T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa : The War in the Pacific 1941-1945 on + 273 more book reviews
How wild is it that I began reading this, and then unexpectedly uncovered some answers to a rather sticky family mystery in my genealogy research?! A rather obscure distant relative, my great grand-Aunt, the older sister of my great-grandfather, had a son, whom I have long been informed was killed at Pearl Harbor. Over the years, literally, I haven't been able to find anything about him at all, but then came across someone's information that led me down another rabbit hole. It appears that rather than death at Pearl Harbor, this person was killed in action in the Philippines, as a PFC in the army. He and several other allied troops were apparently attempting to assist missionaries in escaping the invading Japanese, but they were captured, executed by beheading, and buried in a mass grave. In 1949, their bodies were recovered, repatriated and buried together at a National Cemetery in Missouri. So, this book really hit home at an opportune time.
I won't go into too much detail about content, as it's fairly well-known and accessible. As with the other Landmark books (I really prefer the ones which were written in the 1950s as opposed to the modern volumes, despite some of the outdated language), this is a good overview to some complex subject matter. The author, Bliven (who was a year older than my relative described above) does an excellent job of describing the events in the Pacific theater over the course of the long war in a fairly balanced way. Neither does he mince words about the devastating toll in lives wrought by the tragic events that led to the deployment of the first, and hopefully last, nuclear weapons used in a theater of war.
This volume covers a lot of time and geography, so it doesn't include many biographies or personal stories of individuals in any great depth, which are a prominent feature of many of the Landmark books. One small aside: the brief mention of another tragic figure who fought and nearly died in the Pacific theater. Bliven writes, "The versatile PT boats were the best answer we had. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the skipper of PT boat 109, was on patrol... when a Japanese destroyer, looming up out of the night, rammed his ship and cut it in two. By a series of near miracles, Kennedy and ten survivors of his twelve-man crew managed to swim to a small nearby island, and after days of gallant effort to attract attention, they were rescued."
By necessity, the book abbreviates events, but this one is worth telling. After their boat was struck at about 2:30 AM, Kennedy rescued several of his men, who had been badly burned. They then clung to the bow for 12 hours, until its sinking was imminent, before deciding to swim for land, to Plum Pudding Island, now renamed Kennedy Island, about 3 1/2 miles away, a feat which took about four hours. A new problem shortly arose, however: the island had no drinkable water. Kennedy then swam an additional 2 miles the following day in an attempt to hail a passing PT boat. Two days later, the crew had to swim another near-four miles to yet another island to try to attract the attention of rescuers. They were discovered on day three, but rescue took another two days. Kennedy even scratched a message onto a coconut while he was on Naru island, which was later recovered. He eventually had it made into a paperweight, which is now on display at his presidential library. The remains of PT-109 were actually discovered in 2002, at a depth of 1,200 feet, by Robert Ballard, the same man who first discovered the remains of the Titanic.
Kennedy suffered serious back injuries from the incident, however, requiring months of hospitalization at Chelsea Naval Hospital, and later, several more months of recovery at a military hospital in Arizona. He was forced to retire in March, 1945, on physical disability. It's curious that he was even allowed into the military, in fact, as he had a chronically bad back and multiple other ailments. In fact, his father likely played the pivotal role in his getting in; it's more fact than rumor that after JFK's rejection from the US Army's Officer Candidate School, Joe Kennedy had an old navy buddy call in a favor to a Boston doctor, who certified JFK's good health, sufficient to get a job with the Office of Naval Intelligence.
This incident made Kennedy, who was already well-known as Joe Kennedy's son, a war hero. His older brother, Joe Jr., whom their father had been grooming for political life, was killed in the war when his plane exploded in 1944. The PT-109 story was featured in the New York Times and other publications of the day. After the attack, JFK's condition improved somewhat, but he was plagued by severe pain for the rest of his life, requiring frequent treatment with steroids, which caused other physical ailments, probably including his Addison's Syndrome, which was so severe that pathologists could not identify any adrenal tissue during his autopsy following the assassination in November, 1963. In fact, some have argued that, in a sense, he didn't "survive" the Japanese attack, in that had he not been so severely wounded, he may not have been wearing a back brace the day he was shot by a sniper in Dallas. The back brace held him upright after the initial hit in the back, which was likely survivable, preventing him from slumping down out of the line of fire, which then allowed the gunman another shot, that one fatal.
This book was published in 1960, and probably written well before that. On Jan 2, 1960, the man who would become the nation's 35th President announced his candidacy, so it's uncertain if this book had been completed or had gone to the publisher before that time. Little could the author have imagined the eventual outcome, however...
I reiterate my statements that this series should be read by all grade-school children, as they are very accessible and serve as vital part of our education, especially considering how far removed we are now from these events which should never be forgotten. Most people are forgotten within three generations, even if they are direct-line ancestors: who really remembers or knows much about their great-great-grandparents, unless they're famous, infamous, or someone's into genealogy?
As such, I feel blessed to know my family's gold-star history, which makes these books all the more poignant. I've had two relatives killed in action, that I know of, in both World Wars: the one described above, and, on the other side of my family, the brother of my great-great-grandmother, who was killed at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine, France, in early September, 1918 - eight shorts weeks before the armistice on Nov. 11, which formally ended the war. The Battle of Saint-Mihiel (Sept. 12â15, 1918) involved the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and 110,000 French troops under the command of General John J. Pershing. It was part of a plan to break through German lines and capture the fortified city of Metz, the first large offensive launched by the US Army in World War I.
Some figures, like JFK, are famous, of course, as as other immortals such as Pershing, Admiral Halsey and MacArthur. Most of the millions of men and women who fought, and many who died, however, remain nameless, known to few other than their families, and, now, often times, not even to their posterity. I wish more people knew about their individual ancestors who fought these battles and shaped the world in which we now live. The Landmark book series is at least one small way to accomplish that, hopefully inspiring new generations to look to the past, especially within their own family histories.
I won't go into too much detail about content, as it's fairly well-known and accessible. As with the other Landmark books (I really prefer the ones which were written in the 1950s as opposed to the modern volumes, despite some of the outdated language), this is a good overview to some complex subject matter. The author, Bliven (who was a year older than my relative described above) does an excellent job of describing the events in the Pacific theater over the course of the long war in a fairly balanced way. Neither does he mince words about the devastating toll in lives wrought by the tragic events that led to the deployment of the first, and hopefully last, nuclear weapons used in a theater of war.
This volume covers a lot of time and geography, so it doesn't include many biographies or personal stories of individuals in any great depth, which are a prominent feature of many of the Landmark books. One small aside: the brief mention of another tragic figure who fought and nearly died in the Pacific theater. Bliven writes, "The versatile PT boats were the best answer we had. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, the skipper of PT boat 109, was on patrol... when a Japanese destroyer, looming up out of the night, rammed his ship and cut it in two. By a series of near miracles, Kennedy and ten survivors of his twelve-man crew managed to swim to a small nearby island, and after days of gallant effort to attract attention, they were rescued."
By necessity, the book abbreviates events, but this one is worth telling. After their boat was struck at about 2:30 AM, Kennedy rescued several of his men, who had been badly burned. They then clung to the bow for 12 hours, until its sinking was imminent, before deciding to swim for land, to Plum Pudding Island, now renamed Kennedy Island, about 3 1/2 miles away, a feat which took about four hours. A new problem shortly arose, however: the island had no drinkable water. Kennedy then swam an additional 2 miles the following day in an attempt to hail a passing PT boat. Two days later, the crew had to swim another near-four miles to yet another island to try to attract the attention of rescuers. They were discovered on day three, but rescue took another two days. Kennedy even scratched a message onto a coconut while he was on Naru island, which was later recovered. He eventually had it made into a paperweight, which is now on display at his presidential library. The remains of PT-109 were actually discovered in 2002, at a depth of 1,200 feet, by Robert Ballard, the same man who first discovered the remains of the Titanic.
Kennedy suffered serious back injuries from the incident, however, requiring months of hospitalization at Chelsea Naval Hospital, and later, several more months of recovery at a military hospital in Arizona. He was forced to retire in March, 1945, on physical disability. It's curious that he was even allowed into the military, in fact, as he had a chronically bad back and multiple other ailments. In fact, his father likely played the pivotal role in his getting in; it's more fact than rumor that after JFK's rejection from the US Army's Officer Candidate School, Joe Kennedy had an old navy buddy call in a favor to a Boston doctor, who certified JFK's good health, sufficient to get a job with the Office of Naval Intelligence.
This incident made Kennedy, who was already well-known as Joe Kennedy's son, a war hero. His older brother, Joe Jr., whom their father had been grooming for political life, was killed in the war when his plane exploded in 1944. The PT-109 story was featured in the New York Times and other publications of the day. After the attack, JFK's condition improved somewhat, but he was plagued by severe pain for the rest of his life, requiring frequent treatment with steroids, which caused other physical ailments, probably including his Addison's Syndrome, which was so severe that pathologists could not identify any adrenal tissue during his autopsy following the assassination in November, 1963. In fact, some have argued that, in a sense, he didn't "survive" the Japanese attack, in that had he not been so severely wounded, he may not have been wearing a back brace the day he was shot by a sniper in Dallas. The back brace held him upright after the initial hit in the back, which was likely survivable, preventing him from slumping down out of the line of fire, which then allowed the gunman another shot, that one fatal.
This book was published in 1960, and probably written well before that. On Jan 2, 1960, the man who would become the nation's 35th President announced his candidacy, so it's uncertain if this book had been completed or had gone to the publisher before that time. Little could the author have imagined the eventual outcome, however...
I reiterate my statements that this series should be read by all grade-school children, as they are very accessible and serve as vital part of our education, especially considering how far removed we are now from these events which should never be forgotten. Most people are forgotten within three generations, even if they are direct-line ancestors: who really remembers or knows much about their great-great-grandparents, unless they're famous, infamous, or someone's into genealogy?
As such, I feel blessed to know my family's gold-star history, which makes these books all the more poignant. I've had two relatives killed in action, that I know of, in both World Wars: the one described above, and, on the other side of my family, the brother of my great-great-grandmother, who was killed at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine, France, in early September, 1918 - eight shorts weeks before the armistice on Nov. 11, which formally ended the war. The Battle of Saint-Mihiel (Sept. 12â15, 1918) involved the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and 110,000 French troops under the command of General John J. Pershing. It was part of a plan to break through German lines and capture the fortified city of Metz, the first large offensive launched by the US Army in World War I.
Some figures, like JFK, are famous, of course, as as other immortals such as Pershing, Admiral Halsey and MacArthur. Most of the millions of men and women who fought, and many who died, however, remain nameless, known to few other than their families, and, now, often times, not even to their posterity. I wish more people knew about their individual ancestors who fought these battles and shaped the world in which we now live. The Landmark book series is at least one small way to accomplish that, hopefully inspiring new generations to look to the past, especially within their own family histories.
