This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchler.

Craig Simon's new book is Nimitz at war, Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor, to Tokyo Bay.

He is a meritorious professor of history from the US Naval Academy.

And we're speaking of Chester Nimitz at war in the Pacific.

It is now the point where the Central Pacific campaign, starting in the Gilbert Islands,

driving towards the Japanese Islands, is underway with landing at Tarawa, a small island,

a series of a tolls.

And this is where the Marines have to practice their amphibious landing that will get better

and stronger throughout the war.

In fact, amphibious landings in general are now being invented by the Marines and the Army.

And they require specialized ships that don't exist at this point.

You all think of the landing craft from D-Day, the drop of the front and the men piling out.

Well, that didn't exist as they landed at Tarawa.

This is November of 1943.

The professor's book concentrates on relationships, however.

So we begin with Chester Nimitz's relationship with the US Marine Corps.

He worked very well through Halsey with Vandegrift at Guarral Canal.

But now we introduce a man named Hollen Smith.

What is that relationship professor? Thank you.

Well, Hollen Smith was the man who was in charge of Marine Corps training.

And in the previous decade, the Marines had made amphibious operations their particular area of expertise.

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