World War II, the battleship was still king, and all the major powers were designing even mightier battleships to surpass their most modern and powerful classes. But when war broke out, aircraft...

The first in a series of illustrated books exploring the longest and best-known naval campaign of World War II, focusing on the struggle between Allied naval and air forces and Hitler's U-boats. When fighting broke out in September 1939, neither the British Royal Navy nor the German Kriegsmarine were prepared for another war in the North Atlantic. Having defeated the...

Lavishly illustrated, this book studies the role of airpower in the New Guinea battles of 1942–43, as the Allies checked and halted Japan's last significant offensives. New Guinea 1942–43 by Mark Stille and John Rogers offers a new history of a previously neglected part of the South Pacific air war—the battles over New Guinea and the waters around it. The...

A detailed re-examination of Midway, one of the most significant battles in the Pacific Theater of World War II. In April 1942, the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy was at the zenith of its power. It had struck a severe blow against the US Navy at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, before spearheading the Japanese advance through Southeast...

A detailed re-examination of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Day of Infamy that saw the USA enter World War II. In this first comprehensive treatment of Pearl Harbor since the early 1990s, respected Pacific War naval historian Mark E. Stille traces the road to war and the Japanese attack itself. He examines the role of the man behind...

A fascinating re-examination of the battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, and one that saw the Imperial Japanese Navy eliminated as an effective fighting force and forced to resort to suicide tactics. Leyte Gulf was a huge and complex action, actually consisting of four...

This fully illustrated study examines and compares the roles of the US Navy submarines and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities during World War II. In 1941 and 1942, US Navy submarine operations in the Pacific were largely ineffective, hampered by faulty torpedo design, conservative tactics, and insufficiently aggressive submarine captains. Eventually, though, a new generation of wartime submarine...

A detailed account of the first check of Japanese naval expansion in the Pacific. The Coral Sea 1942 details the Battle of the Coral Sea, a unique event in naval history as the first battle where enemy fleets never came within sight of each other. Instead, aircraft launched from carrier decks were deployed to attack the enemy with bombs and...

A detailed, illustrated look at the earliest seven classes of destroyer fielded by the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Several classes of Japanese destroyer were built before the war, including the famous Fubuki class. Known as the “Special Type” by the Japanese, these destroyers were, upon their completion in the late 1920s, the most powerful class of destroyers...

In the early hours of December 7, 1941, the Japanese First Air Fleet launched a massive air-strike against the American Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Supported by a group of midget submarines, the attack gutted the American battleship fleet; however, due to a lack of intelligence, the American aircraft carriers they hoped to destroy were not present....

Designed and produced under the regulations of the Washington Naval Treaty, the heavy cruisers of the Pensacola, Northampton, Portland, New Orleans, and Wichita classes were exercises in compromise. While they possessed very heavy armament—the Pensacolas, for example, carrying a main battery of ten 8” guns—this came at the cost of protection. The armour was the same thickness as a gun...

US Heavy Cruisers 1943–75 follows on from a companion book covering the US heavy cruisers built prior to the war, together forming the definitive guide to the US’s heavy cruiser classes. Versatile warships, the heavy cruisers of the Baltimore class, and their successors in the Oregon City and Des Moines classes, commonly acted as carrier escorts throughout World War II,...

Leading up to the Pacific War, Japanese naval strategists believed that a decisive fleet engagement would be fought against the United States Navy. Outnumbered by the USN, the Imperial Japanese Navy planned to use its large, ocean-going submarines to chip away at its opponent before the grand battle. In order to accomplish this, the IJN’s submarine force was tasked to...

During World War II, the United States built 72 light cruisers of various classes. In response to the severe air threat that surface ships faced, new cruisers were designed with increasingly heavy antiaircraft weaponry as well as the traditional 6in guns. With the speed and range to keep up with aircraft carriers, and their considerable antiaircraft capability, they were a...

Japan’s Indian Ocean Raid 1942 is a detailed, illustrated exploration of the Japanese raid into the Indian Ocean in April 1942 – one of the largest operations conducted by the Imperial Navy during the war. In the wake of Japan’s conquest of Burma in early 1942, plans were formed by the Imperial high command to capture Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka)...