Thomas F. (hardtack) -
In many ways this is a very interesting World War II history of the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the seizure of Saipan and Tinian and the liberation of Guam. But it has its problems. On page 314, the author states, "As a relative newcomer of authorship of books on the Pacific War..." And these few words adequately describe the problems within the book.
As a "newcomer... of books on the Pacific War," you'd think the author would ask a more experienced historian in that area to review his book. He didn't, and it is obvious. Plus, you might hope his publishers would do the same, but they didn't either. Let me point out some of the problems.
Early on, the author refers to the U.S. Navy losing carriers, which were then "...at the bottom of Ironbottom Sound..." in the Solomon Islands. While the U.S. Navy did lose many ships in that area, none were carriers.
Early in the book, the author refers to Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces as "Marines." These forces were never called such, and using such a term in Pacific Theater books just confuses them with U.S. Marines. Later in the book the author calls them by the correct name or variations of. This told me the author was learning as he wrote the book, but didn't bother to review his previous writing to correct the mistake. I say this because he does this with many other terms too.
Early on the author also refers to the Fifth and Third U.S. Navy Fleets as two different organizations. Actually, they were the same ships, more or less, with different commanders; the Fifth being commanded by Admiral Spruance and the Third by Admiral Halsey as they rotated command. Later in the book, he correctly mentions this, but, once again, doesn't correct previous mistakes.
Speaking of U.S. Marines, the author has a bad habit of referring to them using U.S. Army terminology. For example on one page he calls the 23rd Marines---a regiment--- the "23rd Regimental Combat Team." Marine regiments are never called this. Sometimes he calls a unit the "8th Marine Regiment" or the "4th Regiment." This in incorrect. In the Marine Corps, regiments are called 1st Marines, 11th Marines, etc., while divisions are referred to as 1st or 5th Marine Division. As a former Marine officer, I can vouch for this. Later on the author refers to Marine units correctly, but he will also repeat his mistake on other pages.
This is a major problem, as in the assault of the three islands, there were Marine and Army divisions fighting alongside each other, and sometimes you have to wonder, and guess, which military organization the author is referring to.
In one case the author states, "[General] MacArthur was genuinely shocked by the bloodbath on Betio [Tarawa]." Tarawa was certainly a bloodbath, and the Marines suffered heavily, partially due to inadequate shelling by naval forces. But this is amusing as MacArthur regularly issued press releases claiming his army forces suffered low casualties capturing Japanese held areas, when the truth was these forces suffered heavily. MacArthur would often claim areas were "secured" when his infantry was still involved in heavy fighting with the Japanese, with both sides taking heavy casualties. MacArthur's claims were firmly established in early histories of the war for decades, but, for years now, historians no longer take his press releases or autobiography at face value. This book was written in 2005 and the author should have known better.
Speaking of casualties, sometimes you have to wonder where the author got his casualty figures. For the Battle of Tinian, he states, "A total of 3,027 Marines had died, and 1,571 were wounded..." Typically, the number of wounded is about three times the number of dead. That's not true for all battles in history, but is generally true for most battles for the last few hundred years. So I found this interesting, looked it up in other references, and found the correct casualties were 326 dead---a very significant difference---and 1,593 wounded. This is the kind of mistake which makes you suspect other "facts" an author provides.
The author provides full page maps of all three islands assaulted in this book. The problem is he often refers to terrain features not included on the maps. Since much of the area on the provided maps are blank and there was plenty of room to add the name of those unidentified terrain features, you have to fault the author for this.
The author also claims the Japanese captured a B-29 which was on a "training mission," and tortured information about the plane out of the crew. I would like to see a citation on this as I don't think "training missions" were flown over Japanese territory. But the author doesn't provide one. Making you wonder if he made this up for his own purposes.
Quite often in war, a name of a ridge, hill, canyon or some other terrain feature would be given a name by the American fighting over it. When this happens, and an author writes about it, the author mentions the men gave it that name. This author didn't always follow that rule. The beginning of one chapter has the Marines assaulting "Bundshu Ridge." Of course, this wasn't on the map. I thought it an unusual name and wondered if it was Japanese? Turns out it was the name of an Marine company commander who died trying to lead his company up that ridge. But you had to go back to the previous chapter to find this out. At no place were you told his men named the ridge after him.
Every writer makes stupid typos. Which is why a work should be reviewed numerous times, several of them by the original author. I learned this well in my 33-year university career. I'd write something, review it, then leave it for a day or two and review it again. If I was smart, I'd do this several times.
While I found many typos in this book, I found one which really amused me. The author states, "...a night destroyer bombarded enemy defenses...." Was he suggesting the U.S. Navy had night and daytime destroyers? If so, how did they determine which destroyers would fight at night and which would fight during the day? I suspect he meant, "...and at night destroyers bombarded enemy defenses..." Of course, this made sense as destroyers had to come close to shore to shell Japanese gun emplacement, and doing so at night gave them some protection against return Japanese fire.
Finally, the author often compares U.S. commanders in the Pacific with Civil War generals. The first couple of times he did this, I thought it might have some meaning, but he did it so many times in the book, often repeating himself, it became annoying. He also compared Civil War battles with World War II battles and I thought---except in one case---that it didn't make any sense. I checked and he has written a few books on the Civil War.
Still, I enjoyed most of the book. The problem is anyone without wide experience reading about the war in the Pacific will be lead astray by the author's mistakes.
As a "newcomer... of books on the Pacific War," you'd think the author would ask a more experienced historian in that area to review his book. He didn't, and it is obvious. Plus, you might hope his publishers would do the same, but they didn't either. Let me point out some of the problems.
Early on, the author refers to the U.S. Navy losing carriers, which were then "...at the bottom of Ironbottom Sound..." in the Solomon Islands. While the U.S. Navy did lose many ships in that area, none were carriers.
Early in the book, the author refers to Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces as "Marines." These forces were never called such, and using such a term in Pacific Theater books just confuses them with U.S. Marines. Later in the book the author calls them by the correct name or variations of. This told me the author was learning as he wrote the book, but didn't bother to review his previous writing to correct the mistake. I say this because he does this with many other terms too.
Early on the author also refers to the Fifth and Third U.S. Navy Fleets as two different organizations. Actually, they were the same ships, more or less, with different commanders; the Fifth being commanded by Admiral Spruance and the Third by Admiral Halsey as they rotated command. Later in the book, he correctly mentions this, but, once again, doesn't correct previous mistakes.
Speaking of U.S. Marines, the author has a bad habit of referring to them using U.S. Army terminology. For example on one page he calls the 23rd Marines---a regiment--- the "23rd Regimental Combat Team." Marine regiments are never called this. Sometimes he calls a unit the "8th Marine Regiment" or the "4th Regiment." This in incorrect. In the Marine Corps, regiments are called 1st Marines, 11th Marines, etc., while divisions are referred to as 1st or 5th Marine Division. As a former Marine officer, I can vouch for this. Later on the author refers to Marine units correctly, but he will also repeat his mistake on other pages.
This is a major problem, as in the assault of the three islands, there were Marine and Army divisions fighting alongside each other, and sometimes you have to wonder, and guess, which military organization the author is referring to.
In one case the author states, "[General] MacArthur was genuinely shocked by the bloodbath on Betio [Tarawa]." Tarawa was certainly a bloodbath, and the Marines suffered heavily, partially due to inadequate shelling by naval forces. But this is amusing as MacArthur regularly issued press releases claiming his army forces suffered low casualties capturing Japanese held areas, when the truth was these forces suffered heavily. MacArthur would often claim areas were "secured" when his infantry was still involved in heavy fighting with the Japanese, with both sides taking heavy casualties. MacArthur's claims were firmly established in early histories of the war for decades, but, for years now, historians no longer take his press releases or autobiography at face value. This book was written in 2005 and the author should have known better.
Speaking of casualties, sometimes you have to wonder where the author got his casualty figures. For the Battle of Tinian, he states, "A total of 3,027 Marines had died, and 1,571 were wounded..." Typically, the number of wounded is about three times the number of dead. That's not true for all battles in history, but is generally true for most battles for the last few hundred years. So I found this interesting, looked it up in other references, and found the correct casualties were 326 dead---a very significant difference---and 1,593 wounded. This is the kind of mistake which makes you suspect other "facts" an author provides.
The author provides full page maps of all three islands assaulted in this book. The problem is he often refers to terrain features not included on the maps. Since much of the area on the provided maps are blank and there was plenty of room to add the name of those unidentified terrain features, you have to fault the author for this.
The author also claims the Japanese captured a B-29 which was on a "training mission," and tortured information about the plane out of the crew. I would like to see a citation on this as I don't think "training missions" were flown over Japanese territory. But the author doesn't provide one. Making you wonder if he made this up for his own purposes.
Quite often in war, a name of a ridge, hill, canyon or some other terrain feature would be given a name by the American fighting over it. When this happens, and an author writes about it, the author mentions the men gave it that name. This author didn't always follow that rule. The beginning of one chapter has the Marines assaulting "Bundshu Ridge." Of course, this wasn't on the map. I thought it an unusual name and wondered if it was Japanese? Turns out it was the name of an Marine company commander who died trying to lead his company up that ridge. But you had to go back to the previous chapter to find this out. At no place were you told his men named the ridge after him.
Every writer makes stupid typos. Which is why a work should be reviewed numerous times, several of them by the original author. I learned this well in my 33-year university career. I'd write something, review it, then leave it for a day or two and review it again. If I was smart, I'd do this several times.
While I found many typos in this book, I found one which really amused me. The author states, "...a night destroyer bombarded enemy defenses...." Was he suggesting the U.S. Navy had night and daytime destroyers? If so, how did they determine which destroyers would fight at night and which would fight during the day? I suspect he meant, "...and at night destroyers bombarded enemy defenses..." Of course, this made sense as destroyers had to come close to shore to shell Japanese gun emplacement, and doing so at night gave them some protection against return Japanese fire.
Finally, the author often compares U.S. commanders in the Pacific with Civil War generals. The first couple of times he did this, I thought it might have some meaning, but he did it so many times in the book, often repeating himself, it became annoying. He also compared Civil War battles with World War II battles and I thought---except in one case---that it didn't make any sense. I checked and he has written a few books on the Civil War.
Still, I enjoyed most of the book. The problem is anyone without wide experience reading about the war in the Pacific will be lead astray by the author's mistakes.
