Books about Guadalcanal from Amazon.com

For the first time in trade paperback, the book in which one of the most celebrated biographer/historians of our time looks back at his own early life and gives us a remarkable account of World War II in the Pacific, of what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and, most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences.

Back Bay takes pride in making William Manchester's intense, stirring, and impassioned memoir available to a new generation of readers..
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A history of the battle at Guadalcanal draws on first-time translations of official Japanese defense accounts and declassified U.S. radio intelligence to recreate this critical campaign. Reprint. 25,000 first printing. NYT..
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The Naval Institute Press is pleased to make available for the first time this cloth edition of a now-classic war memoir that was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s. Originally published as a paperback in 1961, it has long been treasured by World War II buffs and professional historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The book has been credited with correcting errors in U.S. accounts of various battles and with revealing details of high-level Imperial Japanese Navy strategy meetings. The author, Captain Tameichi Hara, was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the Unsinkable Captain. Called the workhorses of the navy, Japanese destroyers shouldered the heaviest burden of the surface war and took part in scores of intense sea battles, many of which Captain Hara describes here. In the early days of the war victories were common, but by 1943, the lack of proper maintenance of the destroyers and sufficient supplies, along with Allied development of scientific equipment and superior aircraft, took its toll. On April 7, 1945, during the Japanese navy s last sortie, Captain Hara managed to survive the sinking of his own ship only to witness the demise of the famed Japanese battleship Yamato off Okinawa. A hero to his countrymen, Captain Hara exemplified the best in Japanese surface commanders: highly skilled (he wrote the manual on torpedo warfare), hard driving, and aggressive. Moreover, he maintained a code of honor worthy of his samurai grandfather, and, as readers of this book have come to appreciate, he was as free with praise for American courage and resourcefulness as he was critical of himself and his senior commanders. The book s popularity over the past forty-six years testifies to the author s success at writing an objective account of what happened that provides not only a fascinating eyewitness record of the war, but also an honest and dispassionate assessment of Japan s high command. Captain Hara s sage advice on leadership is as applicable today as it was when written. For readers new to this book and for those who have read and re-read their paperback editions until they have fallen apart, this new hardcover edition assures them a permanent source of reference and enjoyment..
Price: $17.43 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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This celebrated classic gives a soldier's-eye-view of the Guadalcanal battles--crucial to World War II, the war that continues to fascinate us all, and to military history in general Unlike some of those on Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942, Richard Tregaskis volunteered to be there. An on-location news correspondent (at the time, one of only two on Guadalcanal), he lived alongside the soldiers: sleeping on the ground--only to be awoken by air raids--eating the sometimes meager rations, and braving some of the most dangerous battlefields of World War II. He more than once narrowly escaped the enemy's fire, and so we have this incisive and exciting inside account of the groundbreaking initial landing of U.S. troops on Guadalcanal.

With a new Introduction by Mark Bowden--renowned journalist and author of Black Hawk Down--this edition of Guadalcanal Diary makes available once more one of the most important American works of the war..
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An abundance of new evidence demanded this reevaluation of Frank Jack Fletcher, the "black shoe" admiral who won his battles at sea but lost the war of public opinion A surface warrior -- in contrast to a "brown shoe" naval aviator -- Fletcher led the carrier forces that won against all odds at Coral Sea, Midway, and the Eastern Solomons. These and other early carrier victories decided the Pacific War not only because they inflicted crippling losses but also because they denied Japan key strategic positions in the region.

Despite these successes, by 1950 Fletcher had become one of the most controversial figures in U.S. naval history and was portrayed as a timid bungler who failed to relieve Wake Island in December 1941 and who deliberately abandoned the Marines at Guadalcanal.

In this book, author John Lundstrom recalls that Fletcher once remarked, "after an action is over, people talk a lot about how the decisions were deliberately reached, but actually there’s always a hell of a lot of groping around," and notes that the goal of his study is to probe and explain the "groping around." Drawing on new material, Lundstrom offers a fresh look at Fletcher’s decisions and actions. The first major reassessment in more than fifty years of the once-maligned naval officer, it provides a careful analysis of the effect of radio intelligence on decision-making in the carrier battles during the first nine months of the war in the Pacific. This new assessment is based on thousands of documents and massive dispatch files and personal papers that no historian has previously used..
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From August 1942 until February 1943, two armies faced each other amid the malarial jungles and blistering heat of Guadalcanal Island. The Imperial Japanese forces needed to protect and maintain the air base that gave them the ability to interdict enemy supply routes. The Allies were desperate to halt the advance of a foe that so far had inflicted crippling losses on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, then seized the Philippines, Wake Island, the Dutch East Indies, Guam, and other Allied territory. After months of relentless battle, the U.S. troops forced back the determined Japanese, providing what many historians believe was the decisive turning point in the Pacific theater of operations.

Stanley Coleman Jersey, a medical air evacuation specialist in the South Pacific during World War II, has spent countless hours combing Australian, Japanese, and U.S. documents and interviewing more than 200 veterans of the Guadalcanal campaign, both Allied and Japanese.

Beginning with the events that preceded the battle for Guadalcanal during the Australian defense of the southern Solomon Islands in late 1941, Jersey details the military preparations made in response to intelligence describing the creation of an enemy air base within striking distance of American supply lines and recounts the civilian evacuation that followed the Japanese arrival in New Guinea.

With the stage set, he turns to the campaign itself, with particular emphasis on the combat during the critical period of August to December 1942. While Guadalcanal is his primary focus, Jersey also covers the roles played by forces occupying the other Solomon Islands, including the plight of construction laborers, air crews, and ground units.

This book, chock-full of gripping battlefield accounts and harrowing first-person narratives, draws together for the first time Allied and Japanese perspectives on the bloody contest. It is certain to become an indispensable asset to historians of World War II..
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In May 1942 the Japanese landed on a number of southern islands in the British Solomons and began constructing an airfield on Guadalcanal Their actions threatened Australia and her vital American supply lines and could not be tolerated by the Allies. The 1st Marine Division, with its attached 1st Marine Parachute Battalion, was directed to spearhead the assault on Gavutu Island and take the Guadalcanal airfield, even though it was not prepared for such an offensive action. The result was a bloodbath, and when it was over, less that one in five of the Marine paratroopers walked off Bloody Ridge.

Although crucial to the action, the 1st Parachute Battalion is rarely credited for its part in what Gen. Alexander A. Vandergrift, USMC, called the key battle of the Guadalcanal campaign. Here, James F. Christ draws not only on government documents but also on hundreds of hours of interviews with the men who were there to tell their remarkable story. It is a story of how in the face of overwhelming odds and seemingly irrational decisions from above, the battalion fought heroically, accepting orders without question and adapting to circumstances beyond its control despite sickness and a critical shortage of resources. In bringing public attention to the contributions made by these men during the first amphibious assault by U.S. forces in World War II, this book adds significantly to the history of the war in the Pacific.

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Chester the Crab spans the globe to tell the story of World War 2 and the struggle of democratic nations against fascist nations trying to supply easy answers at the end of a gun. Included are the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, D-Day and the Pacific Island island-hopping campaign. From the invasion of Poland to the atomic bombs on Japan, this colorful graphic novel will excite reluctant readers, prepare students for standardized tests in history, and help homeschooling parents!.
Price: $4.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]