Admiral Arleigh (31-Knot Burke : the Story of a Fighting Sailor)

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Review: Arleigh Burke might have been a great Destroyerman, but there has got to be a better book than this one. It is not written as history, it seems more like a book written by a journalist weaving back and forth between boring background trivia of an antiquated style (it details how ship commanders met their future wives at Annapolis) and an inordinate amount of time promoting Commodore Burke as God's gift to Destroyer combat. The details of combat Pre-Burke around Guadalcanal are well written but short. There are no references to information gathered from Japanese sources. Indeed, by the time Burke gets to actually fight the enemy they are a worn out, demoralized bunch, constatnly under air attack and on the retreat down the Slot. This book makes no effort to balance its view of Burke's successful doctrine of ship combat with the affects of poor logistics, poor maintenance, poor leadership, and overwhelming air superiority on his Japanese adverseries which are surely important subjects even as background to the final battles of the Solomon's Campaign.