So much I don't know!

       The United States won and Japan lost. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Japan lost the battle of Midway. China seldom gets credit for the role it played in the defeat of Japan. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan caused Japan to surrender. The broad outlines of  WW II in the Pacific are familiar to me. But many of the details I never knew.

       My reading of The Pacific War Trilogy, Ian W. Toll, began with the second volume because that became available from the library first. Now I've finished the second volume Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942. It's compellingly told.

      "I've been there!" "I saw that." "I was aboard that."  Experiences from my year as a Marine in Asia and aboard ships gave me those moments as I read.  Okinawa was our home away from home. We visited and did cold weather training in Japan, stopped in Hawaii and Hong Kong, and stayed for awhile in Subic Bay in the Philippines. On board the USS Princeton, an aircraft carrier retrofitted to carry helicopters we cruised the south seas. Refueling ships at sea, which was a struggle for Americans early in the war, looked quite simple as I watched. With an oiler in the middle the Princeton took fuel on the left side while a destroyed was fueled on the right while the ships moved forward at about twenty knots. The chaplain was transferred from one ship to another via bosun's chair.  A cable was attached to the top of a tall pole, shot across 30 yards to the other ship an attached to the top of a pole. The bosun's chair hung beneath the cable and ran on a pulley and was pulled to the other ship with the chaplain strapped into it. On Easter Sunday somewhere in the South Pacific we had a sunrise worship service on the flight deck as the sun rose on cloudless skies. The ocean was calm with gentle swells rocking the ship.

      Toll's Trilogy is much more than a recitation of the battles that are fought. Each volume, about 600 pages, contains significant information about Japanese and American conditions, politics, economy, etc., contemporaneous with the battles being fought. Key players are fully introduced, both Japanese and Americans. Many eyewitness accounts of the situations described are included from both Japanese and Americans. It's all well told and often very hard to put down.

     Yes, I recommend it.

Takk for alt

Al

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