The Second World War in the East

For the general reader this is a well done book, as was its companion volume, THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE WEST. The real shame is that no doubt so few readers of WWII history are aware of these two books, as well as many other books from the CASSELL Miitary Paperback library. Having well over 3 dozen trade paperback books from the CASSELL Military Paperback publishing effort, I can say that even when I disagree with a given author's viewpoint, as with Robin Neillands view in THE BATTLE OF NORMANY 1944, I still believe for the price and quality few other books on WWII offer better. This volume on the Far East of WWII is very well done. Semper Fi.

Besides being a visual treasure with numerous black and white photos, the book is complemented with many maps and diagrams along with a few color photos. Even the pages are made of thick high-quality stock. The very high production values are what initially attracted me to this book. But, I was surprised to find that even the writing was of an unexpected caliber, full of thoughtful analysis on why Japan went to war with China, the US, and almost every other major power during World War II. Beyond that the author, H.P. Willmot, goes into real depth in explaining Japan's apparent invincibility during the opening months of the war only to face total, utter defeat by August 1945. The most crucial Japanese mistake was an underestimation of wrathful American vengeance unleashed at Pearl Harbor. Unlike what the Japanese planners had imagined, this desire for vengeance would not fade and disappear after 18 months of attritional warfare. Instead the US would not cease until Japan was soundly defeated and militarily occupied. Willmott goes on to examine Japan's precarious position regarding its industrial base versus the US. Whereas great losses in American naval and merchant shipping could be rapidly and easily replaced, each Japanese vessel lost could never be totally replaced. As Japan's shipping losses mounted with increased American submarine campaigns and carrier raids, the raw materials needed for its war machine were left permanently stranded in far-off Southeast Asian ports. The author does an excellent job of investigating both the material and doctrinal weaknesses of the Japanese versus the US. What the Japanese had envisaged as a limited war turned into a nightmare of total war with the world's first superpower. The US's resources were so great that even though it didn't give the Pacific Campaign top priority it still produced an overwhelming and convincing victory against smaller, less technologically advanced Japanese forces. Indeed, had the military regime in Tokyo been realistic and morally capable of suing for peace it probably should have done so after the Midway battle before American predominance began to convincingly assert itself. Finally, the book has data on naval battle losses, new ship commissionings, combined shipping losses, and short biographies of the leading personalities in the campaign. I enjoyed both the pictures and the text and had the book read in just a few short days. I highly recommend it.

Almost twenty years ago, I bought a weighty volume on strategy in the Pacific War titled Empires in the Balance. It was marvelous, a clear, incisive, detailed, opinionated history of the first three months or so of World War II in the Pacific. It was written by H.P.Wilmott, a British historian.After Empires he did a sequel of sorts, The Barrier and the Javelin, a history of the war around the world in the month of June 1944, and a work on British strategic planning in the Pacific during the war. Lastly, he's written this short history of WWII in the Pacific, replete with illustrations, elaborate color maps, and graphs and pie charts. Cassell (the publisher) apparently intends to do a number of these in its History of Warfare series. Hopefully they will all be this good.Wilmott's trademark is looking at the same situation or set of circumstances as everyone else, and coming up with a completely different conclusion from the common wisdom. Here he advances his point (made in his earlier books) that Japanese planning before WWII was replete with wishful thinking and just plain ignorance. He emphasizes repeatedly that they didn't really start the war with a strategy, instead relying on a script that called on the American Navy to do certain things a certain way, and not be too bright about it. When the U.S. Navy didn't cooperate, things began to deteriorate. His larger point, that Japan really had no chance of winning the war in the Pacific unless a miracle happened, has also been made before, but it's worth repeating. Lastly, his point about the merchant shipping situation (basically that Japan lost the war as much because of the U.S. Navy's submarine effort as because of the battles they lost) is also eloquently stated, and accompanied by several charts for those who can't follow the statistics in the text.I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would heartily recommend it. Strangely, there are a few outright typos, a seemingly growing bane of publishers. I don't think they detract from the overall value of the book though.