Yamato was one of two super battleships built by the Japanese in the years leading up to Japan’s war against the United States. She displaced nearly 73,000 tons in the water and fired nine 40-cm guns, the biggest guns ever put on a warship. She played little part in the war until the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese admiral, on the verge of a stunning victory against the outmaneuvered Admiral Halsey, turned back. If he hadn’t, his fleet could have destroyed the American invasion fleet supporting the troops invading the Philippines.

By early 1945, Japan was running out of fuel to operate its fleets. Yamato was ordered on a one-way mission to Okinawa, where she was supposed to beach herself and fight to the end. She and the other ships in her task force were detected and sunk by American planes.

Here’s the death of Yamato as portrayed in a Japanese film, Otoko-Tachi no Yamato.

CRASH DIVE, my submarine series, is so fun to write, I’ve been thinking about writing a series about the crew of a Sherman tank. First step is to see what else is out there, which brought me to LADY BUG. In Paul Telegdi’s war novel, the crew of a Sherman tank fights from North Africa to Italy during WW2. Not all of them will be coming home, however, at least in one piece.

LADY BUG is a flawed minor masterpiece. First, the flaws. The character development is sketchy in the first hundred pages. The point of view jumps around a bit before we find out Hawkins, the tank commander, is the main character. Often, the characters less converse than give speeches to each other. In many cases, those speeches serve as minor info dumps about the war, and the reader is left with the impression the author is talking, not the character.

Nonetheless, like I said, it’s a bit of a masterpiece.

Despite its flaws, the novel feels completely authentic. Telegdi didn’t serve in WW2, but he clearly did his homework. Not only does he capture the geographies and weaponry in excellent detail, but the routines of Army life. The novel reads as if written by somebody who’d been there, done that.

The action scenes are short but enormously powerful. You really feel the rush and horror of combat, what it might have been like to fight inside one of those tanks.

An interesting development is about half the book takes place stateside as one of the characters recovers from an injury and tries to reintegrate into civilian society after the horrors he’s witnessed. This was a risky move, but once it gets rolling, it works, and it elevates the book to something greater than just a pulpy war novel. The result is bigger than the sum of its parts. It achieves something like pathos.

Telegdi has written a lot of other books. I’m curious to check them out.