Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944

I am enjoying this book, may be too general for the experts, but gives a nice overview, and plenty of individual details. This is vol. 2 of a pacific war trilogy. I haven't read volume 1 yet .

https://www.amazon.com/Conquering-T...ide+war+in+the+pacific+islands+1942-1944



Sycamore

While you are at it I would recommend, "Neptunes Inferno". I am going to read the book you recommended.

Just finished Pacific Crucible. Looked at both sides in the lead up to Pearl and thru Midway. Highly recommended. And now I have more of his stuff to look forward to.

We learned a lot during that War. Are we forgetting all those bloody costly lessons? What if we had started a naval build up during the depths of the Depression? What ifs can drive one crazy.

you just cost me some more money, downloaded the first book on kindle.
Tell you a short story. Through the years i have had many clients tour the pacific. In a number of cases i had them bring me home little bottles of beach sand. It is different from beach to beach. This also included hiroshima. Guam, the gilberts, etc. This was for my brother in law.
he enlisted in the navy at age 16, was a coxain on a higgins landing boat, saw a lot of beach landings. I promised him when he died i was going to scatter that sand over his grave and some good tequila. He laughed and said don't waste good booze.
Well, he did die and was buried in a v.a. cemetary. Some years later on memorial day i fulfilled that promise. Scattered the sand, wife and i had a hit of the tequila, poured the rest over his grave. Then we took the goldwing up to wickenburg to visit her uncle, killed during the invasion of leyte. While she was looking for the grave, i glanced over in the dirt near my bike and saw some coins lost in the sand. They added up to the plot/row number of my brother in laws grave in the v.a. cemetary. That's when i got the shakes. He was paying me back for that tequila.
I have a number of things from the pacific, a number of rifles, one of which belonged to a member of mcarthur's staff, several knives, one carried all over the south pacific, and one at pearl when it was attacked.
I had a bunch of clients too, I figured i had a client in the air, on the ocean,and on the beach at okinawa. I wish i had recorded the conversations.
We had my military jeep in the parade in prescott over the fourth. thought seriously, maybe next year God Willing, of putting the rifles on the
jeep for the parade. Along with a field jacket and paratrooper boots worn at okinawa. Probably not important to any but me.

Probably a good thing that didn't happen, as we would have built too many battleships (the "Gun Club" still ran things in the Navy back then) and not enough carriers.

I have read vol 1, but not vol 2 yet.

His book "Six Frigates" is a pretty good read, and that's why I bought vol 1 of his book on the pacific war.

...What ifs again...what if we had matched Japan carrier for carrier? What if we had had just as many carriers as they did before Pearl? They were worried about our two they could not find.

If I remember right during 41' Japan had 10 of various sizes with something like a total of 28 during the war... the U.S. had 7 with another 11 under rapid construction, and something like 100 of all types and a few under construction that were scraped at wars end.

Phil

Pacific Crucible is next for me. I'm reading them out of order! Same author as "Conquering Tide" .

"The fleet at flood tide : America at total war in the Pacific, 1944-1945" and "Neptune's Inferno", are by Hornfischer, so I will have to check those out. Got my winter reading planned out!

Although these books pull me in and I read them quickly. I remember my Dad reading a paperback edition of "The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise" 50 years ago. which would have been only twenty some years after the war.

read volume one, starting two today. one has a lot of stuff in it i didn't know, surprise right? A lot of the political build up in japan, infighting between army and navy. Midway could have gone a LOT different if it wasn't for a few individual acts.
It wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war, but it was not a sure thing.
At the beginning, japanese equipment, tactics, and leadership were just better.
but we learned quick.
Interesting the discussion on admiral King which you mostly hear nothing about, and the conflict between codebreakers in Ha. and washington.

I picked up another one, thank you kindle, about sub warfare in the coldwar period, blind man's bluff. Recommended to me by someone in the intelligence gathering area.

kind of addictive, in a good way, once you start reading them.

Just did a quick look up.
"The Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II was the second most powerful navy in the Pacific War in World War II. It was the third largest navy in the world. During the first years of the war the Imperial Japanese Navy dominated the Western Pacific"
They were still building battleships including the largest ever. Had 12 in 1941 with 21 fleet carriers and 4 light carriers

there is some interesting stuff in the second book concerning the japanese coming down the straight off salvo island and the night battle. McCains father, Admiral Mccain was responsible for long range monitoring in a certain area, by pby's. Bad weather prevended them from flying and he didn't report they had flown. So assumption no japanese, that is exactly where they came through.
There was fault enough to go around but another quick story.
i had a book on my desk on the battle of salvo island, older gentlyman came in on some business, saw the book and started crying. After he calmed down he told me the story, he had been on a destroyer, jap cruiser cut it in half. He spent over a week a few hundred yards off the canal, no ship would slow to pick them up fears of artillery fire, afraid to land, japanese army.
they finally had no choice but to float in where they got lucky and met american troops. Some weeks on the canal before getting back to the fleet.
it's kind of something to read these books given conversations with quite a few that actually fought the battles.

researching quadalcanal
which led me to a website where you can punch in a name, and locate a person if buried in a war cemetary. I found two weddle's in the normandy cemetary. Both were in the 9th division, one from kentucky, one from virginia. Both killed on 7/25/44. So I looked up 7/25/44, operation cobra, where on that day the 8th air force bombed our own men. I knew about the bombing, but didn't know about the above two. It makes you wonder. I am sure they were distant relatives, but the odds of that happening on the same day? I knew about operation cobra, but i didn't know till today.
I have finished the second book, everybit as good as the first book.

I also read Ian Tolls trilogy backwards as well. The Conquering Tide then Pacific Crucible. Both very good reads. Neptune's Inferno by James Hornfischer was very good as well. That book really gets into the weeds about the fighting off Guadalcanal and the battles in The Slot as well. I've been meaning to pickup The Fleet at Flood Tide too.

the second book mentions machine gunning shipwrecked japanese sailors.
interesting to me, as that is confirmation of what my brother in law told me that he saw during his time in the pacific.

Can't remember the name of the Sub but it was very successful early in the war. It's commander invited crew members to come on deck and shoot Jap survivors with Thompson SMGs. Pentagon couldn't decide how to handle it. Japs solved their problem by sinking the sub.

Neptune's Inferno is a very good read, as well as The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. Another I really enjoyed was With the Old Breed at Pelilu and Okinawa.

Just got Pacific Crucible...looking forward to reading it.

Sycamore