A good description of the horror of war and D-Day that ends on just enough of a high note in the Atlantic by SLA Marshall from 1960:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365/The Japanese knew they couldn't win a protracted war with the U.S. in the Pacific. Pearl Harbor was a long shot that succeeded tactically, but failed strategically. That count of dive-bombers built presents a stark contrast that highlights both why the Japanese couldn't win in the long run, and why they wanted to expand their area of control in the Pacific: to increase their industrial might.
But as that piece by Marshall vividly shows, all the material might in the world can't remove the suffering war causes--even to the victors. My great grandfather was a Captain in the Navy in the Pacific during WWII and at least by '44 was commanding a Transport Group, part of the amphibious commands. Under his command were the attack transports that brought landing craft full of Army and Marine infantry to the beaches (and themselves would bring heavier equipment once the beachhead was established). His was a long and difficult war, but from the bridge of ships, not on the ground (though my grandfather, in the Army in the Pacific Theater, implied his father-in-law was often in close enough to be involved in a lot of action, more than my grandfather was). In something of a coincidence, he participated in the Marshall Islands campaign, including Eniwetok. Eniwetok is perhaps most famous for the photo of a Marine depicting
the thousand yard stare, one of the iconic shots of WWII. Operationally, it was a relatively easy victory, but on the ground it was brutal. Here's the coincidence. SFIrish's great uncle Teddy was killed at Eniwetok. It's possible, likely even, that a ship under my great grandfather's command took Teddy to shore. No matter how easy the victory, SFIrish's grandmother, who I knew well, lost her older brother--the family's only son--there.
That's something that has always touched me because I knew two of my great uncles well. They also both fought during the war, one as a junior naval officer mostly in the Atlantic, I think, and one as a tanker in Europe. The latter didn't land at D-Day, but was involved in the Bulge (which was where he saw most of the action that he was in). He didn't like talking about it, and he didn't like talking about seeing the aftermath of bombed German cities that he came through, but sometimes he would. It's all very, very ugly--even when your side wins, and even when it's a necessity.
Last stand of the Tin Can Sailors is a great book about that. I read it a few years ago. The bravery necessary to take your ~2,000 ton "tin can" destroyer or an even smaller Destroyer Escort and go charging straight at a 70k ton Battleship (surrounded by other enemy Battleships and Cruisers) is hard to fathom. Those guys deserve our eternal respect and admiration.
It's harder to personalize ship-to-ship combat than it is to capture the desperation of a bayonet charge, but no doubt that was one of the U.S. military's great exploits--similar in the scope of bravery to the Frozen Chosin and Bastogne.