The subject of "Sea of Thunder," Evan Thomas's panoramic story about war at sea, is the Battle of Leyte Gulf , in October 1944 . It has almost vanished from consciousness, disappearing behind mists of battle smoke and time. But this was a monstrous conflict, perhaps the very last of its kind, a struggle that was, in Thomas's apt phrase, "confused, tragic, deadly, and heroic." This four-day battle claimed 13,000 men, seven aircraft carriers, three battleships, 10 cruisers, 11 destroyers, and the reputation of one of the leading personalities of World War II, Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey .
This is a story that reminds us, at the distance of nearly two-thirds of a century, of both the brutality and the intimacy of naval war, of the stakes big men engage in when they command big ships, of the nightmare of combat at sea, and of the strange stew of bravery and terror that takes over men who go down to the sea in ships.
At the heart of Thomas's story are four naval commanders, none well known today, except perhaps for Admiral Halsey, dimly recollected as a figure from naval history and from a Paul and Linda McCartney song . It was Halsey's error -- heading north during the battle and inexplicably leaving the San Bernardino Strait , a vital sea passageway, unguarded -- that imperiled American sailors and fortunes.
There was also Commander Ernest Evans , a Cherokee who made that unlikely leap from the National Guard to the Naval Academy. He was a fiercely combative warrior against Japanese battleships, and his ship, Johnston, was destroyed at sea and its survivors endured an ocean ordeal of sharks and privation before 141 of them were pulled from the bloody waters. There was Admiral Takeo Kurita , who earlier had ordered Japanese sailors to cease firing a 25mm machine gun at Americans floating in the sea, who turned his ships away from a hopeless battle: "certain death and destruction in Leyte Gulf," as Thomas puts it. And there was Admiral Matome Ugaki , a war skeptic who was the commander of the kamikazes, whose work has lived on in myth if not in memory.
