Annapolis Goes to War: The Naval Academy Class of 1940 and its Trial by Fire in World War II

by Craig L. Symonds

Overview

America's preeminent naval historian offers a history of the Second World War based on the experiences of the young officers—fresh out of the United States Naval Academy—who served on its front lines.

They arrived in Annapolis as teenagers the year Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland and graduated as young men the week the British Army evacuated Dunkirk. Annapolis Goes to War tells the story of their four transformative years at the Naval Academy, and then four more annealing years in the cauldron of war. More than a hundred of them were on duty in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Ten of them died that day-seven remain entombed in the USS Arizona still. Over the next four years, these former Midshipmen participated in virtually every significant engagement in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, from North Africa to Normandy. They were at the front edge of the war in battleships, carriers, destroyers, submarines, and airplanes, and led Marine Corps units ashore. Some experienced the war as prisoners of the Japanese. Fifty-six of them died in the Second World War, the greatest wartime loss any service academy ever experienced.

Taking readers into and through the lives of these young men in wartime, Craig Symonds offers a poignant and powerful story of adjustment, growth, pain, loss, and eventually triumph. Using their diaries, memoirs, and letters, he evokes unforgettably their trials and bonds, their loss of innocence and their discovery of the meaning of sacrifice. Annapolis Goes to War is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the experience of fighting the bloodiest war in human history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197752678
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2025
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Craig L. Symonds is Professor Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy, where he taught naval history for thirty years. He also served as the Ernest J. King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College. His books include Decision at Sea, Lincoln and his Admirals, The Battle of Midway, Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings, World War II at Sea, and, most recently, Nimitz at War. He has won the Lincoln Prize, the Roosevelt Prize, and the Dudley Knox Medal for Lifetime Achievement. In 2023 he was awarded the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Reef Points

PART I: MIDSHIPMEN
Chapter 1. Appointment
Chapter 2. Plebe Year
Chapter 3. Youngster Cruise
Chapter 4. Youngsters
Chapter 5. Beat Army
Chapter 6. Firsties

PART II: JUNIOR OFFICERS
Chapter 7. The Real Navy
Chapter 8. The Cusp of War
Chapter 9: Infamy
Chapter 10. Retribution
Chapter 11. U-Boats, Convoys, and Matrimony
Chapter 12: The Turning Point: The Coral Sea and Midway

PART III: ON THE OFFENSIVE
Chapter 13. Savo Island
Chapter 14. Ironbottom Sound
Chapter 15. Flight Training
Chapter 16. The Med
Chapter 17. Submarine Warfare
Chapter 18: "Moored as Before"

PART IV: VALEDICTION
Chapter 19. Semper Fidelis
Chapter 19. Command
Chapter 20. Decisive Battles
Chapter 21. Iwo Jima & Okinawa
Chapter 22. Victory

Epilogue

Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"One of the most authoritative historians of our time weaves an epic of adventure and sacrifice around selected midshipmen of the Naval Academy Class of 1940. Craig Symonds puts readers into the lives of these young men—what they learned, endured, and achieved in this unique educational crucible, then their experiences with the horrors and triumphs of mortal combat in submarines, destroyers, Hellcats, and Marine landings in the battles of the Pacific and Atlantic wars. This is a hugely entertaining work of biography and history yet drawn from original research and exhaustive scholarship. A future classic." — John Lehman, Former Secretary of the Navy

"An intensely personal history of the Annapolis class of 1940, which felt the brunt of World War II. Beautifully rendered, deeply moving, exciting, ironic, and above all consequential, this account of 'The Forties' is at once the story of America, of a great war, and above all of a heroic generation." — Admiral James Stavridis, 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and author of The Restless Wave: A Novel of the U.S. Navy

"Annapolis Goes to War works brilliantly on two levels, for it sets the story of the rapid transformation young Midshipmen graduating into an all-consuming war within the larger story of the rapid transformation of the United States' military. Perhaps the greatest naval historian of our era, Craig L Symonds crafts a poignant, page-turning narrative that is suffused with deep knowledge, mastery of detail, and wise insight into the human heart and soul." — Tami Davis Biddle, Professor Emerita and Distinguished Fellow at the US Army War College

"Craig Symonds again demonstrates why he is the dean of American naval historians, skillfully weaving a tale both grand and human, of promising young men coming of age against a backdrop of darkening global portents, who find themselves unexpectedly fighting the largest, most crucial war in history. Captivating." — Jonathan Parshall, Author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

From the Publisher