The Fleet at Flood Tide

Excellent war history – as I have come to expect from Hornfischer.
This volume covers the final year of the war against Japan – concentrating on the battles in the Marianas and Okinawa, on navel action, and on the air war.
The Marianas campaign was especially interesting to me as I had only previously known about it in outline. That brutal fighting of that campaign, especially the events on Saipan, shook American leadership and convinced them that Japan was truly in the grip of a death cult. That was a major factor in the decision to pursue a relentless fire-bombing air war against the Japanese homeland and eventually use the atom bomb.
This book provides lots of details and insight about many subjects – the original frogmen (predecessors of Navy Seals), the planning, the incredible logistics effort, the brutal land combat, the impact of the kamikaze attacks, and much much more. I found the discussions of the differences in leadership styles to be quite interesting, especially the differences between admirals Spruance and Halsey. (Hornfischer favors the former, as do I.)
A lot of the details about Paul Tibbets and the 509th Composite Group, which delivered the atomic bomb attacks, were new to me. I hadn't realized the amount of effort, training, and planning involved.
Good book, recommended if you are interested in WW2 military history.