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War In The Pacific by Richard Overy with foreword by Dale Dye

War In The Pacific is a vivid recreation of the experience in the pacific theatre of World War Two told from primarily an American point of view. It coincides with the popular TVNZ documentary series. Included in this book are reproductions of rare memorabilia ranging from military orders to propaganda leaflets and letters sent home by soldiers.

Readers may notice that there seems to be an inevitability in this book that the American armed forces would defeat Japan and that it doesn’t seem to take long after the attack on Pearl Harbour before America starts pushing the new order back. Readers will also notice however that there isn’t much reference in the text itself on the cruelties inflicted by the Japanese on prisoners they took or exactly how tenacious they were, just that they fought to the death or had orders to fight to the last man.

The documents included with the book are very good and have been reproduced to look just like the real ones. There is also an explanation note on each in the book and some useful maps which may give readers a better idea on where the battles occurred than even the soldiers who fought in them, but the folders containing the documents could have benefited from being mounted on thicker pages.

Those looking for New Zealand’s involvement in the pacific theatre will be disappointed that it is reduced to one sentence where it mentions the supporting role of the NZ third division in the Bougainville landings of November 1st, 1943. In fact this is inaccurate and hardly touches the surface of New Zealand’s involvement. Some of the involvement the book attributes to Australia was actually from New Zealand defence forces.

Also of note is that some of the events mentioned on the books timelines are not mentioned or elaborated on further in the text including Japan’s plans for invading Australia.

For the record New Zealand although still heavily involved in the war in Europe, had all three services (Army, Navy and Air Force) in operation in the pacific. Within a five minute search on Wikipedia, I was able to find out more about our involvement in the pacific than was in this book.

Surprisingly the author is Professor of History at the University of Exeter in the UK.

RRP $59.99
Published and distributed by Allen and Unwin under the Crows Nest title

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