The United States had to play catch-up when it entered the war following the devastating attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy at Pearl Harbor.

The government, industry and American public came together in a united effort to avenge the damage inflicted on the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor and to build war machines for upcoming battles that raged in Europe and throughout the Pacific. The United States was soon producing equipment at a level unheard of before World War II.

World War II marked the end of the big naval battleships and the introduction of the aircraft carrier. This meant following a new attack and defend strategy for warfare because the naval engagements in the Pacific Theater for the first time in history were fought entirely in the air without opposing surface ships being in visual range of each other.

It was, however, as one Navy officer said, “A grim, terrible business.” The U.S. Navy used aircraft carriers across the Atlantic Ocean in the anti-submarine patrol and to ferry aircraft to Europe and Africa but more so and in more devastating ways in the Pacific Ocean.

This book isn't so much of what happened hour-to-hour at each battle but talks about the aircraft carriers and includes several photographs as well as detailed information on many of the specific U.S. aircraft carriers used on both oceans in these years of the greatest naval battles of all time.

More importantly, A Grim Terrible Business talks about the admirals and the typical pilots and sailors who became part of a war that made them into heroes.