But Not in Shame

This book is great and worth the time to read. This is my second copy, as the first was lost in moving.

But Not In Shame is a historical look of the first 6 months of the war in the Pacific. While the primary focus is on the war between the US and Japan, Mr. Toland does an excellent job describing the British fights for Singapore and Hong Kong and does provide passing information on Indonesia (note: Mr. Toland failed on two accounts though, mentioning the Japanese raid in the Indian Ocean and almost no mention of the battle for Burma). Much of Mr. Toland's effort is spent on the battle in the Philippines. Mr. Toland does an excellent job presenting the cases of MacArthur, Wainwright, and Homma from a neutral perspective. This was particularly difficult in MacArthur and Homma's cases given the destruction of MacArthur's air force on the ground and lack of aggressiveness from MacArthur and the brutality the Japanese melted out during the Death March (interestingly the Japanese did provide more service than I'd initially thought, however they didn't anticipate the number of troops [American and Filipino's] and individual Japanese soldiers were anywhere from helpful to brutal, favoring brutal). As a historian, Mr. Toland does an excellent job of letting the history tell its story and then bringing forth personal accountings of the action to complete things. While not as detailed as a specific history of a battle might be; this is an excellent book for telling the complete story of the first six months of the war in the Pacific. The writing is solid, to the point, and complete. This makes for a solid 4 star book on a subject many bypass. I'm only rating it 4 stars because Mr. Toland failed to include Burma and the raid to the Indian Ocean and only provided limited insight into the war in Indonesia/Borneo (places I'm trying to learn a little more about). However, given the date of publication (1961) and the fact that it was more difficult to gather data then, one could easily view this as a 5 star book As a closing note, many modern history writers could learn a lot by reviewing Mr. Toland's work and learning how to tell a complete story; it would help their books out immensely.

It is to John Toland's tremendous credit that so much information about the Second World War has been collected for countless generations. But Not In Shame represents Toland's incalculable hours of research, traveling throughout the former Pacific Theater not long after so many bitter battles had ended. Unlike many early WWII scholars, Toland's writing style is surprisingly contemporary, comparable to current historical writers. But Not In Shame is a volume of detailed anecdotes and play-by-play accounting of the America's desperate dawn days of WWII. Much of Toland's writing centers around the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and the climax of Midway with great stories of the men and women at Pearl Harbor, Wake, Guam and the atrocities of the march from Bataan as well. An excellent book that will provide readers with perhaps one of the best understandings of the events surrounding the Filipino-American retreat to Bataan and Corregidor and their subsequent fall. REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ, AUTHORS DESERVE YOUR OPINIONS. REVIEW EVERY REVIEW YOU READ, CRITICS REQUIRE CRITICISM TOO!

John Toland's book proves to be well written and covered the period right before Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway. The book is written with certain amount of balance in presenting both sides of the fence, the clarity of text is clear and it appears to be well researched. The book explains why the Allies suffered from series of military defeats during the first six months of the war which ended ironically with the Battle of Midway which sealed the fate of the Japanese effort to win the war. The book goes into details of the Allied defeats. While it does covered the entire Pacific area in general, the American efforts are presented here in greater details. The Philippines Campaign for example, got a lot of attention compared to the Singapore Campaign. In the typical Toland's style, the narratives were taken from individuals which were then woven into the general history format. I found the book to be interesting and informative. Only real deficit appears to be that the book was published in 1961 and some of the information presented may be old news to veteran military readers. But for newcomers to the field, this would be a great introduction to the subject matter at hand.