Books: Pacific Tale, Twice Told

CORAL SEA, MIDWAY AND SUBMARINE ACTIONS (307 pp.)—Samuel Eliot Morison—Little, Brown ($6).

THE STRUGGLE FOR GUADALCANAL (389 pp.)—Samuel Eliot Morison—Little, Brown ($6).

BATTLE REPORT: VICTORY IN THE PACIFIC (548 pp.)—Walter Karig—Rinehart ($5).

The U.S. Navy began to write the history of its part in World War II while its ships and men were still being sent to the bottom. The Navy decided on not one history, but two. One was to be a popular narrative told largely in the words of the men and officers who did the fighting. Tapped for the job by...