Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr.

Product Description
This is the first-ever biography of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr., who served a key role during World War II in the Pacific. Recognizing the achievements and legacy of one of the war's top combat admirals has been long overdue until now.
Battleship Commander explores Lee's life from boyhood in Kentucky through his eventual service as commander of the fast battleships from 1942 to 1945. Paul Stillwell draws on more than 150 first-person accounts from those who knew and served with Lee from boyhood until the time of his death. Said to be down to earth, modest, forgiving, friendly, and with a wry sense of humor, Lee eschewed the media and, to the extent possible, left administrative details to others. Stillwell relates the sequential building of a successful career, illustrating Admiral Lee's focus on operational, tactical, and strategic concerns. During his service in the Navy Department from 1939 to 1942, Lee prepared the U.S. Navy for war at sea, and was involved in inspecting designs for battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, and destroyers. He sent observers to Britain to report on Royal Navy operations during the war against Germany and made plans to send an action team to mainland China to observe conditions for possible later Allied landings there. Putting his focus on the need to equip U.S. warships with radar and antiaircraft guns, Lee was one of the few flag officers of his generation who understood the tactical advantage of radar, especially during night battles.
In 1942 Willis Lee became commander of the first division of fast battleships to operate in the Pacific. During that service, he commanded Task Force 64, which achieved a tide-turning victory in a night battle near Guadalcanal in November 1942. Lee missed two major opportunities for surface actions against the Japanese. In June 1944, in the Marianas campaign, he declined to engage because his ships were not trained adequately to operate together in surface battles. In October 1944, Admiral William Halsey's bungled decisions denied Lee's ships an opportunity for combat.
Continuing his career of service near the end of the war, Lee, in the summer of 1945, directed anti-kamikaze research efforts in Casco Bay, Maine. While Lee's wartime successes and failures make for compelling reading, what is here in this biography is a balanced look at the man and officer.
Review
"Compelling reading ... [and] a balanced look at the man and officer."
--Virtual Mirage
"Paul Stillwell writings on any World War II naval subject produced is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the field. His life of Willis Lee is one of the most anticipated books of the season and will deserve the close attention of anybody who cares about the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II and its flowering as a war-winner. His work lives and breathes as a testament to the professionalism and rigors of naval operational arts and the spectacular ends which they can be put."
-James D. Hornfischer, author of​ Neptune's Inferno​ and The Fleet at Flood Tide
"A fascinating description of a true naval hero of the Second World War, whose combat experiences in fast battleships and early understanding of radar became part of the DNA of the surface Navy. Paul Stillwell brings a lifetime of experience as a naval historian to bear in this well written and timely biography."
--Adm. James Stavridis, 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and author of The Sailor's Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea
"In
Battleship Commander, Paul Stillwell brings to life one of the U.S. Navy's most unusual admirals of WWII. Shunning the spotlight, Willis A. Lee Jr. fashioned a quiet leadership style that produced momentous results. Stillwell has sketched a rich portrait of a unique admiral who doesn't fit the stereotype of an admiral."
--Elliot Carlson, author of Joe Rochefort's War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway
"Finally, a biography o