Picked up CLASH OF THE CARRIERS by Barrett Tillman last night. I've read it three or four times before, but I was in the mood for a good war story, and Barrett's history of the 1st Battle of the Philippine Sea, The Marianas Turkey Shoot, in June, 1944, is a good one.

Here is what Barrett said about the nearly hundred thousand sailors and airmen in Task Force 58, the US carrier navy sent to cover the Marianas landing that month in June, only weeks after D-Day in Normandy:

"O...n the U.S. side, the mind and muscle behind the Fifth Fleet's machinery represented nearly every age, origin, and attitude that mid-century America could produce: healthy males from their teens to late fifties. There were riflemen, airmen, frogmen; kids too young to drink and shadings too old to quit. There were hard-shell Baptists, evangelical Mormons, recovering Catholics, and confirmed atheists. There were athletes and scholars; bigamists and rapists. There were men who had written books and those who could barely read. There were nascent heroes and practicing cowards; those who would exceed all expectations and a few who would disappoint their shipmates and themselves. Some would die far too young; others should live far too long with maladies yet unnamed.
"All were bound for one destination.
"Next stop: Saipan."