THE FLEET THAT HAD TO DIE (212 pp.) Richard HoughViking ($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...