It is March, 1942, and the US is reeling from the Japanese surprise attack on her surface fleet at Pearl Harbor three months before. A lone, Clemson-class destroyer, the USS Edsall, crosses the Indian Ocean headed for Tjilatjap, the only deep-water port on the island of Java. The Edsall is far from cutting edge. Launched
In early 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, and the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin arrived on a diplomatic mission to Britain aboard the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze. For the duration of the mission the cruiser was docked in Her Majesty’s Navala Base, Portsmouth. The mission came at a delicate time. Stalin had been