Victory in the Pacific: 1945

Victory in the Pacific is volume XIV of Samuel E. Morison's History of United States Naval Operations in WWII, and the final of nine on the Pacific theater. The Philippines were recaptured in the previous volume and now the final steps toward Japan are taken in this volume with the assaults on first Iwo Jima and then Okinawa. The Iwo Jima campaign, so prominent in the popular American mind due to the book and movie, Flag of Our Fathers, is covered in Part I. Morison gives the details of the planning, logistics and execution of this massive operation. His conclusion on the Iwo Jima operation is slightly apologetic in tone. First he gives the stock opinion that Iwo was necessary to ensure the safety of B-29 bomber crews who couldn't make it back to the Marianas and it was important to the fliers' morale. But he also equivocates by stating "Not all would have been lost without the island's facilities." In Part II, Morison details the Okinawa operation, which was more complicated than Iwo Jima due to its proximity to Japan and the menacing presence of Kamikazes. Previously, my personal knowledge of Okinawa was gained through the two outstanding memoirs Goodbye, Darkness by William Manchester and With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge. Morison's account provides an ideal way to broaden one's perspective on Okinawa by describing overall strategy and the progress of the entire operation that can not be gained from memoirs. As another reviewer has mentioned, particularly poignant is the plight of the radar picket destroyers who were constantly harried by Kamikazes. On a trip to Charleston, SC I had the opportunity to visit the destroyer Laffey which had served as a radar picket at Okinawa and whose ordeal of being struck by multiple Kamikazes and still staying afloat is dramatically recounted by Morison in this volume.

By the early spring of 1945, the United States forces had pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific and were now in position to directly threaten the Japanese home islands. This final volume of Samuel Eliot Morison's fine series covers the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa along with the formal Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945.The main purpose for securing the island of Iwo Jima was to provide a rescue station for crippled B-29 bombers returning from Japan as well as an advanced fighter escort base for P-51 Mustang escort fighters. The invasion took place in February 1945, and it was originally thought that securing the island would only take about four days. How wrong we were. This battle lasted four weeks and cost many thousands of American casualties. The enduring act of the war for the Americans occurred during this battle when the flag was raised on Mt. Suribachi and was forever captured on film. I was disappointed with this section of the book. Only 70 pages of the book deal with the Iwo Jima campaign, so I felt that many important aspects of the battle were left out completely.In April, 1945, the Americans turned their attention to Okinawa. Located only 350 miles from the Japanese mainland, Okinawa was to serve as a prime staging area for the invasion of Japan, which was scheduled for November 1945. This battle covers the great majority of this book. Every aspect of the battle is covered, from the landings to the kamikaze attacks against the American ships. Perhaps the best part of the book deals with the description of the kamikaze attacks against the radar picket destroyers which were stationed around Okinawa. These ships faced the wrath of the kamikaze forces and many were sunk, but these heroic sailors and ships put up a tremendous fight against the Japanese and provided an invaluable service by vectoring out C.A.P. aircraft as well as warning the fleet to incoming kamikaze attacks. They were the true heroes of Okinawa.Other important events, such as the suicide mission of the Japanese superbattleship Yamato and the tragic and unnecessary sinking of the USS Indianapolis are also described in this volume. As with other books in this set, this one contains excellent photographs and maps to assist the reader. With the surrender of Japan in September 1945, one war ended and another war dawned; the cold war, which lasted for forty three years.

This fourteenth and final entry in Morison's epic series concludes the voluminous narrative with a look at the war's final days, including an account of the delivery of the first atomic bomb by the USS Indianapolis and that vessel's tragic return voyage, and the triumphant visit of the USS Missouri to Tokyo Bay. As with the other entries in this series, Morison brings excitement and immediacy to an incredibly well-researched and detailed narrative. Not to be missed.

I was impressed by the level of detail this book had. It focused on even the smallest of engagements in the war. Deffinately recomend it