Hell at Tassafaronga

Already a veteran of Pearl Harbor and the epic battles of Coral Sea and Midway, the heavy cruiser New Orleans races through the velvet black night of 30 November 1942. Only minutes into this, the last of the great surface battles of the Solomons' campaign, New Orleans is struck by a Japanese Long Lance torpedo which explodes its forward magazines, taking away 130 feet of her bow and the lives of 178 of the author's shipmates. In this intensely personal and gripping memoir, a veteran of that gallant ship tells its history from rollicking peacetime days, on through 17 Pacific battles, to the hauling down of its commission pennant and its finally being broken up for scrap. It is a tale, as horrific as it is poignant, powerfully told. One the young should learn and old remember.