Now Hear This: The Story of American Sailors in World War II - Edwin P. Hoyt

This book is supposed to be not a narrative of the naval war, but instead a series of stories reflecting the life and experiences of American sailors in World War II.  Thus while the stories are essentially in chronological order, they don't follow traditional dramatic arcs, where players enter the scene, fight a grand battle, then exit, and you rarely see what happens before or after.  It's far more common for the story to follow a sailor from enlistment through various postings - perhaps a battle or two, or maybe not - then on to the next story ending up with returning home after the war.  There is a greta deal of tedium, minutiae, and lack of understanding of what is going on or the part the sailor is playing in the war.  In other words, you get a far better understanding of what life was like for the average sailor.
What the book offers a useful perspective, it really isn't much of a story, and Hoyt has to add a lot of context to what's happening which provides what little overall structure the book has.  But when he does that, you lose the day to day sailor's perspective of what's happening, so there is a constant tension between immersing yourself in the tedium of the sailor's life and understanding the overall context of the war.  It's a useful book - but not a particularly interesting one.