Description
Book SynopsisOn July 11, 1942, the USSNorth Carolinasteamed into Pearl Harbor. She was a magnificent shipthe first in a new class of battleships, simultaneously monstrous and fast. She was two-and-a-half-football-fields long and so wide she could barely pass through the Panama Canal on her journey to Hawaii. At any given time, 2,339 sailors manned the shipa total of more than 7,000 during the six years she served. As she glided into the ravaged harbor, past the wreckage of sunken American ships, the morale of the men in the surviving Pacific fleet soared. A little over two years earlier, more than 57,000 people had gathered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the day she was launched. As she went through her shakedown period, she returned repeatedly to that same naval yard for adjustments and modifications. Many New Yorkers, including radio commentator Walter Winchell, often witnessed the ship entering and departing New York Harbor and began calling her the Showboat. Although she was an impressi
