The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot: The U.S. Navy and Victory in the Pacific by Craig L. Symonds
Though in June of 1944 much of the world's attention was focused on events in Normandy where the long-awaited Allied invasion of Europe had just occurred, another military encounter halfway around the world was taking place in the Philippine Sea. For nearly two decades, Japanese and American war planners had assumed that any future war between their two countries would be decided by a climactic and decisive naval engagement somewhere in the Western Pacific. And it was. The battle fought on June 19-20 in the Philippine Sea, known to Americans as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," all but decided the outcome of the Pacific War. Acclaimed World War II historian Craig L. Symonds will narrate the history of that engagement and explain why it has remained controversial in the seventy-five years since. Craig L. Symonds earned his B.A. degree at U.C.L.A., and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Florida. In the 1970s he was a U.S. Navy officer and the first ensign ever to lecture at the Naval War College. After his naval service, Symonds remained at the Naval War College as a civilian professor of strategy from 1974-1975.
He is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy where he taught naval history and Civil War History for thirty years, and in 2017 he was appointed to a two-year term as the Ernest J. King Distinguished Visiting Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College.
Symonds is the author of twelve books and the editor of nine others. In addition, he has written over one hundred scholarly articles in professional journals and popular magazines as well as more than twenty book chapters in historical anthologies.
All lectures are free and open to the public, no reservations are required.