Books: Long Voyage to Death

THE FLEET THAT HAD TO DIE (212 pp.) —Richard Hough—Viking ($3.95).

After only four months, the Russo-Japanese war was turning into a Russian disaster. Banzai-shouting Japanese troops were pushing the Russians back in Manchuria; Port Arthur was cut off; and the proud Russian ships in the harbor were immobilized by the prowling warships of Japan's Admiral Togo. At that point in June 1904, Czar Nicholas II decided on a last, desperate gamble to relieve the Russian forces; he ordered Vice Admiral Zinovi Petrovitch Rozhestvensky to sail four brand-new Suvoroff battleships at the head of...

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