USS Enterprise (CV-6): The "Big E"

In the annals of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier triumphs in World War II, no vessel matches USS Enterprise. The Yorktown-class ship was the only carrier to launch aircraft to counter the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and it would go on to support nearly every major Allied operation in the Pacific and become the most-decorated U.S. Navy ship of World War II.

This fascinating history is the subject of David Doyle’s USS Enterprise (CV-6) — The “Big E” from the Doolittle Raid, Midway & Santa Criz to Guadalcanal & Leyte from Schiffer’s Legends of Warfare series. This 128-page hardcover tracks the carrier’s history from design and construction in the mid-1930s to the beginning of the war and crucial engagements such as Midway, Tulagu, the Solomons, Marshalls, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and many more of these moments. Plenty of detail images of fittings and gun emplacements as well as aircraft give modelers references and inspiration.

If you plan to add USS Enterprise to your scale fleet, you need this book.