Hell's Islands: The Untold Story of Guadalcanal

In the late summer of 1942, the United States Marines were set to embark on the first offensive thrust against the Japanese. Fresh off the victory at Midway, the American military leaders were anxious to keep the Japanese on the defensive and not allow them time to recover. It was discovered that the Japanese were building an airstrip on the island of Guadalcanal, located in the Solomon Islands chain. If completed, this airstrip would enable the Japanese to attack American supply routes to Australia and perhaps serve as a precursor to an invasion of Australia itself. The men of the 1st Marine division were given the task of capturing the airfield. On August 7, 1942, the Marines stormed ashore. The surprised Japanese quickly fled, and the Americans seized control of the unfinished airfield. Renamed Henderson Field by the Marines, this airstrip was to serve as the ultimate objective for both the Japanese and Americans. For six months, the two sides fought for control of the airfield, and names such as Bloody Ridge and the Tenaru river became common terms. With the arrival of American planes, the battle slowly turned in favor of the Americans. The Japanese, starving and suffering from many different tropical diseases, could not be reinforced. By the middle of December, 1942, the Japanese, realizing that Guadalcanal could not be recaptured, began preparing to evacuate the survivors. During the first week of February, 1943, the Japanese managed to evacuate more than 10,000 men from under the noses of the unsuspecting Americans. After Guadalcanal was secured, it became a forward staging base for future operations in the Solomons and had six airfields. The Japanese would never regain the offensive it had during the first six months of the war. This is a very good book. Much of the information I've read before, but I especially enjoyed the discussion about the battles which took place on the islands surrounding Guadalcanal. The author does a good job of describing the battles on Tulagi and Florida islands, and he does a good job of explaining the contributions of the coast watchers to the defeat of the Japanese. I was also impressed with the detailed discussion of the highly successful Japanese withdrawl. The discussion of the Cactus Air Force and the runs of the "Tokyo Express" also add to the story. I recommend this book very highly. The author draws heavily on first-person interviews of both American and Japanese participants, and these interviews give the reader a true sense of what the battle was really like. Readers of Pacific War history will want to read "Hell's Islands".

The author of this book did an excellent job compiling details of the Guadalcanal campaign, many of them I had not previously read about before in other books on the subject. He goes into more detail than most on the latter stages of the campaign when the US Army had become more involved, which is often not covered as much in other histories which concentrate on the US Marine Corps' actions. The author also does a good job giving valuable details on the Japanese side, even down to individual junior Japanese commander names and unit casualties. The description of what was going on during the Japanese occupation of Tulagi between May 1942 and the Allied invasion in August 1942 is especially useful, as is the recounting of the US Marine raid on a Japanese outpost on nearby Malaita island. As other reviewers here have mentioned, the level of detail in the book sometimes gets in the way of readability. Also, some portions appear badly edited, with some paragraphs appearing to unintentionally jump back and forth between different events. In those places I was only able to follow what was going on because I already had some knowledge on the history from reading other books. For those interested in a general history of the Guadalcanal campaign, I suggest Richard Frank's "Guadalcanal" is still the best book on the subject. I would recommend this book for those who want to delve more deeply into the smaller details of the campaign.

This is a superb book that captures all the significant aspects of the Battle for Guadalcanal. It covers not only tactical and strategic aspects, but the political as well. What I found most interesting about this particular book was it's treatment of patrols and ancillary battles on the outer smaller islands. These actions are commonly over looked in the majority of currently published histories of the battle, yet contributed to the overall success of the operation. The detail that is captured by the author is immense, but easy to follow. This book should be on the bookshelf of any student of the Guadalcanal Operation and is a definite "must read" for the serious historian. J.N. Mueller, Colonel US Marines

Has many interesting facts about the earlier history of the area. Really liked the coverage of the actions on the "outer islands". That's an aspect that hasn't been covered as well as it should in many previous works on this period of the war. Thought the naming of individual commanders down to the platoon level was a bit overdone, but if the author was trying to put faces on the many units involved it is understandable. Worth the price and a fine addition to any library.