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Topic review - WWII Pacific Theater Books
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  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Quote:
In my opinion Franks is still the definitive overall account of the Guadalcanal camapign, and IMO somewhat more of a 'very good read' than an 'encyclopedia' per se, although I can see where your coming from given its voluminous content. But far far from a 'dry read'. Excellent book!


I utterly agree.
Post Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:23 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Thanks for the hint, KevinD and medicmike - actually I have "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by Hornfischer and I fully consent it is a great book! would love to see a better coverage of the Japanese side of those battles - Tameichi Hara has some in "Japanese Destroyer Captain" and Evan Thomas in "Sea of Thunder" but no minute-by-minute account like those books already mentioned provide for the US side.
But this is just my wishful thinking, no worries ;)
Post Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:15 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
medicmike wrote:
Vladi, if you are looking for a very good and detailed book about the Battle off Samar and Taffy 3, then "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James Hornfischer is a must read. It covers all the ships involved and has very detailed accounts from them.

Yes I'll second that! Great book. Had forgot all about that one, as read it right when it first came out, and been a lot of other books read since that one. :woo_hoo:
Post Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:40 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Vladi, if you are looking for a very good and detailed book about the Battle off Samar and Taffy 3, then "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James Hornfischer is a must read. It covers all the ships involved and has very detailed accounts from them.
Post Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:27 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Hi Kevin,

thanks for the point about Eric Hammel´s trilogy, I will have a look for the other volumes!

As far as Frank is concerned, it is indeed a really great book (that´s why I wanted to mention it here), for me undoubtedly the best in providing reference and coverage of facts. Putting all of that into one volume (750 pages) must have been a challenge and the author did it really well. You are right it is not written as an encyclopedia although I am sure it very well describes the way many people use it - a reference source is perhaps a better description though. There are dozens of other books about Guadalcanal with more personal narratives etc. but only one Frank. :wave_1:
Post Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:05 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
In my opinion Franks is still the definitive overall account of the Guadalcanal camapign, and IMO somewhat more of a 'very good read' than an 'encyclopedia' per se, although I can see where your coming from given its voluminous content. But far far from a 'dry read'. Excellent book!

As for Hammel, I assume you know that the book you describe is one of a trilogy by him centered around various Guadalcanal naval battles? All may be a little dated now, and a few mistakes here and there, but all in all I found them very good in their day.
Post Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:46 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Thanks for the inspiration guys! Some of my favourites (except those already mentioned):

Lost at Guadalcanal by John J. Domagalski
Firsthand accounts telling about the fates of USS Astoria and USS Chicago

The World Wonder´d: What Really Happenned off Samar by Robert Lundgren
Extremely well documented and illustrated, especially the shelling of Taffy 3 carriers is explained virtually salvo by salvo. Nevertheless I am still waiting for a book that would provide a contiguous description of events for each ship participating in the battle.

Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle by Richard B. Frank
Fact-filled "encyclopedia" of the Guadalcanal campaign. Not a "story book" to be read in one go overnight, but you can find there excellent and detailed coverage of the whole battle. Thanks to Dan K for his recommendation!

Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea by Eric Hammel
Very well-written narrative of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on November 13-15, 1942. Just - as in case of the Battle off Samar - I am still waiting for a book that would provide a contiguous description of events from the point of view of each ship participating.
Post Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 5:45 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Not specifically 'Pac War' books, but some, although mostly 'Far East' War books, and by no means a complete least at that, and some of which have been mentioned above, but I'm not about to sort through the list and sort them out.

Best, KD

NOTE: In NO particular order of importance.

Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors by James D. Hornfischer

A Blue Sea of Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS Edsall by Donald M. Kehn Jr.

Ship of Courage: The Epic Story of HMAS Perth and Her Crew by Brendan Whiting

The Battle of the Java Sea by David Thomas

The Last Battle Station: The Story of the USS Houston by Duane Schultz

Cruel Conflict: the Crew and the Cruiser HMAS Perth by Kathyrn Spurling

The Lonely Ships: The Life and Death of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet by Edwin P. Hoyt

U.S.S. Houston : The last flagship of the Asiatic Fleet by Heber A Holbrook

Old Friends, New Enemies: The Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, vol. 1: Strategic illusions, 1936-1941 by Arthur J. Marder

HMS Electra by T.J. Cain

The Hunting of Force Z by Richard Hough

The Sinking of the Prince of Wales & Repulse: The End of a Battleship Era? by Martin Middlebrook

Hostages to Fortune: Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by Arthur Nicholson

Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942 by H. P. Willmott

Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 by H. P. Willmott

The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base, 1919-1942 by W. David McIntyre

Battle for Singapore: The True Story of the Greatest Catastrophe of World War II by Peter Thompson

Singapore Burning: Heroism and Surrender in World War II by Colin Smith

Percival and the Tragedy of Singapore by John George Smyth

Scapegoat: General Percival of Singapore by Clifford Kinvig

Guns of February: Ordinary Japanese Soldiers' View of the Malayan Campaign and the Fall of Singapore, 1941-42 by Henry P. Frei

Singapore 1941-1942 by Louis Allen

The Mastermind Behind Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat: The Capture of Singapore 1942 by Masanobu Tsuji

The Most Dangerous Moment: The Japanese Assault on Ceylon 1942 by Michael Tomlinson

Japanese Army in World War II: Conquest of the Pacific 1941-42 by Gordon L. Rottman

Ragged, Rugged Warriors by Martin Caidin

The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway by John B. Lundstrom

Doomed at the Start: American Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942 by William H. Bartsch

Fortnight of Infamy: The Collapse of Allied Airpower West of Pearl Harbor by John Burton

Dutch Naval Air Force Against Japan: The Defense of the Netherlands East Indies, 1941-1942 by Tom Womack

Hurricanes Over Singapore: RAF, RNZAF and NEI Fighters in Action Against the Japanese Over the Island and the Netherlands East Indies, 1942 by Brian Cull

BUFFALOES OVER SINGAPORE: RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and Dutch Brewster Fighters in Action Over Malaya and the East Indies 1941-1942 by Brian Cull

AIR WAR FOR BURMA: The Concluding Volume of The Bloody Shambles Series. The Allied Air Forces Fight Back in South-East Asia 1942-1945 by Christopher F. Shores

BLOODY SHAMBLES VOLUME TWO: The Complete Account of the Air War in the Far East, from the Defence of Sumatra to the Fall of Burma, 1942 by Christopher F. Shores

Bloody Shambles : Volume One : The Drift to War to the Fall of Singapore by Christopher F. Shores

December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor by William H. Bartsch

MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines by R. M. Connaughton

The Battle of Bataan: A Complete History by Donald J. Young

THE BATTLE OF BATAAN America's Greatest Defeat by Robert Conroy
Post Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 3:26 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Adding "Tin Can Titans", by John Wukovits to the list. It's about DesRon 21, which has some of the earliest Fletcher's in it: Fletcher, O'Bannon, Radford, etc. Pretty good book, I enjoyed it.
Post Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:28 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Some recent reads:

"Playing for Time, War on an Asiatic Fleet Destroyer", by Lodwick Alford, who served aboard the USS Stewart (DD-224). It details his time in the Asiatic Fleet, through the Java Campaign. I enjoyed this book a lot.

"The Los Banos Raid, The 11th Airborne Jumps at Dawn", by Lt Gen EM Flanagan, who served with the 11th in the Philippines (but didn't participate in the raid). This book is about the airborne jump to rescue civilian internees at the Los Banos Camp in Central Luzon in 1945. It have a fascination with the Philippine Campaign and the Guerilla War against the Japanese. I enjoyed this book.

"MacArthur's Spies", by Peter Eisner. This book is about Philippine and American spies and Guerillas the Philippines during WW2. I read this right after "Los Banos". Good, not great book, but enjoyed it.

"Pacific Thunder", by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver. This one covers the US Navy's Central Pacific Campaign, from 1943 to late 1944. I thought this was a disappointing read. The writing wasn’t bad, but the obvious factual errors made me wonder what else was wrong. If you want to read up on the Central Pacific Campaign, I'd recommend Hornfischer's "The Fleet at Flood Tide", which is a FAR superior book.
Post Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 8:40 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
In honor of the Lady Lex being found this past week, I re-read "Queen of the Flat tops" by Stanley Johnson. My copy was a fourth edition, printed in 1942. It's a good narrative, but boy is it dated with jingoism, racism and lots of false claims about Japanese ships sunk. However, being that is was published in the heat of the moment during a ferocious war, it's not surprising.

Overall, I still enjoyed it, because it told a really good tale of the ship and her crew, which tried desperately to save her. Glad I picked it up again.
Post Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:51 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
medicmike we seem to have similar interests'.

"Shattered Sword" is outstanding! Midway myths dispelled.
"We Will Stand by You" is excellent, it's about the exploits of an ATF named Pawnee from just prior to Guadalcanal and 23 months after. Good representation of the Aux fleet in the Solomon's!
"Tales from a Tin Can" is awesome! Numerous quotes from a lot of the crew. The author attended nearly all the reunions of USS Dale, a Farragut class DD. Battle of Komandorski Islands here.
"Japanese Destroyer Captain", already mentioned, a good point of view from the other side.
"Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors", he covers all the ships getting damage in the Battle off Samar. Very good reading as you found out.
"Hell from the Heavens", is about USS Laffey and he goes into details about every bomb and kamikaze hit.
"In the Hands of Fate" is about PatWing 10, PBY's stationed in the Philippines' from before the start of war to the time they disbanded in May '42. I love this book, he covers all the losses and short history. PBY's needed seaplane tenders and he covers the movements of them, but that's about it. Just a good read and how attrition takes it's toll on a squadron.
"Rising sun, Falling Skies" the Java Sea campaign is excellent. Not only battles are covered, but he gets into a little of the politics which influences many decisions. His timelines kind of jump around a bit, so it's a little hard to follow though.
"A Dawn like Thunder" is about Torpedo 8. They weren't all wiped out at Midway, they actually took part in the Guadalcanal campaign. Another excellent read!
"That Gallant Ship" covers Yorktown's history and movements.

I have other books, but these are some of my favorites.
Post Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2018 9:14 pm
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Having read many of the books reviewed here, I found " The USS Ward" by Richard P. Klobuchar interesting. It's a operational history of the ship who fired the opening shot of WW2 though it's demise as a APD three years later to the day. Interviews with surviving crew members add to the human element that is sometimes missing from the " big picture " works on the pacific theater.
Post Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2018 4:35 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Night Work, Fletcher Pratt, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1946, 267 pages.

As a former cruiser sailor I like stories about cruisers, especially the Cleveland class, but I haven't found much written about them. Night Work is the story of the USS Cleveland CL-55, USS Columbia CL-56, USS Montpelier CL-57 and USS Denver CL-58. These four brand new Cleveland class light cruisers entered the war in the Solomons shortly after the disastrous battles in Iron Bottom Sound, as Task Force 39 commanded by Rear Admiral A. S. Merrill.

The book tells about the long series of battles around Guadalcanal and up the Solomons chain. It is a good read!

I give it a 10 out of 10, but I am a bit biased about the Clevelands!

****

Pacific War Diary, James J. Fahey, Kensington Publishing Corp., New York, 1963, 404 pages.

Fahey served on the USS Montpelier CL-57 from 1942 to 1945. This is his diary, and it tells the story of endless hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of terror. It is a seaman's story of what it was like to live on a cruiser during the war. Not much theory and strategy, but a very good background read to supplement drier historical narratives.

7 out of 10.

Phil
Post Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:17 am
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
The Campaigns of the Pacific War, United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific), Naval Analysis Division, US Government Printing Office, 1946, 395 pages.

This book is a unique compilation of large detailed fold-out Japanese charts, translated Japanese plans and messages, and Japanese battle damage reports captured during and after WWII. It includes a brief but detailed analysis of Japanese strategy in the naval battles of the Pacific based upon interviews with the top surviving Japanese Naval officers. The charts alone are reason to find a copy of this book!

The book does not "tell a story." It is invaluable reference material, especially when reading some of the biased, gung-ho, our-side-is better-than-their-side "historical" accounts of the Pacific War. Some of these later day "historians," writing half a century or more after the war, relate "facts" that are quite different from what the Japanese officers at the scene recorded.

Phil
Post Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 2:41 am
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I recommend reading The Battle for Leyte Gulf by C. Vann Woodward, Skyhorse Publishing, 2013, 222 pages. Woodward is Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and served as an Intelligence Officer in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations during WWII under Samuel Eliot Morrison. Woodward had first hand access to intelligence reports, interrogation records from Japanese officers, ship's logs and action reports.

This book is a very good account of the battle of Leyte Gulf. It is factual, well organized and concise. It is an easy read.

On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 the best, I would give it a 9. The only shortcoming I found was in the maps/charts. My copy of the book was a paperback, and the charts looked like very poor photocopies of much larger images. They were illegible, so if you read the book I suggest getting another reference (Morrison perhaps) that has good maps and charts.

Phil
Post Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 2:14 am
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I just finished Afternoon of the Rising Sun by Kenneth I. Friedman (not Norman Friedman!), Presidio Press, 2001, 414 pages (hard bound). Friedman was a retired IBM executive.

It is about the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The text on the inside of the dust cover should have been a warning - he claimed Halsey had six Iowa class battleships! Of course the US only completed four Iowas, as every student of the US Navy in WWII knows.

He goes on to tell us the Brooklyn class light cruisers fired fifteen 8" guns (they were 6" guns), Fletcher class destroyers could do 40 knots (maybe 40 mph), and so on. He says five of the six carriers in Taffey 3 "escaped unharmed," but two of the surviving carriers had significant damage from Japanese gunfire. A 15,000 ton CVL was a "big carrier". There are lots of obvious errors that showed he really didn't know what he was talking about.

He contradicts himself frequently. In one place he says the Japanese "had a rich store of carriers" for the Northern Force, and on the next page tells how the Japanese carrier force had been reduced to one CV and three CVLs, including one that was considered "too small to send into battle." A submarine fired torpedoes at a ship's port side and hit it on the starboard side! On one page he claimed Shima's 5th fleet "came up from the south (Brunei) to join the Southern Force, even though the chart he used (copied from another book) showed them coming down from the north (Formosa). Yet in another part of the book he details Shima's route south from the Inland Sea to the Pescadores (Formosa) and then to Surigao Strait.

He repeats the same stories over, and over, and over, and over, and over, .... About half way through the book I started making notes in the margins and I counted 44 times he repeated what he had written earlier! If the repeated text was removed the book would be a lot thinner. It looks like he had a bunch of notes on multiple topics that he copied from many sources and just crammed them all together and called it a book without any editing, corrections or attempts to make a coherent or chronological story. He writes about an event and randomly tosses in unrelated sentences about other topics out of chronological order, and many pages later comes back to the previous topic and retells the same story again. He describes the sinking of one Japanese cruiser at least three times and an American destroyer sank twice! It is the worst writing and editing I have ever seen in a book. How it got published I don't know!

Worse still, he claims to know the innermost thoughts and detailed actions of major and minor characters (he breathed a sigh of relief, he was thinking about ..., etc.). He tells us Halsey's thoughts at one point and then says "We will never know what actually went through Halsey's mind ..." After two pages of detailed descriptions of Kurita's thoughts, feelings and fears during the Battle off Samar he then concluded with "mystery surrounds" what Kurita was thinking! Except Friedman knows, of course! I counted about 30 instances of sheer speculation in the last half of the book! If you read it be sure to wear hip boots because the BS is knee deep throughout the book! There is far more fiction than fact.

On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 the best, I would rate it as a 1. Why not a zero, since it is so bad? He attended a Tin Can Sailors convention and interviewed a number of survivors of the battle. Most of their stories are brief and add little to the history, but they do tell something about the individual's experiences, thoughts and fears during these crucial battles. Unfortunately, they are a tiny part of the text and are buried in redundant, disordered speculation, exaggeration and hyperbole.

Phil
Post Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 1:55 am
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If you like submarines, here is a good one I just finished.
"Silent Running: My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine" by retired VADM James F. Calvert. An interesting read covering his patrols during the war.
Post Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 2:14 pm
  Post subject:  Re: WWII Pacific Theater Books  Reply with quote
Just finished Loxton's "The Shame of Savo". It dates from around 1994. Overall, I liked it. Didn't like how he excoriated Admiral Fletcher, especially since, if I recall correctly, much of what he said Lundstrom debunked in "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral". Still, an interesting read, and recommended.
Post Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 7:17 pm
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I just finished Neptune's Inferno and have to agree with you all that it was an absolutely outstanding book. A must read!
Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:50 pm

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