Down to the Sea By: Bruce Henderson (368 pages: photos, maps) Reviewer: Bernie Ditter Overall Rating: Four Stars--Highly recommended. An excellent book. One week before Christmas in 1944 the third fleet was directed into the path of a typhoon resulting in damage to 28 ships, the loss of three ships, 146 aircraft and nearly 800 lives. On January 3rd of 1945, a scant 16 days later, a court of inquiry announced its finding of fact, opinion and recommendations. Not since "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James D. Hornfischer has an author captured a moment in naval history so well. This is a must read for anyone who ever served at sea whether on a destroyer or any other ship of the fleet. Prodigious research on the part of the author provides an almost hourly account of this disaster from its earliest warning signs (which were ignored by the highest authority) to the last minutes at sea by many of the survivors. Readers will either be angered by the apparent lack of judgment on the part of those responsible for the safety of the fleet or rationalize the situation as the members of the court of inquiry did. Was this a classic example of situational ethics? In wartime does the axiom -- for the greater good -- take on a different meaning? This book presents an awkward dilemma as the villain in this story is us. It is difficult to ascribe the loss of lives and the sheer destruction of so many fighting machines to human error. Perhaps the failures of those in command serve to enlarge the heroics by those who are commanded. The selfless actions of many in their efforts to save the lives of their shipmates can only be marveled at. The sobriquet "The Greatest Generation" is so descriptive of the men of that time that I doubt it will ever become tiresome to hear. Bruce Henderson has produced a book that should sit proudly in the bookcase of any American. Get one for your favorite sailor.