Half-way through: HELL IS UPON US

September 16, 2005 by wfzimmerman | No comments

Half-way-thru Review: HELL IS UPON US,

As the title suggests, one of the most valuable things about HELL IS UPON US: D-Day in the Pacific, Saipan to Guam, June-August 1944 by Victor Brooks (Da Capo) is the original“frame” it puts around these bitter but relatively little known island campaigns, justly putting them on a level with D-Day in the Atlantic. Another nice thing about the book is the effortless way that the author handles the switch in scales from the “macro” – Allied grand strategy – to the “micro” – the confined battle fields of Tarawa and Saipan – and back out again to the “theater” level carrier battle of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

The author does a good job with political and social aspects of military life – he provides an excellent explanation of why the Marines on Saipan thought the Army’s 27th Division was a collection of political hacks from the New York National Guard. He is on less sure ground when it comes to technical details of military hardware –he tries to explain why Lee’s fast battleships were relatively ineffective at shore bombardment without ever mentioning that they were carrying armor-piercing instead of bombardment rounds. Also, on at least two occasions he uses the word “decimate” in its broad modern (i.e. incorrect) sense. I wish the copy editors at Perseus had seen fit to fix that. All in all, good stuff — I am looking forward to finishing this useful contribution to modern understanding of the Pacific War.

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