Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History (Paperback)

The prologue reviews the Battle of the Capes, which enabled the French fleet to prevent reinforcement of Cornwallis' army at Yorktown and led to the American-French victory that effectively ended the Revolutionary War. This was a classic naval engagement fought between large wooden ships firing broadsides and sailing in line-ahead formation on the open sea.

The rest of the book is devoted to more thorough explorations of five other important battles (thus the subtitle), each of which is explored in detail:

The first is the Battle of Lake Erie, in which the Americans under Oliver Hazard Perry built a small sailing fleet and used it to defeat an equally small British force. The victory enabled America to hold on to the Old Northwest territories in the War of 1812 and ultimately to begin expanding westward. Though the battle was small and the scene was a lake (albeit a great one), the tactics and equipment used were basically similar to those used in the Battle of the Capes.

The Battle of Hampton Roads covers the slugfest between the ironclads Virginia and Monitor. Before the Monitor arrived on the scene, the ironclad CSS Virgnia had inflicted on the Union fleet at Hampton Roads the largest defeat experienced by the American navy before Pearl Harbor. The guns involved were much more advanced than those used in the Battle of Lake Erie and each ship moved under its own power, but the battle was still fought at close quarters where each combatant had a fairly good view of the other.

The Battle of Manila Bay represents the next phase in naval warfare: cruisers with long range guns bombarded each other at ranges of up to two miles, leading to suprisingly few (but devastating) hits on the Spanish squadron in the Philippines. Admiral Dewey quickly asserted control over the Philippines, and the United States was soon bogged down in a four-year long fight against Filipinos seeking independence.

The Battle of Midway represents the next iteration in naval warfare, when a decisive American victory was won by carrier planes launched by ships separated by distances of hundreds of miles.

Finally, Symonds describes Operation Praying Mantis, the 1989 battle between the American navy and Iranian forces that resulted in the destruction of several Iranian gas and oil separation platforms, the sinking of two Iranian frigates, and the near-sinking of a third. The damage was inflicted by American warships firing guns and long-range missiles while coordinating with similarly equipped aircraft and helicopters.

Symonds' writing style is crisp, and his description of each battle is gripping and insightful. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a succinct overview of the evolution of naval warfare over the last two hundred years.