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Nice overview of the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the Mongol invasions. Great for beginners - not so much for people looking for a deeper understanding and chronology of the era. I have had this book in my shelves for ages and I read it in a couple of evenings. I wonder why I didn't do it much earlier.
CMH Pub 5-5 Cartwheel: The Reduction Of Rabaul
While the Battle of Midway is perhaps more well known, the Battle of Guadalcanal was a far larger, longer, and …
The final volume of the magisterial Pacific War Trilogy from acclaimed historian Ian W. Toll, "one of the great storytellers …
If you need to choose only one book on the Guadalcanal Campaign, choose this one. Essential.
Very nice and well written state-of-the-art "definitive account" of the naval war in the Pacific up to and obviously including the Battle of Midway. Early American carrier raids and Battle of the Coral Sea are covered so that the reader gets all the facts on the antecedents of the decisive battle.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the "flight to nowhere" of most of Hornet's Air Group on June 4, as well as the shadows cast on the performance of CHAG Stanhope Ring and Hornet's Captain Marc Mitscher. I suppose we will never know what happened exactly, but it is clear that Hornet was the carrier with the least combat experience and their crew performed - as should be expected - quite abysmally.
First volume in a future trilogy of the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945) by Richard B. Frank, covering the history of the conflict from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 1937 until just before the Battle of the Coral Sea, in early May 1942). In essence, this is a chronicle of the Japanese high tide until things started to get sour for the Empire of the Rising Sun.
Fantastic writing, as usual, and a very welcome addition to my increasing library on the Asia-Pacific Theatre of Operations. I particularly enjoyed the description of politics and operations in China, that great forgotten part of WWII.
The last few chapters cover minor operations like the early American carrier raids as well as the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, and look like they have been added as an afterthought, but one must bear into account that they were not that important compared …
First volume in a future trilogy of the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945) by Richard B. Frank, covering the history of the conflict from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 1937 until just before the Battle of the Coral Sea, in early May 1942). In essence, this is a chronicle of the Japanese high tide until things started to get sour for the Empire of the Rising Sun.
Fantastic writing, as usual, and a very welcome addition to my increasing library on the Asia-Pacific Theatre of Operations. I particularly enjoyed the description of politics and operations in China, that great forgotten part of WWII.
The last few chapters cover minor operations like the early American carrier raids as well as the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, and look like they have been added as an afterthought, but one must bear into account that they were not that important compared with the enormous scope of the fighting in China, Burma, Malay and the Dutch East Indies.
The next volume in the trilogy will surely come packed with codebreakers, carrier warfare, Solomons and New Guinea. ;-)
