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3 reviews for:
DARK WATERS, STARRY SKIES: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943
Jeffrey R. Cox
4.25 AVERAGE
3 reviews for:
DARK WATERS, STARRY SKIES: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943
Jeffrey R. Cox
4.25 AVERAGE
Dark Waters, Starry Skies is another very solidly rated book on the Pacific War by Jeffrey Cox, if perhaps a tier below the big sellers. This one covers a campaign that has been written about before, but most of the big books about it are getting long in the tooth, so this squeaks by as worthy of interest.
The Long War
The Jintsu drunkenly staggered to starboard and finally stopped, a blazing jumble of metal barely recognizable as the flotilla flagship she had been only five minutes earlier.
Books on the South West Pacific Theatre in 1942-1943 tend to focus on campaigns on the islands of Guadalcanal and New Guinea. Naval books particularly concentrate on actions around Guadalcanal from August-November 1942, which involved aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The narrative leads to the emotional climax of the Naval Battles of Guadalcanal of mid-November, with late November’s Tassafaronga acting as a coda about how the wily Japanese could still play a trick or two. The impact on the reader is that the course was set for American victory, notwithstanding the “hard-won” battles to come.
While not incorrect, the issue with that focus is that we end up missing those later hard-won battles that formed Operation Cartwheel, a grinding campaign of attrition where, while neither side could convincingly claim tactical/operational superiority, the Allies definitively played their hand better strategically (if never quite curing their habit of annihilating the first Japanese warship they saw while the rest fired their Long Lances). Dark Waters, Starry Skies is more a refresher than a fresh take on the campaign, but there is a gap in recent publications that I am glad this book fills.
Cox prefers to describe events, with lots of details about destroyer sweeps, bombing raids and submarine patrols. Of less interest is an in-depth soldier/sailor/airman experience, though he’s reasonably good at sprinkling the stories with relevant quotes. Cox is at his best when he applies and investigative focus, such as the massacre of the German missionaries on a Japanese destroyer, or the Yamamoto shootdown. He also provides insight about how a mix-and-match approach to task force composition on both sides had a tendency to backfire. The Japanese viewpoint gets very even treatment considering the relative paucity of records, a strength of Cox’s writing in earlier books as well.
To wit
It seems that after almost two years of war, the Japanese had finally found the Achilles heel of the US Navy: barges.
Lawyers are very clever and witty. I have learnt this from my experience of using lawyers, working with lawyers, and being a lawyer. Lawyers also love to let you know how clever and witty they are.
Cox is good with his wit. Mostly. It’s a point of distinction that can make a book more interesting, particularly in describing a grueling campaign with limited emotional peaks.
It was, perhaps, the best executed torpedo attack by US Navy surface ships so far in the Pacific War. Naturally, all the torpedoes missed.
It is just that occasionally the wit can come across as dismissive of quite detailed debates. As an example, Cox describes the US Navy as stupidly removing torpedoes from their cruisers. The book itself disproves this, with the Japanese Aoba severely damaged by its own exploding torpedo, and the New Zealand Leander risking a similar result. At Midway and Leyte Gulf, Japanese cruisers also appear to have been damaged or sunk by their own exploding torpedoes. I don’t mind if Cox has taken the position that the US Navy cruisers should have carried torpedoes but it's not witty, rather just plain wrong, for the US Navy’s choice to be described as stupid.
I cannot comment on every American or Japanese decision that Cox makes fun of, such as when he writes When you have nothing but bad options, you might as well pick the worst, but I would worry that historiography will not be kind to a number of things that Cox writes. Not so much that he is wrong, more that it appears he has failed to fully consider the reasons behind a decision, such as Japanese artillerymen burying the breech blocks in the dirt rather than the sea – maybe they hoped a swift counter-attack would retake the guns! They may have made the wrong call, but perhaps not a stupid one. There is an obligation to be careful.
You can never really get over commanding the Mogami.
I strongly recommend this book as a campaign guide, as he provides an excellent overview at all levels. As a general recommendation on World War II books, it's less essential for understanding the big picture, but it's a useful corrective to the idea that 1942 was the last time the US was on the back foot at any level.
The Long War
The Jintsu drunkenly staggered to starboard and finally stopped, a blazing jumble of metal barely recognizable as the flotilla flagship she had been only five minutes earlier.
Books on the South West Pacific Theatre in 1942-1943 tend to focus on campaigns on the islands of Guadalcanal and New Guinea. Naval books particularly concentrate on actions around Guadalcanal from August-November 1942, which involved aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The narrative leads to the emotional climax of the Naval Battles of Guadalcanal of mid-November, with late November’s Tassafaronga acting as a coda about how the wily Japanese could still play a trick or two. The impact on the reader is that the course was set for American victory, notwithstanding the “hard-won” battles to come.
While not incorrect, the issue with that focus is that we end up missing those later hard-won battles that formed Operation Cartwheel, a grinding campaign of attrition where, while neither side could convincingly claim tactical/operational superiority, the Allies definitively played their hand better strategically (if never quite curing their habit of annihilating the first Japanese warship they saw while the rest fired their Long Lances). Dark Waters, Starry Skies is more a refresher than a fresh take on the campaign, but there is a gap in recent publications that I am glad this book fills.
Cox prefers to describe events, with lots of details about destroyer sweeps, bombing raids and submarine patrols. Of less interest is an in-depth soldier/sailor/airman experience, though he’s reasonably good at sprinkling the stories with relevant quotes. Cox is at his best when he applies and investigative focus, such as the massacre of the German missionaries on a Japanese destroyer, or the Yamamoto shootdown. He also provides insight about how a mix-and-match approach to task force composition on both sides had a tendency to backfire. The Japanese viewpoint gets very even treatment considering the relative paucity of records, a strength of Cox’s writing in earlier books as well.
To wit
It seems that after almost two years of war, the Japanese had finally found the Achilles heel of the US Navy: barges.
Lawyers are very clever and witty. I have learnt this from my experience of using lawyers, working with lawyers, and being a lawyer. Lawyers also love to let you know how clever and witty they are.
Cox is good with his wit. Mostly. It’s a point of distinction that can make a book more interesting, particularly in describing a grueling campaign with limited emotional peaks.
It was, perhaps, the best executed torpedo attack by US Navy surface ships so far in the Pacific War. Naturally, all the torpedoes missed.
It is just that occasionally the wit can come across as dismissive of quite detailed debates. As an example, Cox describes the US Navy as stupidly removing torpedoes from their cruisers. The book itself disproves this, with the Japanese Aoba severely damaged by its own exploding torpedo, and the New Zealand Leander risking a similar result. At Midway and Leyte Gulf, Japanese cruisers also appear to have been damaged or sunk by their own exploding torpedoes. I don’t mind if Cox has taken the position that the US Navy cruisers should have carried torpedoes but it's not witty, rather just plain wrong, for the US Navy’s choice to be described as stupid.
I cannot comment on every American or Japanese decision that Cox makes fun of, such as when he writes When you have nothing but bad options, you might as well pick the worst, but I would worry that historiography will not be kind to a number of things that Cox writes. Not so much that he is wrong, more that it appears he has failed to fully consider the reasons behind a decision, such as Japanese artillerymen burying the breech blocks in the dirt rather than the sea – maybe they hoped a swift counter-attack would retake the guns! They may have made the wrong call, but perhaps not a stupid one. There is an obligation to be careful.
You can never really get over commanding the Mogami.
I strongly recommend this book as a campaign guide, as he provides an excellent overview at all levels. As a general recommendation on World War II books, it's less essential for understanding the big picture, but it's a useful corrective to the idea that 1942 was the last time the US was on the back foot at any level.
Didn’t like the writing as it seemed to meander through minor engagements without purpose. Author kept using the same phrases to describe those engagements.
Started off strong but couldn’t make it through the first chapter to see why he chose that event and ship to start off his book. And the War in the Pacific is one of my favorite subjects. Would rather re-read Toll’s trilogy on the War instead.
Started off strong but couldn’t make it through the first chapter to see why he chose that event and ship to start off his book. And the War in the Pacific is one of my favorite subjects. Would rather re-read Toll’s trilogy on the War instead.
I've always appreciated Mr. Cox and his work. In this book, I did note that his occasional sarcasm and wry wit were allowed quite a bit more free rein than in previous offerings. I found it a bit off-putting and not entirely welcome in an otherwise interesting and informative history.