Author Description

A retelling of the key month, July 1944, that won the war in the Pacific and ignited a whole new struggle on the home front. Among the great World War II conflicts, the three-week battle for Saipan is often forgotten--yet historian Donald Miller calls it "as important to victory over Japan as the Normandy invasion was to victory over Germany." On the night of the battle's end, the Port Chicago Naval Ammunition Depot, just outside San Francisco, exploded with a force nearly that of an atomic bomb. The men who died in the blast were predominantly black sailors, toiling in obscurity loading munitions ships. Yet instead of honoring the sacrifice these men made, the Navy blamed them for the accident, and when the men refused to handle ammunition again, launched the largest mutiny trial in US naval history. By weaving together these two battle narratives for the first time, author Campbell paints a new picture of the month that won the war and changed America.--From publisher description.