Torrey personally selects Paul Eddington to be his Chief of Staff, and infuriates Broderick by immediately planning and executing an operation to overrun Gavabutu, an island to be used as a staging base for the invasion of Levu-Vana. Owynn is now Broderick's aide, with Jere still by his side. The Japanese have withdrawn their garrisons from Gavabutu, making it an easy capture. But as Torrey turns his undivided attention to Levu-Vana, his attempts to secure more material and manpower are frustrated by General Douglas MacArthur's simultaneous and much larger Solomon Islands campaign. Reconnaissance aircraft prove especially difficult to come by, and surface combatant forces amount to little more than several cruisers and destroyers, including Torrey's former command, now skippered by his former operations officer, Captain Burke. When the mission succeeds, Jere recognizes the disloyalty of Owynn and Broderick and gains a new regard for his father. Eddington's emotional instability drives him to rape Dohrn, who is now engaged to Torrey's son. The traumatized nurse, fearing she might be pregnant, tries to tell him but he doesn't believe her. She then commits suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. As the truth is about to be revealed, Eddington—still a qualified aviator—commandeers a North American PBJ Mitchell patrol bomber and flies solo on an unauthorized reconnaissance flight to locate elements of the Japanese fleet. Engaged, shot down, and killed by Japanese Zero fighters, he goes down in a fiery death in a redeeming act of sacrifice, finding and giving advance warning of a large Japanese task force centered around the super-battleship "Yamato", on its way to blast Torrey's much smaller force off the islands. Despite the new seaborne threat, Torrey nevertheless mounts the invasion of Levu-Vana and proceeds with a nothing-to-be-lost attempt to turn back the enemy force. Tragically, his son Jere is killed during a nighttime PT boat action when he is rammed by a Japanese destroyer. The following morning sees a pitched surface action off the shores of Levu-Vana, with the Americans drawing first blood and the "Yamato" decimating much of the U.S. force in response. Many lives are lost, Powell's and Burke's among them. Severely injured at the height of the battle, later resulting in the amputation of his left leg, Torrey is rescued by his flag lieutenant, now-Lieutenant Commander McConnell, and is returned to Pearl Harbor aboard a Navy hospital ship under Maggie's care.