Perhaps the last great "Hole" in the public's general knowledge of World War Two in the Pacific is an almost total lack of awareness of the Navy's forward bases that enabled U.S. forces to leapfrog northward from New Guinea to Japan itself. That hole is now filled, at least in part, by Robert Smalley's highly informative account of the massive U.S. Navy base in the Admiralty Islands, just below the equator and just above New Guinea. Here was constructed, with rapid speed, one of the most immense military bases of all time, to provide fuel, provisions, ammunition, repairs, hospitals, dry docks and a wide range of services for men, ships and planes - including the "unpackaging' of new aircraft and transforming them into the carrier fighters, bombers and torpedo planes which devastated Japanese air and seapower. Men by the tens of thousands were based in the Admiralties, and the base there, known as Manus, was a place totally removed from western civilization. It functioned through incredible heat, torrential rains and the myriad problems of inescapable humidity. The Seabees who largely built the base and the men of many skills and specialties who made it all work are among those who live through these pages. Other histories of the Admiralties and other bases do exist, to be sure, but this book is brim-full of first-hand account of Navy life in the islands, in the air and at sea. It deals with ships of all kinds, from PT boats to battleships, with aircraft at war from PBY to B-24, and it chronicles great achievements of American ingenuity and determination. This book is built around key events: Conquest of the Admiralties in March, 1944; Construction of the base and its sprawling "cities" throughout the islands; Manus as the primary staging point for the invasion of the Philippines, and the unprecedented armada which sailed from there; The subsequent Battle of Leyte Gulf, which became - unknown to most - the largest naval battle in world history; The devastating explosion of the ammunition ship Mount Hood, with 3,800 tons of ammunition abroad; A desperation Japanese air attack on two of the gigantic floating dry docks in Manus harbor; The chain of events leading to Japan's unconditional surrender, and the aftermath of War's end, including the disposition of tons of surplus equipment. Manus was the last port of call for scores of Navy warships that became engaged in the Battle of Leyte Gulf at a time when men and equipment were still being unloaded at the invasion beaches. For inclusion in THE ADMIRALTIES AT WAR, historian Thomas Cutler's impressive book, THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF, has been skillfully compressed (with permission of Lt. Commander Culter (retired) and the U.S. Naval Institute Press) into a sizzling nineteen pages of some of the highest drama and greatest warfare the seas have ever known. Through all of this, the reader meets the Navy's men (and a small contingent of female nurses) in their mess halls and chapels, at their movie theatres and hospitals, their offices, shops and airfields - and we meet Bob Hope and Irving Berlin among the many who came to entertain them. Numerous segments of the book are told in the words of these men. Along the way, one learns that death was never far away in the Admiralties. MacArthur, Nimitz and Kinkead all appear in the pages of THE ADMIRALTIES AT WAR, but essentially this book is an account of the Base itself and the men who were there over the long haul. Now a retired U.S. ambassador, author Robert Smalley is a veteran of 18 months in the Admiralties, 1944-1945. He has produced a rousing account of this remarkable corner of history.