John Wukovits has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.9★ across 9 ratings. The most-rated is Tin Can Titans.
Tin Can Titans
Summary
When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring résumé; it was the people serving aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to treat his patients at sea epitomize the sacrifices made by all the men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron and its men, who bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to Tokyo.
©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
For Crew and Country
Summary
John Wukovits tells of the most dramatic naval battle of the Pacific War and the incredible sacrifice of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. On October 25, 1944, the Samuel B. Roberts, along with the other 12 vessels comprising its unit, stood between Japan’s largest battleship force ever sent to sea and MacArthur’s transports inside Leyte Gulf. Faced with the surprise appearance of more than 20 Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers - including the Yamato, at 70,000 tons the most potent battlewagon in the world - the 1,200-ton Samuel B. Roberts turned immediately to action with six other ships. Captain Copeland marked the occasion with one of the most poignant addresses ever given to men on the edge of battle: "Men," he said over the intercom, "we are about to go into a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected." The ship churned straight at the enemy in a near-suicidal attempt to deflect the more potent foe, allow the small aircraft carriers to escape, and buy time for MacArthur’s forces. Of 563 destroyers constructed during World War II, the Samuel B. Roberts was the only one sunk, going down with guns blazing in a duel reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylae or Davy Crockett’s Alamo defenders. The men who survived faced a horrifying three-day nightmare in the sea, where they battled a lack of food and water, scorching sun and numbing nighttime cold, and nature’s most feared adversary - sharks. The battle would go down as history’s greatest sea clash, the Battle of Samar - the dramatic climax of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
©2013 John Wukovits (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Dogfight over Tokyo
Summary
From an expert in the Pacific theater of World War II comes the tragic story of the pilots who fought the last fight of the war during the first hour of peace When Billy Hobbs and his fellow Hellcat aviators from Air Group 88 lifted off from the venerable Navy carrier USS Yorktown early on the morning of August 15, 1945, they had no idea they were about to carry out the final air mission of World War II. Two hours later, Yorktown received word from Admiral Nimitz that the war had ended and that all offensive operations should cease. As they were turning back, 20 Japanese planes suddenly dove from the sky above them and began a ferocious attack. Four American pilots never returned - men who had lifted off from the carrier in wartime but were shot down during peacetime. Drawing on participant letters, diaries, and interviews, newspaper and radio accounts, and previously untapped archival records, historian and prolific author of acclaimed Pacific theater books, including Tin Can Titans and Hell from the Heavens, John Wukovits tells the story of Air Group 88's pilots and crew through their eyes. Dogfight over Tokyo is written in the same riveting, edge-of-your-seat style that has made Wukovits's previous books so successful. This is a stirring, one-of-a-kind tale of naval encounters and the last dogfight of the war - a story that is both inspirational and tragic.
©2019 John Wukovits (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Hell from the Heavens
Summary
On the morning of April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey saw what seemed to be the entire Japanese air force assembled directly above. They were about to become the targets of the largest single-ship kamikaze attack of World War II. By the time the unprecedented assault was finished, 32 sailors were dead and more than 70 wounded. Although she lay shrouded in smoke and fire for hours, the Laffey somehow survived. The gutted American warship limped from Okinawa's shore for home, where the ship and crew would be celebrated as heroes. Using personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members, and their wartime correspondence, John Wukovits breathes life into the story of this forgotten historic event.
©2015 John Wukovits (P)2015 Tantor