Download or read book Guadalcanal Starvation Island written by Eric Hammel and published by Daniel Hammel. This book was released on 2020-12-23 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guadalcanal: Starvation Island Eric Hammel The Japanese defeats at Midway and Guadalcanal decided the outcome of the Pacific War. Guadalcanal was the classic three-dimensional campaign. On land, at sea, and in the air, fierce battles were fought with both sides stretching their supplies and equipment to the breaking point. The campaign lasted six months, involved nearly one million men, and stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific. When the campaign began on August 7, 1942, no one on either side quite knew how to conduct it, as Eric Hammel shows in this masterly account. Guadalcanal: Starvation hand corrects numerous errors and omissions in the official records that have been perpetuated in all the books previously published about the campaign. Hammel also draws on the recollections of more than 100 participants on both sides, especially the enlisted men at the sharp end. Their words bring us into the heart of the battle and portray the fighting accurately, realistically, andvery powerfully. Guadalcanal: Starvation Island follows the men and the commanders of this decisive World War II campaign in an integrated, brilliantly told narrative of the desperate struggle at sea, on land, and in the air. *** Praise for Guadalcanal: Starvation Island and Eric Hammel “A comprehensive history of the Guadalcanal Campaign . . . [and] a well‑balanced account. Well written and fast moving.” —Marine Corps Gazette “Hammel has written the most comprehensive popular ac­count to date . . . and exposes controversial aspects often passed over,” —Publishers Weekly “Hammel takes the reader behind the scenes and details how decisions were made . . . and how they impacted on the troops carrying them out. He tells the story in a very human way.” —Leatherneck Magazine “A splendid record of this decisive campaign. Hammel offers a wealth of fresh material drawn from archival records and the recollections of 100‑odd surviving participants. . . . A praise­worthy contribution to Guadalcanal lore.” —Kirkus Reviews “Hammel’s ability to reveal both the immediacy and the hu­manity of war without judgment or bias makes all his books both readable and scholarly. —San Francisco Chronicle “Hammel does not write dry history. His battle sequences are masterfully portrayed. —Library Journal

Download or read book Guadalcanal written by Eric Hammel and published by Pacifica Press. This book was released on 1995-08-01 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fifty Three Days on Starvation Island written by John R Bruning and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pivotal true story of the first fifty-three days of the standoff between Imperial Japanese and a handful of Marine aviators defending the Americans dug in at Guadalcanal, from the New York Times bestselling author of Indestructible and Race of Aces. On August 20, 1942, twelve Marine dive-bombers and nineteen Marine fighters landed at Guadalcanal. Their mission: defeat the Japanese navy and prevent it from sending more men and supplies to "Starvation Island," as Guadalcanal was nicknamed. The Japanese were turning the remote, jungle-covered mountain in the south Solomon Islands into an air base from which they could attack the supply lines between the U.S. and Australia. The night after the Marines landed and captured the partially completed airfield, the Imperial Navy launched a surprise night attack on the Allied fleet offshore, resulting in the worst defeat the U.S. Navy suffered in the 20th century, which prompted the abandonment of the Marines on Guadalcanal. The Marines dug in, and waited for help, as those thirty-one pilots and twelve gunners flew against the Japanese, shooting down eighty-three planes in less than two months, while the dive bombers, carried out over thirty attacks on the Japanese fleet. Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island follows Major John L. Smith, a magnetic leader who became America’s top fighter ace for the time; Captain Marion Carl, the Marine Corps’ first ace, and one of the few survivors of his squadron at the Battle of Midway. He would be shot down and forced to make his way back to base through twenty-five miles of Japanese-held jungle. And Major Richard Mangrum, the lawyer-turned-dive-bomber commander whose inexperienced men wrought havoc on the Japanese Navy. New York Times bestselling author John R. Bruning depicts the desperate effort to stop the Japanese long enough for America to muster reinforcements and turn the tide at Guadalcanal. Not just the story of an incredible stand on a distant jungle island, Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island also explores the consequences of victory to the men who secured it at a time when America had been at war for less than a year and its public had yet to fully understand what that meant. The home front they returned to after their jungle ordeal was a surreal montage of football games, nightclubs, fine dining with America’s elites, and inside looks at dysfunctional defense industries more interested in fleecing the government than properly equipping the military. Bruning tells the story of how one battle reshaped the Marine Corps and propelled its veterans into the highest positions of power just in time to lead the service into a new war in Southeast Asia.

Download or read book Guadalcanal written by Eric Hammel and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 7, 1942, a scant nine months after Pearl Harbor, the Marine Corps struck back against Japan on a small island half a world away: Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands. The stakes were high. The Japanese had been running roughshod across Asia and the Pacific and even into the Indian Ocean. If the Marines failed in the Solomons, New Guinea would almost certainly fall, mortally threatening Australia. The victory of the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal, told here in pictures for the first time, ranks with the most heroic, dramatic, and enduring of military history. The six-month long Guadalcanal campaign was by far the longest and most complicated operation the Marines faced in the Pacific War. It began with the weapons and tactics of the Marine Corps 1918 combat in France and ended with the revised weapons and tactics that would sweep aside the Japanese defenders of numerous formidable bases all across the wide Pacific--bringing the United States armed forces to total victory in the Pacific in World War II. This book is a fitting tribute to the men who sacrificed so much in winning this first stepping stone on the path to Tokyo Bay and victory over Japan.

Download or read book Guadalcanal written by and published by . This book was released on 1985-12-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Battle for Hell s Island written by Stephen L. Moore and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Stephen L. Moore offers what will soon be ranked a major military classic... A major, first-rate, authoritative contribution to the literature of WWII.”—Leatherneck From the author of Pacific Payback comes the gripping true story of the Cactus Air Force and how this rugged crew of Dive-Bombers helped save Guadalcanal and won the war. November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan’s expansion through the South Pacific. Both sides have endured months of grueling battle under the worst circumstances: hellish jungles, meager rations, and tropical diseases, which have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the combatants. The Japanese call Guadalcanal Jigoku no Jima—Hell's Island. Amid a seeming stalemate, a small group of U.S. Navy dive bombers are called upon to help determine the island's fate. The men have until recently been serving in their respective squadrons aboard the USS Lexington and the USS Yorktown, fighting in the thick of the Pacific War's aerial battles. Their skills have been honed to a fine edge, even as injury and death inexorably have depleted their ranks. When their carriers are lost, many of the men end up on the USS Enterprise. Battle damage to that carrier then forces them from their home at sea to operating from Henderson Field, a small dirt-and-gravel airstrip on Guadalcanal. With some Marine and Army Air Force planes, they help form the Cactus Air Force, a motley assemblage of fliers tasked with holding the line while making dangerous flights from their jungle airfield. Pounded by daily Japanese air assaults, nightly warship bombardments, and sniper attacks from the jungle, pilots and gunners rarely last more than a few weeks before succumbing to tropical ailments, injury, exhaustion, and death. But when the Japanese launch a final offensive to take the island once and for all, these dive-bomber jocks answer the call of duty—and try to perform miracles in turning back an enemy warship armada, a host of fighter planes, and a convoy of troop transports. A remarkable story of grit, guts, and heroism, The Battle for Hell's Island reveals how command of the South Pacific, and the outcome of the Pacific War, depended on control of a single dirt airstrip—and the small group of battle-weary aviators sent to protect it with their lives.

Download or read book Guadalcanal written by Richard B. Frank and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 844 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Brilliant...an enormous work based on the most meticulous research.”—LA Times Book Review The battle at Guadalcanal—which began eight months to the day after Pearl Harbor—marked the first American offensive of World War II. It was a brutal six-month campaign that cost the lives of some 7,000 Americans and over 30,000 Japanese. This volume, ten years in the writing, recounts the full story of the critical campaign for Guadalcanal and is based on first-time translations of official Japanese Defense Agency accounts and recently declassified U.S. radio intelligence, Guadalcanal recreates the battle—on land, at sea, and in the air—as never before: it examines the feelings of both American and Japanese soldiers, the strategies and conflicts of their commanders, and the strengths and weaknesses of various fighting units.

Download or read book Hell in the Pacific written by Jim McEnery and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.

Download or read book Guadalcanal written by and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Race of Aces written by John R Bruning and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot. In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces" -- the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker -- offered a bottle of bourbon to the first U.S. fighter pilot to break his record of twenty-six enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command. What developed was a wild three-year sprint for fame and glory, and the chance to be called America's greatest fighter pilot. The story has never been told until now. Based on new research and full of revelations, John Bruning's brilliant, original book tells the story of how five American pilots contended for personal glory in the Pacific while leading Kenney's resurgent air force against the most formidable enemy America ever faced. The pilots -- Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald and Gerald Johnson -- riveted the nation as they contended for Rickenbacker's crown. As their scores mounted, they transformed themselves from farm boys and aspiring dentists into artists of the modern dogfight. But as the race reached its climax, some of the pilots began to see how the spotlight warped their sense of duty. They emerged as leaders, beloved by their men as they chose selfless devotion over national accolades. Teeming with action all across the vast Pacific theater, Race of Aces is a fascinating exploration of the boundary between honorable duty, personal glory, and the complex landscape of the human heart. "Brings you into the cockpit of the lethal, fast-paced world of fighter pilots . . . Fascinating." -- Sara Vladic"Extraordinary . . . a must-read." -- US Navy Captain Dan Pedersen"A heart-pounding narrative of the courage, sacrifice, and tragedy of America's elite fighter pilots." -- James M. Scott"Vivid and gripping . . . Confirms Bruning's status as the premier war historian of the air." -- Saul David

Download or read book First Offensive written by Henry I. Shaw, Jr. and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1996-11 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Victory Fever on Guadalcanal written by William H. Bartsch and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following their rampage through Southeast Asia and the Pacific in the five months after Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces moved into the Solomon Islands, intending to cut off the critical American supply line to Australia. But when they began to construct an airfield on Guadalcanal in July 1942, the Americans captured the almost completed airfield for their own strategic use. The Japanese Army countered by sending to Guadalcanal a reinforced battalion under the command of Col. Kiyonao Ichiki. The attack that followed would prove to be the first of four attempts by the Japanese over six months to retake the airfield, resulting in some of the most vicious fighting of the Pacific War. During the initial battle on the night of August 20–21, 1942, Marines wiped out Ichiki’s men, who—imbued with “victory fever”—had expected a quick and easy victory. William H. Bartsch draws on correspondence, interviews, diaries, memoirs, and official war records, including those translated from Japanese sources, to offer an intensely human narrative of the failed attempt to recapture Guadalcanal’s vital airfield.

Download or read book Hell s Islands written by Stanley Coleman Jersey and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents battlefield accounts and first-person narratives from over 200 Allied and Japanese veterans of the battle on Guadalcanal Island between August 1942 and February 1943.

Download or read book Islands of Destiny written by John Prados and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Midway is traditionally held as the point when Allied forces gained advantage over the Japanese. In Islands of Destiny, acclaimed historian and military intelligence expert John Prados points out that the Japanese forces quickly regained strength after Midway and continued their assault undaunted. Taking this surprising fact as the start of his inquiry, he began to investigate how and when the Pacific tide turned in the Allies’ favor. Using archives of WWII intelligence reports from both sides, Prados offers up a compelling reassessment of the true turning in the Pacific: not Midway, but the fight for the Solomon Islands. Combat in the Solomons saw a series of surface naval battles, including one of the key battleship-versus-battleship actions of the war; two major carrier actions; daily air duels, including the aerial ambush in which perished the famous Japanese naval commander Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku; and many other hair-raising exploits. Commencing with the Allied invasion of Guadalcanal, Prados shows how and why the Allies beat Japan on the sea, in the air, and in the jungles.

Download or read book 76 Hours written by Eric Hammel and published by Jove Publications. This book was released on 1988 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November, 1943, miscalculated tidal conditions forced inexperienced Marines to march through 500 yards of knee-deep water under enemy fire as they attacked the Tarawa Atoll. Here is the gripping story of how the Marines triumphed against impossible odds.

Download or read book Jungle Ace written by John R. Bruning and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flying P-38s, Jerry Johnson shot down 24 aircraft in 265 combat missions in the Pacific theater. At the age of only twenty-four, he commanded the highest-scoring fighter group in the Pacific. Tragically, though Johnson had survived three combat tours, which included a mid-air collision with a Japanese aircraft and being shot down by friendly fire, the new father disappeared without a trace while flying a courier mission one month after the war’s end.

Download or read book The Battle of Guadalcanal written by Trent Hone and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building upon the expertise of the authors and historians of the Naval Institute Press, the Naval History Special Editions are designed to offer studies of the key vessels, battles, and events of armed conflict. Using an image-heavy, magazine-style format, these Special Editions should appeal to scholars, enthusiasts, and general readers alike. The Guadalcanal Campaign began in August 1942 with Operation Watchtower. This first Allied offensive in the Pacific, undertaken before U.S. forces were fully prepared, thwarted an impending Japanese operation and initiated a six-month struggle to control the island and its surroundings. Desperate fighting occurred in the jungles of Guadalcanal, in the skies above it, and on--as well as below--the seas around it. Possession of the island's airfield allowed the U.S. garrison to dominate the skies during the day. At night, the Imperial Japanese Navy bombarded the airfield and brought supplies and reinforcements to the island. The U.S. Navy's attempts to stop these nocturnal incursions triggered a series of battles that were some of the most furious, confused, and chaotic in naval history. As melees erupted in bewildering darkness, concerted action proved impossible. Formations disintegrated, and ships fought individually. So many were sunk that sailors nicknamed the narrow waters off Guadalcanal "Iron Bottom Sound." Within those waters, the men of the U.S. Navy fought tenaciously. In nights filled with flares, flames, the reek of gunpowder, and blinding explosions, their "heroic actions without number" blunted Japanese reinforcement efforts. Victories at the Battle of Cape Esperance in October and the First and Second Naval Battles of Guadalcanal in November were especially crucial. Unable to keep pace with the increasing number of U.S. supplies and reinforcements, the Japanese abandoned the island. This volume recounts those battles, the heroic actions that led to victory, and the Allied triumph at Guadalcanal.