Dr. Douglas V. Smith is a Professor
of Strategy and Head of the Strategy and Policy Division at the U.S. Naval War College. He is a graduate
of the U.S. Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, and the Naval War College and holds a doctorate in military history
from Florida State. Douglas Smith specializes in the naval history of WWII and in particular, the five
carrier battles of the Pacific war. Douglas Smith is the author of Carrier Battles: Command
Decision in Harm's Way.
According to the book description of Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way,
“A longtime professor at the Naval War College who once directed strategic and long-range planning for the Navy and
Marine Corps in Europe considers the transformation of the U.S. Navy from a defensive-minded coastal defense force into an
offensive risk-taking navy in the very early stages of World War II. Noting that none of the navy’s most significant
World War II leaders were commissioned before the Spanish-American War and none participated in any important offensive operations
in World War I, Douglas Smith examines the premise that education, rather than experience in battle, accounts for that transformation.
In this book, Smith evaluates his premise by focusing on the five carrier battles of the second world war to determine the
extent to which the inter-war education of the major operational commanders translated into their decision processes, and
the extent to which their interaction during their educational experiences transformed them from risk-adverse to risk-accepting
in their operational concepts. His book will interest students of the Pacific War, naval aviation, education, and leadership.”