GUADALCANAL: The Carrier Battles

by Eric Hammel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1987

Guadalcanal: Starvation Island (p. 280) was Hammel's splendid record of the fierce jungle battles that effectively halted Japanese expansion in WW II's Pacific theater. Here he focuses on a pair of coincident carrier engagements that ""cost Japan her last best hope to win the war."" As before, Hammel draws on the recollections of 100-odd surviving veterans from both the US and Japanese sides, plus archival sources, to provide a vivid narrative account of the pivotal actions. The first was the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, which began Aug. 23, 1942--barely two weeks after ill-supplied Marines had invaded ""the Canal"" and started encountering reinforced resistance. American forces gained no better than a draw in this full-scale naval/air clash. And they lost a return bout just over two months later, off the Santa Cruz islands, when the flattop Hornet was sunk and the Enterprise badly damaged. The Imperial Navy's victory proved Pyrrhic, however, since it was achieved at a high price in irreplaceable aircrews and warplanes. Hammel's reconstruction affords a wealth of strategic and tactical campaign detail. His klaeidoscopic but unfailingly comprehensible text shifts rapidly among many points of interest, from tart force command posts through the cockpits of scout planes on patrol, the mounts of antiaircraft batteries that constitute a vessel's last line of defense against bomb or torpedo attacks, and below-deck engine rooms where black gangs toil to keep power up. Vignettes abound to confirm combat's grim realities and seriocomic aspects. Indeed, Hammel is as adept at conveying the terrors of fighting fire on a ship under assault or the bemusement of a ditched fighter pilot who realizes his rescuers have no knowledge of distress signals as he is at providing concise evaluations of top commanders. Official histories apart, the most thorough appreciation yet of Guadalcanal's turning-point carrier battles; praiseworthy on a stand-alone basis and as part of Hammel's prospective trilogy. There are to be maps and photographs (not seen).

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION