Touched with Fire: 8the Land War in the South Pacific

The book I ordered had no cover and stains in it. $8? Should’ve been a dollar

The first jungle war was not Vietnam. It was in the hellish jungles of New Guinea and the Solomons. Apart from the well-known fighting at Gualdacanal, this camapign is quite unknown. Well, gruesome hand-to-hand combat between filthy, diseased, and starving footsoldiers is admittedly less romantic than steel aircraft carriers steaming in wast lotillas on a dark blue ocean, releasing deadly fighters into the sky. It was here, though, in the, decidedly unromantic, jungles of New Guinea and the Solomons that the back of of the Japanese army was broken. Thus enabling the victories in the north pacific. The author quite fairly describes the strenghts and weaknesses of the participating forces. It was not really inferior equipment, poor tactics, or poor soldiering that led to the Japanese defeat; it was faulty straegic planning and an unflexible doctrine. I give a kudos to the author for giving the Australian and Commonwealth troops their due, and comparing them favourably even to the US marines! One could say that the British Empire did serve a purpose here, since it meant that countries like Australia, India, New Zeeland, Fiji, etc., were already mobilised, and had, in some cases, gained valuable combat experience before the Japanese attack. I think that the relative lack of maps and illustration makes the book a little bit difficult to follow sometimes, and the narrative, while excellent, suffers from the somewhat disjointed structure of the book.

I previously believed that military history is primarily composed of the battles, the strategies used in the battles, & the leaders of the troops, with stories about individual soldiers mixed in to promote a better sense of understanding about the battle or war. After reading Eric Bergerud's book Touched With Fire, I now must add another component to that definition of military history - the theatre in which the battle or war was fought. People think of the European Theatre in World War II, they think of the Pacific Theatre, and they think of the war in the North Atlantic. This book really expands on the geographical influence of the fighting in the south pacific, especially the islands of New Guinea & the Solomans. Bergerud presents a compelling argument that the battles fought by soldiers, the tactics used by generals, and the way men lead their troops in battle is greatly affected, if not primarily driven by, the environment. Bergerud explains that the soldiers fighting in the South Pacific encountered a whole different war than those soldiers fighting in Europe, and not just because the enemy was Japanese rather than German or Italian. Bergerud maintains that the jungle was more of an enemy at times than the human opponent ever could have been. He also develops the theory that the jungle was one of the strongest allies that a fighting man could have, since it would shield him from the enemy or provide him with the necessary cover to launch a surprise attack, as the Japanese often did when fighting in the South Pacific. Bergerud focuses primarily on the terrain and how it shaped the war in this book, although he does intermix (quite nicely, in fact), stories from the soldiers about their experiences and some, although limited, tactical information about the battles. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to understand why climate and geography play such a huge role in warfare. I would also highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to understand the tremendous differences in the land war in the South Pacific versus the land war in Europe or the Middle East. Overall, it is a very good book, and one well worthy of reading by any student of military history or just someone curious about the Pacific theatre in World War II.

Like many Americans, my view of land combat against Japan was heavily influenced by books and movies that focused on the island hopping campaign highlighted by Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. While aware of Guadalcanal, I was less familiar with the fight for New Guinea and its strategic importance. This book does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the nightmarish conditions found in New Guinea and of linking the battles there to the ones fought at the same time on Guadalcanal. It does not get bogged down in the military minutia of unit designations. Instead it concentrates on the impressions of individual soldiers while they struggle to achieve "big picture" objectives that were as imperceptible to them as the jungle landscape they were fighting for. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting a feel for these under publicized but crucial battles in the South Pacific.

The superb account rendered so graphically in this book educates a new generation of readers as to the horrific practical realities involved in the Allied island-hopping strategy employed by the Allies in waging the Pacific campaign during World War Two. Indeed, while the specific individual battles often involved far fewer ground troops and were much smaller in scale than what occurred in the European theater of the war, the ferocity of the opposition and the relative number of casualties were staggering. Thus Eric Bergerud's gripping recounting of the incredible details involved with the war in the South Pacific in "Touched With Fire: The Land War In The South Pacific" reminds us of the terrible costs associated with that campaign.This was truly a campaign requiring a total re-education of the American military involved. Starting with the disastrous lessons of the quite different realities of jungle warfare first experienced on Guadalcanal, the Allied command had to learn to adapt to the extremely tenacious, ingenious, and almost indefatigable efforts of the island's Japanese defenders, who could subsist on a little water and rice and move through the jungles with much great ease and skill than could we. No one was prepared for the sustained levels of ferocity with which the Japanese fought, usually to the death, over these small atolls that they had to recognize they could not hold onto forever. Yet they fought on. The book recounts the many ways in which the war in the Pacific was different from that waged in Europe, and is organized around several themes such as terrain, climate, diseases such as dysentery, etc. in illustrating how the very different negative circumstances surrounding the island hopping strategy affected and constrained our ability (as well as those of the Japanese) to fight effectively in such an environment. Of course, as the author maintains, the Allies learned very quickly; they needed to in order to survive. As so well described in Ronald Spector's "Eagle Against The Sun", the Japanese were incredibly ingenious in devising ways to use topography, indigenous materials, and a willingness to "`rough-it" to build virtually impregnable walls of resistance to the oncoming invaders. This is a very well written, passionately argued, and absolutely entertaining book to read. The author has done a remarkable job in documenting and substantiating his notions and theories, and I found myself surprised at how well some of his more provocative and controversial ideas are supported by the data he employs. This is an eminently worthwhile book, a wonderful addition to the growing library of titles exploring the realities of the war in the Pacific, and one I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the gritty details of the Allied `island to island' war against the Japanese. Enjoy!

Eric Bergerud has written a superb study of the conditions under which American and Australian troops fought against the Japanese in the Pacific from 1942-45. I've recommended it to several friends with an interest in the history of World War Two, and they were every bit as impressed as I was. A fantastic book.