The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Battles: Eyewitness Accounts of History's Greatest Battles, from Ancient Greece to the Gulf War

FIRST OFF: IT HELPS IF YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BATTLES BEFOREHAND IN A NUTSHELL: MORE INPUT FROM THE EDITOR IS SORELY NEEDED World War I and World War II battles are the most known in history and are the best represented here in this book. Many of the accounts are from excellent sources like Admiral Beatty at Jutland, but some are from rather obscure sources. As long as one has a good idea of what the official historical accounts have reported, the eyewitness accounts can be read and given whatever weight they deserve. One must bear in mind, however, that an eyewitness may be very close to some aspects of a battle and still be oblivious to others. For example, the account given of the sinking of the Hood was from an officer stationed on the aft 14-inch-gun director of the Prince Of Wales. He did not see the Hood sink and was rather surprised by the news, despite being right there on the scene. He states that he was very focused on his task at the time (reporting the fall of shot). Others discuss some of the night actions at the numerous naval battles at Guadalcanal and tend to lump the events together. For instance, the eyewitness account of the action which involved the Battleships South Dakota and Washington on the night of November 13 (going into 14) seems very blurry when compared to the officially-documented facts. It was dark and the witness was on just one ship, so this is understandable. Nevertheless, there is a certain lack of detail as to which Battleship was which and what exactly happened to them. In this case, the South Dakota was actually severely damaged and had a loss of power while the Washington lurked out of the Imperial Navy's view until it could distinguish which ship was whose. Before this maneuver, something of a free-for-all was taking place which has often been described as a "bar fight with the lights turned off." Simply stated, ships on both sides made errors and fired on some of their own ships in the close-quarter confusion. Once Admiral Lee, who was on the Washington [not the South Dakota], sorted out whose ships were on which side, he promptly permitted the Battleship Washington to destroy and ultimately sink the Battlecruiser Kirashima [NOT Battleship]. The accounts here don't even mention the Battleship Washington and refer to the South Dakota as Admiral Lee's flagship. As stated above, he was actually aboard the Washington, which was his flagship and which fired the 16-inch projectiles. The South Dakota was severely damaged early in the battle and could not fire anything but its secondary 5-inch guns because of a power failure; however, the armored citadel was unbreeched and the ship was never in danger of sinking. WHAT DOES ALL THAT MEAN? The aforementioned are the types of error that require narration by the editor, but this is universally lacking. In effect, the reader must be the editor. This means that the reader must have enough prior knowledge to correctly evaluate the first-hand accounts here as s/he