Fantastic. Extremely well written. I lost a family member to Typhoon Cobra USS Spence DD 512. Absolutely the best historical read of this tragic event!

In 2007 two different publishers released two different books on the 1944-1945 typhoons that sank three ships in the U.S. Third Fleet. Under the command of Admiral William Halsey, the U.S. Navy lost more men due to these natural disasters than it did at the battle of Midway. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's "Halsey's Typhoon" was the first one to make it to book stores and garnered more attention and sales than Buckner F. Melton Jr.'s "Sea Cobra." Given the timing and focus of these two books, this review will compare and contrast the two. In short, there is no question that Melton wrote the better book.

The illustrations of carriers, battleships, oilers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts compared to 30, 60, and 90 foot waves is the best feature of Drury and Clavin's account. It gives landlubbers a good idea of how rough seas are problems for some ships and not for others. The shortcomings of this book, however, are much more significant. First, the book ignores altogether the second typhoon Halsey sailed into. Melton discusses this one, but not at length. This brevity is understandable, the second typhoon did less damage and sank no ships. It does show, though, that the commander and staff of the Third Fleet learned little from their experiences with the first typhoon despite efforts to do so. The problem that Drury and Clavin have is that this second storm undermines their argument that Halsey was largely blameless for sailing into the typhoons.

The mechanics of publishing also favor Melton. Drury and Clavin have only one map. Melton has nine. He also provides an extensive bibliography and footnotes, whereas Drury and Clavin have a brief bibliography and make no effort to provide any sort of documentation on their sources. Drury and Clavin also make a number of basic mistakes when it comes to nautical matters and use maritime terms incorrectly. Examples include "helming" a ship; calling a battle jack a "battle guideon" (an Army term); referring to a ship's mess deck as its "mess hall." They also put generals in the Japanese Navy Ministry and refer to the Army Ministry as the "War Department" (an American term). Stylistically, Melton is the better wordsmith. Drury and Clavin use too many editorializing adverbs ("legendary" or "untold") to exaggerate the significance of their story.

Much more significant is the thesis of each book. Drury and Clavin make Lt. Cmdr. James Marks, captain of the USS HULL, out to be the main villain in this incident. The HULL was one of his ships lost in the first typhoon. This charge seems reasonable at first, but Marks' seamanship does not explain why the USS MONAGHAN and SPENCE sank, nor does it explain a number of close calls on other ships. It seems that the two authors allowed crewmen from the HULL that they interviewed for the book to use the opportunity to settle old scores with Marks. In fact, Drury and Clavin do not spend much time talking about ships other than the HULL while Melton does. Melton also gives much more attention to the post storm investigation. Since Marks was the subject of an official investigation, Drury and Clavin argue this was proof enough of his guilt. The fact that there was no court-martial or that the other captains died in the storm makes this observation rather weak. Melton gives a much more nuanced description of the investigation. Halsey rather than Marks was the main target of the investigation and the board placed primary blame for sailing into the storm on the Admiral. There were a number of mitigating circumstances, though, and Melton is good at describing them. This incident is no black and white morality play.

In short, Melton offers a much better book than Drury and Clavin.

Sea Cobra is an exceptionally well written book that is chock full of interesting facts about the typhoons that almost swamped Admiral Halsey's career. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning about the effect of Mother Nature on even the most powerful armada ever assembled in the Pacific.

A great story and a great story-teller! The most user friendly book I've read. There was no over blown technical term or military acronym that I couldn't understand. You didn't have to have 20 years service time in the Navy to know what was happining to the sailors and what the command leadership was doing right or wrong. You felt you right there with the sailors in their battle to survive! An amazing story of heroes and tragedy. The story of Commander Henry Lee Plage of the destroyer USS Tabber is awesome! He stands 3 times taller than John Wayne ever did! He was a 29 year old reservist with only one and a half years of sea time. He amazingly avoided direct orders and rescued over 50 sailors inside the fury of a killer typhoon (almost a thousand sailors died and many ships were sunk or nearly sunk). The other current book on this event "Halsey's Typhoon" doesn't even come close to the passion or power of "Sea Cobra".

My father served on an aircraft carrier that survived the typhoon Cobra, and I found this book to be a thorough and compelling account of one of the most disastrous events of WW2.

excellent account of the storm and dealt with the review of navy top brass. Let you draw your own idea at who was at fault for the lost of three ships and about eight hundred sailors. The navy felt that no one person was to blame. Just a series of unfortunate events. Yeah right!

I haven't finished this one. It is very good as far as I have read.