This was found at the www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/mcpon/readgide.html website and posted on the Manowar discussion list by Brooks Rowlett. Everyone knows how important Chief Petty Officers are in the fleet, and what they read shows a lot.

The United States Navy Naval Heritage/Core Values Reading Guide

The following books comprise the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy's Naval Heritage/Core Values Reading Guide as prepared in March 1997. This list is updated annually as part of the Chief Petty Officer Initiation Season. The books are available through the Navy Exchange or the Uniform Center toll-free ordering system.

"A" list: Required Reading

The Fighting Liberty Ships — A Memoir by A. A. Hoehling
Inchon to Wonsan: From the Deck of a Destroyer in the Korean War by James Edwin Alexander
Bluejacket: An Autobiography by Fred J. Buenzle with A. Grove Day
A Sailor's Log: Recollections of Forty Years of Naval Life by Rear Adm. Robert D. Evans with introduction by Benjamin Franklin Cooling
Tin Can Sailor - Life Aboard the USS Sterett, '39-'45 by C. Raymond Calhoun
Battleship Sailor by Theodore C. Mason
Brave Ship, Brave Men by Arnold S. Lott
The Fleet the Gods Forgot by W. G. Winslow
The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait by W. G. Winslow
We Will Stand By You — Serving in the Pawnee, 1942-1945 by Theodore C. Mason
Crossing the Line: A Bluejacket's WW II Odyssey by Alvin Kernanv Mother Was A Gunner's Mate: WW II in the Waves by Josette Dermody Wingo
Man-of-War Life by Charles Nordhoff
Thunder Below by Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey, USN (Ret.)
Master of Seapower: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King by Thomas B. Buell, introduction by John B. Lundstrom
My Fifty Years in the Navy by Adm. Charles E. Clark with introduction by Jack Sweetman
Raiders of the Deep by Lowell Thomas, introduction by Gary E. Weir
The Atlantic War Remembered — An Oral History Collection by John T. Mason, Jr.
The Battle of Cape Esperance — Encounter at Guadalcanal by Capt. Charles Cook, USN(Ret.)
The Golden Thirteen — Recollections of the First Black Naval Officers by Paul Stillwell with Colin L. Powell
The Last Patrol by Harry Holmes
Proudly We Served — The Men of USS Mason by Mary Pat Kelly
Raiders from the Sea by John Lodwick
Ultra in the Pacific: How Breaking Japanese Codes and Ciphers
Affected Naval Operations Against Japan by John Winton
Bull Halsey: A Biography by E. B. Potter
Submarine Diary — The Silent Stalking of Japan by Rear Adm. Corwin Mendenhall
Devotion to Duty — A Biography of Admiral Clifton A. F. Sprague by John F. Wukovits
Every Other Day: Letters from the Pacific by George B. Lucas
In Love and War: Revised and Updated by Jim and Sybil Stockdale
Good Night Officially by William M. McBride
Nimitz by E. B. Potter
Ship's Doctor by Captain Terrence Riley
What a Way to Spend a War: Navy Nurse POWs in the Philippines by Dorothy Still Danner
Fatal Voyage by Dan Kurzman
Naked Warriors by Cmdr. Frances Douglas Fane and Don Moore
Devil Boats by William Breuer
The Ship That Held the Line by Lisle A. Rose
Tin Can Man by E. J. Jernigan
Iwo by Richard Wheeler
Descent Into Darkness by Cmdr. Edward C. Raymer
Blood on the Sea by Robert Sinclair Parkin
On Watch by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt

"B" List: Reference

Against All Odds: The Battles at Sea, 1591-1949 by Alexander McKee
American Naval History — An Illustrated Chronology of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present by Jack Sweetman
The Book of Navy Songs by The Trident Society
Gray Steel and Black Oil: Fast Tankers and Replenishment at Sea in the U. S. Navy, 1912-92 by Thomas Wildenberg
Nautilus: The Story of Man Under the Sea by Roy Davies
Sea Power: A Naval History by E. B. Potter
Sharks of Steel by Steve and Yogi Kaufman
Air Raid: Pearl Harbor! – Recollections of a Day of Infamy by Paul Stillwell
Assault on Normandy — First Person Accounts from the Sea Services by Paul Stillwell
E-Boat Alert — Defending the Normandy Invasion Fleet by James Foster Tent
The Fast Carriers — The Forging of an Air Navy by Clark G. Reynolds
Heroes in Dungarees — The Story of the American Merchant Marines in WW II by John Bunker
The Little Giants — U. S. Escort Carriers Against Japan by William T. Youngblood
Unsung Sailors — The Naval Armed Guard in WW II by Justin F. Gleichauf
The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway by John B. Lundstrom
The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 by John B. Lundstrom
Admiral John H. Towers — The Struggle for Naval Air Supremacy by William F. Trimble
Admiral William Shepherd Benson — The First Chief of Naval Operations by Mary Klachko and David F. Trask
The Magnificent Mitscher by Theodore Taylor
The Rickover Effect — How One Man Made a Difference by Theodore Rockwell, forward by Adm. James D. Watkins
Allied Escort Carriers by Kenneth Poolman
At Dawn We Slept by Gordon W. Prange
Prisoners of the Japanese by Gavon Daws
The Two Ocean War by Samuel Eliot Morrison
The Naval Air War, 1939-1945 by Nathan Miller
Victory at Sea — World War II in the Pacific by James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi
The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal by Robert D. Ballardv Crisis in the Pacific by Gerald Astor
History of the U. S. Navy, Vol. One, 1775-1941 by Robert W. Love, Jr.
Clash of the Titans by Walter J. Boyne
The Battle of Leyte Gulf by Thomas J. Cutler
Okinawa — The Last Battle of World War II by Robert Lackie
Normandy by Vice Adm. William P. Mack
War at Sea by Nathan Miller
War Beneath the Sea by Peter Sudfieldv The Pacific Campaign: The U. S. - Japanese Naval War, 1941-1945 by Dan van der Vat
Miracle at Midway by Gordon W. Prance
John Paul Jones — America's Sailor by Clara Ann Simmons
Authors at Sea: Modern American Writers Remember Their Naval Service by Robert Shenk
Rocks & Shoals: Naval Discipline in the Age of Fighting Sail by James E. Valle
Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal by Max Brand
The Unsinkable Fleet: The Politics of U.S. Navy Expansion in World War II by Joel R. Davidson
Run Silent/Run Deep by Captain Edward L. Beach
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat with intro by Captain Edward L. Beach
Decision and Dissent with Halsey at Leyte Gulf by Carl Solberg
The Pacific War Remembered — An Oral History Collection by John T. Mason, Jr.
PT 105 by Dick Keresey
Red Scorpion — The War Patrols of the USS Rasher by Peter T. Sasgen
Fighting Squadron — A Sequel to Dive Bomber by Robert A. Winston
The Pirate of Tobruk — A Sailor's Life on the Seven Seas, 1916-1948 by Alfred B. Palmer with Mary E. Curtis
Submarine Commander by Paul Schratz
We Pulled Together and Won! Personal Memories of the World War II Era by Reminisce Books
Feet Wet by Rear Adm. Paul T. Gilchrist
War in the Boats by Captain William J. Ruhe
And I was There by Rear Adm. Edwin T. Layton
Submarine Admiral by Adm. J. J. Galntin
All at Sea by Louis R. Harlany
Slow Dance to Pearl Harbor — A Tin Can Ensign in Prewar America by Captain William J. Ruhe
Battleships in Action, Vols I & II by H. W. Wilsonv The People Navy by Kenneth J. Hagan
Longitude by Dava Sobel
U-Boat Commander by Peter Cremer
Kinkaid of the Seventh Fleet: A Biography of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, USN by Gerald E. Wheeler

"C" List: Reference

History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II by Samuel Eliot Morrison, Vols I through XV

BT