Saturday, March 29, 2014

The chaos of naval warfare

What can be settled and known is the time of first contact, and the time, ultimately, of disengagement. The terrible middle became a swirl of slash and thrust, ship against ship, captain against the enemy of the moment, which,battered then vanishing, was replaced by a new enemy who delivered or received the next blow unwitting. The records muddle the precise sequence of things. Individual memories are indelibly vivid but pointillistic, dead certain to the beholder but seldom tracking with anyone else's and unhelpful to the big picture. The events of November 13, 1942, in their chaotic simultaneity, defy the benign lie that is narrative.

(From Neptune's Inferno, by James D. Hornfischer. This is a description of the Battle of Friday the 13th during the Guadalcanal campaign.)

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