Pacific Crucible – War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 (Pacific War Trilogy) - Softcover

Toll, Ian W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393343413 ISBN 13: 9780393343410

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012

Synopsis

On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative. This dramatic narrative, relying predominantly on eyewitness accounts and primary sources, is laced with riveting details of heroism and sacrifice on the stricken ships and planes of both navies. At the war s outset, Japan s pilots and planes enjoyed a clear-cut superiority to their American counterparts, but there was a price to be paid. Japanese pilots endured a lengthy and grueling training in which they were disciplined with baseball bats, often suffering broken bones; and the production line of the Zero Japan s superbly maneuverable fighter plane ended not at a highway or railhead but at a rice paddy, through which the planes were then hauled on ox carts. Combat losses, of either pilots or planes, could not be replaced in time to match the fully mobilized American war machine. Pacific Crucible also spotlights recent scholarship that revises our understanding of the conflict, including the Japanese decision to provoke a war that few in their highest circles thought they could win. Those doubters included the flamboyantly brilliant Admiral Isokoru Yamamoto, architect of the raid on Pearl and the Midway offensive. Once again, Ian W. Toll proves himself to be a simply magnificent writer. The result here is a page-turning history that does justice to the breadth and depth of a tremendous subject."

About this title

Review:

Well documented--albeit from previously published materials--and well written. Experienced World War II history buffs may bypass if they feel no need to read another retelling of this phase of the Pacific War, but nonspecialists and general readers will want to consider it.

An entertaining, impressively researched chronicle of the tense period between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American victory at the battle of Midway.

Revealing and poignant, Toll's latest deftly navigates the rough waters of the Pacific struggle with flying colors.

Excellent. The research is thorough, the writing clear, and the narrative flow exemplary...It is difficult to think of a recent book on this subject that is of such consistently outstanding value.--Roland Green

About the Author:

Ian W. Toll is the author of Pacific Crucible, and Six Frigates, winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award and the William E. Colby Award. He lives in San Francisco and New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0393343413
• ISBN 13: 9780393343410
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 656