Squadron has done it again. Here is another outstanding pictorial and brief narrative of one of our historical WWII ships. The USS Kidd, named after Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, CO of the USS Arizona, is a Fletcher Class destroyer. Launched 28 February 1943 at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Kearny, New Jersey, she was commissioned just short of two months later, on 23 April, 1943. There were 175 Fletcher Class Destroyers produced, therefore making it the largest class of destroyers built. She first served in the Atlantic and then the Pacific. On 11 April 1945, she was stuck by a Kamikaze that killed 38 and wounded 55 of her crew. She returned to the fleet on 1 August 1945 to finish the war. USS Kidd was decommissioned and placed in the inactive reserve fleet on 10 December 1946.

With the recent retirement and consignment of the Shuttle fleet to museums around the country, it is nice to see a book that is a retrospective on the program. This book is ambitious in its scope, covering the entire program from the early testing of lifting bodies to the final mission of Atlantis (STS-135) in July, 2011, in just 300 pages. It is more photographic history than narrative and, given the scale of the operation, the pictures are captivating and more than make up for the lack of text. The book is divided into seven chapters (called stages) and an appendix:

First seeing commercial service in 1936, the DC-3 was a descendant of Douglas Aircraft Company’s DC-1 and DC-2 designs, and was met with great acceptance by the commercial aviation industry. As war clouds brewed in Europe, American and British air services began their search for a capable, reliable, versatile, and durable aircraft to transport airborne troops and equipment, evacuate wounded warriors to rear areas, and to tow gliders. From that fundamental requirement emerged the C-47 Dakota, also known as the DC-3 Dakota by the Brits. Most famous for its crucial role during the D-Day Invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Dakota saw service in all theaters of operation during the war, with many examples remaining in commercial and commemorative service to this day.