Losing nearly a third of the heavy cruisers, including Admiral Kurita's flagship, the Atago, was not an especially-auspicious start to the operation, especially with the admiral himself having to be fished out of the water by a destroyer.

page xiii, List of illustrations: 84. Priant of Louis XII (cast). Photograph: A. Neury, Paris. 85. Priants of Francis I (d. 1574) and Claude of France (d. 1524) […] page 166: The royal tombs were related to earlier French tombs which had shown kneeling figures symbolizing the soul contrasted to representations of dead bodies below. The earlier representations had commonly shown the priants kneeling in front of the Virgin asking for mercy. […] The royal priants, by contrast, […]

Most of the men are sleeping forward, for it is near midnight, but a stout swarthy Arab, Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily steering by the stars.

We have neither the time nor the money to devote to such Joan-of-Arcian causes.