Hell from the Heavens

John Wukovits

On April 16, 1945, the crewmen of the USS Laffey heroically withstood twenty-two kamikaze attacks at Okinawa in what the US Navy called "one of the great sea epics of the war." Using scores of personal interviews with survivors, the memoirs of crew members, and the sailors' wartime correspondence, historian John Wukovits breathes life into this nearly forgotten event and makes the ordeal of the Laffey and her crew a story for the ages.