Books you suggest?

[jamesjohns]

Wondering what books you may suggest? Of course always interested in a good book book about WWII and read many over the years, but lately had an interest in the Pacific and the logistics and production of WWII.

Just a few I've enjoyed

GI The American Solider in WWII

Looks at US troops from the start of their service to occupation, uses a lot of stats to see things like education levels, experiences, etc Highly recommend to anyone interested in WWII

Up Front Bill Mauldin
Written by Bill Mauldin (the great cartonist) in 1945

[Leandros]

Hi, James - some recommendations from me:

First, I'd say the bible is Samuel Eliot Morrison's series on naval operations in World War II. I Believe these can be found in full on the web. Nine of them are about
the war in the Pacific, chronologically. Then there is Morton on The Philippines (also on the web), John Whitman on the fighting on Bataan and Bartsch, covering
the air fighting in The Philippines and DEI.

I think it's essential to read some from the Japanese side, too - but these are far between. Three are describing personal experiences: Saburo Sakai's
"Samurai", Captain Hara's "Japanese Destroyer Captain" and Hashimotos' "Sunk" - on the Japanese submarine warfare.

That said, there are personal books by almost all the allied leaders, such as Admiral Hart, General Brereton and - not the least, MacArthur himself. "They were
expendable", on the PT boats in The Philippines.

Happy reading!

Fred

[Trugrit]

Read the reviews on these and see what you think;

Must have: Fire In The Sky
The First Chapter “Defining the Battlefield” is the best account of Pacific War strategy that I have ever read.
http://www.amazon.com/Fire-In-The-Sky-P ... 0813338697

Very Good: Land War in the South Pacific
http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Fire-Land ... 0140246967

Must Have: Shattered Sword
http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-U ... ered+sword

Companion To Shattered Sword - O.K. but not very detailed: Good Carrier Art
http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Japanese ... 1841768537

Must Have: Kaigun
http://www.amazon.com/Kaigun-Strategy-T ... 2Kaigun%22

Good but Dry: Sunburst
http://www.amazon.com/Sunburst-Japanese ... s=sunburst

Best Detailed Account of Guadalcanal:
http://www.amazon.com/Guadalcanal-Defin ... DHHN24X0BE

Great Read: The Last Stand of The Tin Can sailors
http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Stand-Sa ... CHE4K7XJWS

Very good maps: Concise Atlas WW2
http://www.amazon.com/Collins-Atlas-Wor ... 0060890770

Good: The Pacific War Day by Day - Chronological
http://www.amazon.com/The-Pacific-War-Day/dp/0785827528

[Jorge_Stanbury]

H. P. Willmott's:

- Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942
- The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942
- The War with Japan: The Period of Balance, May 1942-October 1943

[Lokasenna]

Not necessarily logistics-related, but I always recommend the Campaign for Guadalcanal by Jack Coggins, and Pacific Crucible (forget the author).

[JohnDillworth]

Best single hand account of the man on the ground is With the Old Breed. MAybe, perhaps, the single best first person account of any war ever written

[m10bob]

I agree with all prior mentions.

Please consider "SEMPER FI,MAC" by Henry Berry.(Written by a former Marine officer who interviewed his fellow Gyrenes who were involved in every major Marine campaign in WW2..)

"Guadalcanal" by Richard Frank...............Very detailed account of that campaign, perhaps the most important for the Americans in the Pacific of WW2.........


"Titans Of The Seas" by James and William Belote...MUST READ if you are even casually interested in carrier operations in the Pacific or Indian Oceans....Truly the "Bible" of carrier ops for that era...

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Best single hand account of the man on the ground is With the Old Breed. MAybe, perhaps, the single best first person account of any war ever written

Agree its an excellent book, but your claim is a stretch.

I'd stack Guy Sajer's Forgotten Soldier up against it any day.

[jamesjohns]

Guy Sajer's Forgotten Soldier

Read it in college, always amazed he could survive what he went through, excellent account

Thank you for the responses. Gearing up for hot July days when I am very thankful for air conditioning and public libraries.

[Jellicoe]

For HP Wilmott I would add

Graveyard of a Dozen Schemes - all about British planning in the far east
The Battle of Leyte Gulf - easily the best account I have read

Also try
Fading Victory - the diaries of Admiral Matome Ugaki, edited by Gordon Prange
The Forgotten Fleet by John Winton - about the formation and use of the British Pacific fleet
Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy by Dull
The Fleet the Gods Forgot - WG Winslow - about the US Asiatic squadron
Old Friends, New Enemies vol I & II by the great AJ Marder

[sherlock1]

History of Naval Operations in World War II by Samuel Eliot Morision

[MikeS4269]

http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it until today.

[Leandros]

ORIGINAL: lb4269

http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it
until today.

Well, not much news in that, if you ask me. Seems like an interesting book, though. Much like what US is trying to do with Russia today. Problem is, today China
is more like on the other side than they were the last time.

Fred

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: lb4269

http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it until today.

warspite1

As I long suspected, the evil US started the Pacific war [8|]

Dean Acheson, his handpicked administrator, slyly maneuvered (sic) to deny Japan the dollars needed to buy oil…….

How dare America react badly to the Japanese invasion of China and incidents like the Rape of Nanking.

I haven't read the book, but based on the accompanying blurb, its not one that will trouble my bookshelves...

While researching newly declassified records of the Treasury and Federal Reserve, Miller, a retired chief financial executive of a Fortune 500 resources corporation, uncovered just how much money mattered.

I think we are in real no $%^& Sherlock territory here.

His analysis of a massive OSS-State Department study of prewar Japan clearly demonstrates that the deprivations facing the Japanese people were the country to remain in financial limbo buttressed its choice of war at Pearl Harbor.

So the scenario is Japan is waging a barbaric war in China (and has previous "form" elsewhere e.g. Korea). BUT Japan cannot continue this war without assistance from the US. So the US turns off the supply of resources, in the hope that the war being waged against China will stop. Instead of stopping the war Japan attacks the US. So are the authors contending that Japan had no choice but to attack the US because the actions of the US would cause starvation amongst its people??? So what 15m Chinese don't matter?

Rubbish.

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: lb4269
http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it until today.

I have it and like it. It’s not so much dry, as it is focused. Miller is a financier and economist and that is what he details. You want to know? Then follow the money. Geo strategic and political issues are treated simplistically, but the book presents the economic context that informed those decisions (or were ignored, as the case may be) in a manner not done before.

It isn’t the only, or the first, book on the ‘causality’ bookshelf, but it’s on the required reading list for Asia/Pacific analysts and a must have for students of the conflict.

[edit] warspite1 is quoting from internet comments by people with their own agendas, and he selects only those sentences that support his own agenda. The book says none of that. The national intelligence community would not put such a lame piece of work on the required reading list. Maybe that's why the internet tin-foil hat people don't like it. Don't matter to me if you buy it or not. But if you don't buy it just because of the internet morons ... oh, well.

Ciao. JWE

[Jorge_Stanbury]

Another book I recently read:
Forgotten Ally : China’s World War II, 1937-1945

the book is just OK, not great; but I don't think there too many books available about China's war.


To Warspite: you forgot to mention Indochina invasion; this was a bigger factor to the embargo than China's invasion, as it disclosed Japanese ambitions on south east Asia.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: lb4269
http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it until today.

I have it and like it. It’s not so much dry, as it is focused. Miller is a financier and economist and that is what he details. You want to know? Then follow the money. Geo strategic and political issues are treated simplistically, but the book presents the economic context that informed those decisions (or were ignored, as the case may be) in a manner not done before.

It isn’t the only, or the first, book on the ‘causality’ bookshelf, but it’s on the required reading list for Asia/Pacific analysts and a must have for students of the conflict.

[edit] warspite1 is quoting from internet comments by people with their own agendas, and he selects only those sentences that support his own agenda. The book says none of that. The national intelligence community would not put such a lame piece of work on the required reading list. Maybe that's why the internet tin-foil hat people don't like it. Don't matter to me if you buy it or not. But if you don't buy it just because of the internet morons ... oh, well.

Ciao. JWE

warspite1

Symon I have no idea why you act like you do, but I guess its par for the course and I should not be surprised by now.

Internet morons? Grow up. Agendas? They're called opinions Symon and we are all allowed them. Still, I guess it beats 10-year old acne-ridden Euronazis unable to find girlfriends, and other such childlike nonsense that you like to spout when you are overdue for your meds…

So to be clear, let’s look at what just happened.

Ib4269 just posted about a book he had never heard of. I had never heard of it either but, it sounded interesting and I went to the link.
I do not ordinarily post about books I have not read – I do not believe that is correct, but, I made clear that my comments were not based on having read the book so there was no confusion. However, I was sufficiently struck by the accompanying book synopsis (not the readers reviews) that I felt compelled to write a negative opinion on this book in my post.

Now, you may be correct in your opinion of the book, but if you are – and this is indeed a serious book and not some ridiculous, sensationalist anti-American nonsense - then all I can say is that the synopsis is extremely poorly written (complete with spelling errors) and indeed is detrimental to sales of the book. You said I was quoting from the internet?? I was quoting from a description of the book – you know the sort of things that prospective purchasers use as part of their decision making process when choosing whether to buy a book. If the synopsis has sold the book short – and the synopsis does state the quotes below (despite your protestations to the contrary) - then that’s pretty poor on their part isn’t it?

I repeat:

a retired chief financial executive of a Fortune 500 resources corporation, uncovered just how much money mattered.

That is an unbelievably silly remark. Money matters??? Really? Thank goodness a retired Chief Financial Executive uncovered that because otherwise I'd never have believed it. Yes, if I was teaching history to a bunch of primary school children I may make reference to how much money mattered but in a serious work aimed at a certain audience??

Added to this, and the bit that most caught my attention, we have:

Dean Acheson, his handpicked administrator, slyly maneuvered (sic) to deny Japan the dollars needed to buy oil and other resources for war

Sorry, but I can re-read that 100 times and it gets no better. That to me smacks of someone trying to prove the American action was wrong or unjust as opposed to simply writing an account of the economic factors that lead up to the war.

His review of thirty-seven studies of Japan's resource deficiencies begs the question of why no U.S. agency calculated the impact of the freeze on Japan's overall economy.

So exactly whose fault was the Pacific War?

His analysis of a massive OSS-State Department study of prewar Japan clearly demonstrates that the deprivations facing the Japanese people were the country to remain in financial limbo buttressed its choice of war at Pearl Harbor.

Deprivations of the Chinese anyone?


So in summary the poor spelling, the sensationalist comment and the way the US actions seem to be interpreted - in the book's synopsis - immediately set me against this tome.


So if I am "guilty" of anything here it is breaking my "golden rule" of not opining on books I have not read - and have instead put weight (and possibly the wrong interpretation) behind a synopsis, a synopsis that does the book no credit (when it should be designed to do the very opposite). However, that does not make me an internet moron or a member of the tin-foil hat brigade now does it? Nor does it mean I have an "agenda" behind everything I say.


BTW: As you know from a previous exchange some years ago, your book choice is far from infallible as I know to my cost with that Bill McGee turkey you sold me. Does that make you an internet moron too? Oh well…..

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: lb4269
http://www.amazon.com/Bankrupting-Enemy ... 9DP0SN99HH

Has anyone read this one? I just finished Miller's "War Plan Orange" and stumbled across this while researching some of the titles above. I had never heard of it until today.

I have it and like it. It’s not so much dry, as it is focused. Miller is a financier and economist and that is what he details. You want to know? Then follow the money. Geo strategic and political issues are treated simplistically, but the book presents the economic context that informed those decisions (or were ignored, as the case may be) in a manner not done before.

It isn’t the only, or the first, book on the ‘causality’ bookshelf, but it’s on the required reading list for Asia/Pacific analysts and a must have for students of the conflict.

[edit] warspite1 is quoting from internet comments by people with their own agendas, and he selects only those sentences that support his own agenda. The book says none of that. The national intelligence community would not put such a lame piece of work on the required reading list. Maybe that's why the internet tin-foil hat people don't like it. Don't matter to me if you buy it or not. But if you don't buy it just because of the internet morons ... oh, well.

Ciao. JWE

Much appreciated. I checked up on this thread not expecting to seek out yet another book, but you make this one sound worthwhile.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

Another book I recently read:
Forgotten Ally : China’s World War II, 1937-1945

the book is just OK, not great; but I don't think there too many books available about China's war.


To Warspite: you forgot to mention Indochina invasion; this was a bigger factor to the embargo than China's invasion, as it disclosed Japanese ambitions on south east Asia.

Chinas-War-Japan-1937-1945 by Rana Mitter

This one is very good and highly acclaimed. It divides opinion a bit though as it doesn't paint a great picture of most of the Leadership on either side, especially pointing out some weaknesses in "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell work in China. He made some valiant and astute military decisions of course, but this one points out his less than stellar political work with the Chinese (constantly referring to Chang Kai Chek as "the peanut," for one thing! Hilarious, but probably not so good for the war effort).

It definitely gets into the reasons China went the way it did after the war and into the present.

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945
I haven't read this yet, but I'd like to in order to get the other side of Joe. Tuchman is well known and respected, and this book is equally well reviewed, but I've got three others to get through before this! [:)]

[Jorge_Stanbury]

I read Tuchman's Stilwell and the American in China long time ago; 15 years ago maybe. And I read Rana Mitter's Forgotten ally a month ago. (This is the same "China's war on Japan", just retitled)

Tuchman is a lot more pro-Stilwell than Mitter; maybe because she wrote the book based on Stilwell's notes.

Mitter is more balanced about the strengths and shortcomings of the Generalissimo, and the KMT in general. He made a good case that China was in no condition to do the kind of heavy lifting the Allies expected them to do; in a theater that was not even their 3rd priority, and while Japan was renewing offensive operations (Ichi-Go).
Stilwell comes off poorly

His book is well written and it also go into all the horrors of the war, famine the hardest to read about. In the early chapters he focused on the 3 leaders of China (Mao, Chiang, Wang Jingwei). What I didn't like is that in the late chapters he mostly focused on Chiang and the KMT area. I was hoping to get more about the Reorganized National Goverment.

Also, the book will not go too deep in terms of military operations. This is not a war book