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A review by mburnamfink
Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal -- The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War by Joseph Wheelan
4.0
Guadalcanal was one of the turning point battles of World War 2, along with El Alamein and Stalingrad. Over the course of long months in 1942 and 1943, American Marines, sailors, soldiers, and airmen ground down the cream of the Imperial Japanese military that had run rampant over the Pacific after Pearl Harbor.
Wheelan ably remixes older beats, drawing heavily from standard memoirs like Leckie's With the Old Breed and Hara's Japanese Destroyer Captain to describe the chaos of the campaign. Guadalcanal, at the base of the Solomon Islands, would threaten sea lanes between the United States and Australia in the hands of the Japanese. A hastily organized Marine landing force captured the airbase under construction, naming it Henderson Field after a Marine pilot killed at the Battle of Midway. But thousands of Japanese troops still remained on the island, and in the first Battle of the Savo Islands, an American fleet was comprehensively defeated by the superior night fight skills of the Japanese Navy.
The campaign settled into a brutal equilibrium. By day, the planes of the Cactus Air Force controlled the seas around Guadalcanal. But the night belonged to the Japanese, who shelled and bombed the Americans while landing more troops. At the Battle of Blood Ridge, Edson's Marine Raiders held off an assault which would have overwhelmed the airfield, and as the months wore on, American strength increased while Japanese strength decreased, culminating in the mass starvation of Japanese forces on the island and an eventual retreat.
Guadalcanal was a war of commanders, machines, and ultimately ordinary fighting men. On the first account, the two sides were most unevenly matched. Admiral Ghormley, the initial American overall commander lacked aggressiveness and failed to content the battle. But General Vandergrift of the Marines, Ghormley's successor Admiral Halsey, and Nimitz and King in strategic roles, were much more successful. While Japanese commanders scored impressive tactical victories, the divided IJN/IJA command structure was slow to recognize the importance of Guadalcanal or focus on the strategic airfield at the heart of the campaign. Japanese machinery was superior to the the American equipment, especially the Long Lance torpedo and Zero fighter, though American ships and airplanes were adequate. The Japanese and Marines were fearsome and dedicated fighters in close combat, with the Marine advantage in firepower overmatching more archaic Japanese tactics of bayonet charges that had worked on Chinese and colonial armies before. But ultimately, the American side adapted to the battle, while the Japanese expensively reinforced failure. The multiple actions of the Matanikau River showed the American offensives did not always work, and while each attack killed hundreds of Marines and soldiers to little gain, Japanese attacks on the perimeter ended in thousands of casualties and entire units rendered ineffective.
Almost 70 years on, there's little about Guadalcanal that hasn't been said already. Wheelan's book ably synthesizes the existing secondary literature.
Wheelan ably remixes older beats, drawing heavily from standard memoirs like Leckie's With the Old Breed and Hara's Japanese Destroyer Captain to describe the chaos of the campaign. Guadalcanal, at the base of the Solomon Islands, would threaten sea lanes between the United States and Australia in the hands of the Japanese. A hastily organized Marine landing force captured the airbase under construction, naming it Henderson Field after a Marine pilot killed at the Battle of Midway. But thousands of Japanese troops still remained on the island, and in the first Battle of the Savo Islands, an American fleet was comprehensively defeated by the superior night fight skills of the Japanese Navy.
The campaign settled into a brutal equilibrium. By day, the planes of the Cactus Air Force controlled the seas around Guadalcanal. But the night belonged to the Japanese, who shelled and bombed the Americans while landing more troops. At the Battle of Blood Ridge, Edson's Marine Raiders held off an assault which would have overwhelmed the airfield, and as the months wore on, American strength increased while Japanese strength decreased, culminating in the mass starvation of Japanese forces on the island and an eventual retreat.
Guadalcanal was a war of commanders, machines, and ultimately ordinary fighting men. On the first account, the two sides were most unevenly matched. Admiral Ghormley, the initial American overall commander lacked aggressiveness and failed to content the battle. But General Vandergrift of the Marines, Ghormley's successor Admiral Halsey, and Nimitz and King in strategic roles, were much more successful. While Japanese commanders scored impressive tactical victories, the divided IJN/IJA command structure was slow to recognize the importance of Guadalcanal or focus on the strategic airfield at the heart of the campaign. Japanese machinery was superior to the the American equipment, especially the Long Lance torpedo and Zero fighter, though American ships and airplanes were adequate. The Japanese and Marines were fearsome and dedicated fighters in close combat, with the Marine advantage in firepower overmatching more archaic Japanese tactics of bayonet charges that had worked on Chinese and colonial armies before. But ultimately, the American side adapted to the battle, while the Japanese expensively reinforced failure. The multiple actions of the Matanikau River showed the American offensives did not always work, and while each attack killed hundreds of Marines and soldiers to little gain, Japanese attacks on the perimeter ended in thousands of casualties and entire units rendered ineffective.
Almost 70 years on, there's little about Guadalcanal that hasn't been said already. Wheelan's book ably synthesizes the existing secondary literature.