Red November

August 16, 2010
Reed's personal experience as a navy recon diver, submarine weapons technician, and special ops photographer informs every page of this exhaustive and fascinating account of submarine technology and warfare from the end of WWII through the cold war. The author's father, William J. Reed, a navy communications specialist, helped develop the hardware that made possible long distance frequency direction finding that allowed listening stations to pinpoint the far away locations of ships or submarines. These HFDF stations, called "Huff Duffs," were instrumental in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Reed presents a vast cast of interesting characters and a daunting array of scientific technology, but manages to keep the material understandable, fresh, and exciting as befits a book devoted to the underwater world of high stakes submarine warfare. Decades-long gag orders keep participants from revealing really up-to-date secrets, though it's chilling to learn that from 1995 to 2005 the Chinese navy has launched 31 nuclear submarines.