This image is the cover for the book Dawn Like Thunder

Dawn Like Thunder

A gripping account of the heroic efforts of one squadron of US Navy torpedo bombers at the World War II battles of Midway and Guadalcanal.

“The most highly decorated Navy Flyboys of World War II flew through hell and suffered the highest combat losses. Strap yourself in as Robert Mrazek takes you on a heroic flight into history.” —James Bradley, author of Flyboys and Flags of Our Fathers


They were typical young Americans who came from every part of the country to fly an outmoded aircraft that launched unreliable torpedoes against enemy warships. Through a combination of courage, loyalty, comradeship, and sacrifice, this all-but-forgotten torpedo squadron helped change the course of history at the epic battles of Midway and Guadalcanal. In doing so, they became the war’s most highly decorated American naval air squadron.

Filled with thrilling scenes of battle and poignant portraits of the ravages of war—felt not only by those who fight, but by those who are left behind—A Dawn Like Thunder at last brings dramatically to light one of the great untold stories of World War II.

“A remarkably vivid tale of valor, fate, and young men dying young. [Mrazek’s] epic story, reconstructed with breathtaking research and recounted with a novelist’s keen eye for detail, is a worthy monument to Torpedo Squadron Eight.” —Rich Atkinson, author of The Day of Battle and An Army at Dawn

“A Dawn Like Thunder melds a good story with solid and skeptical research. . . . Fast-paced and yet personal, Mrazek’s narrative carries the reader to Midway quickly. But it does not stop there, as so many other accounts have. . . . With A Dawn Like Thunder Mrazek earns the title of historian, one that this reviewer does not apply lightly.” ―Robert Bateman, Washington Post

“An admirable history of the Torpedo Squadron Eight. . . . A boon to the literature of the WWII Pacific theater and of naval aviation.” —Booklist

Robert J. Mrazek

Bob Mrazek graduated from Cornell University, served in the U.S. Navy, and served five terms in the U.S. Congress. Mrazek authored the Amerasian Homecoming Act, which brought nineteen thousand children of Americans who served in Vietnam to the USA. He also authored the National Film Preservation Act, which established the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress to protect films of cultural importance.

Since leaving Congress, Mrazek has authored ten books, earning the American Library Association's top honor for military fiction, the Michael Shaara award for Civil War fiction, and Best Book (American History) from the Washington Post. He also wrote and co-directed the 2016 feature film The Congressman. He lives in upstate NY and Maine.

Little, Brown and Company