Books: The Context of History

THE GREAT PACIFIC VICTORY—Gllberf Cant—John Day ($3.50).

In The War at Sea and America's Navy in World War II, Correspondent Gilbert Cant reported the achievements of the U.S. Navy from the outbreak of war to the fall of Guadalcanal. The Great Pacific Victory completes the trilogy with an able, authoritative account of the up-from-the-sawdust resurgence of U.S. power in the war against Japan.

To most readers the single actions which measured off the tremendous campaign are household words—Kula Gulf, Saipan, Leyte, Okinawa—but they remain isolated incidents on the war's vastest and most unfamiliar battlefield....