Brough's Books - Pacific War

Pacific Theatre World War Two

Books on War in the Pacific - Land, Air and Sea Battles
Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, New Guinea, Midway, Okinawa, Tarawa, Solomons, Philippines...
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Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
by James Bradley
Book Description: Flyboys is the true story of young American airmen who were shot down over Chichi Jima. Eight of these young men were captured by Japanese troops and taken prisoner. Another was rescued by an American submarine and went on to become president. The reality of what happened to the eight prisoners has remained a secret for almost 60 years. After the war, the American and Japanese governments conspired to cover up the shocking truth. Not even the families of the airmen were informed what had happened to their sons. It has remained a mystery—until now. Critics called James Bradley's last book "the best book on battle ever written." Flyboys is even better: more ambitious, more powerful, and more moving. On the island of Chichi Jima those young men would face the ultimate test. Their story—a tale of courage and daring, of war and of death, of men and of hope—will make you proud, and it will break your heart.
Hardcover from Little Brown & Company
 
Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission
by Hampton Sides
In early 1945 a small group of American soldiers penetrated Japanese lines in the Philippines to rescue 500 POWs from a Japanese prison camp.
Hardcover - 336 pages (May 15, )
Doubleday; ISBN: 0385495641

Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
by Hampton Sides
Paperback: 384 pages
Anchor Books; ISBN: 038549565X; 1 Anchor edition (May 7, )

 
Afternoon of the Rising Sun : The Battle of Leyte Gulf
by Kenneth I. Friedman
(Hardcover)

Angels Twenty : A Young American Flier a Long Way from Home
by Edwards Park
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

Air Raid-Pearl Harbor! : The Story of December 7, 1941
by Theodore Taylor
Listed under Pearl Harbor

Alone on Guadalcanal : A Coastwatcher's Story
by Martin Clemens, Allan R. Millett (Introduction)
Superb account of the early days of an Australian coastwatcher in the Solomon Islands during WWII who joined forces with the US Marines.
Listed under Guadalcanal

At Dawn We Slept : The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
by Gordon William Prange
Listed under Pearl Harbor

The Atomic Bomb Suppressed : American Censorship in Occupied Japan
by Monica Braw - Listed under Atomic Bomb

Baa Baa Black Sheep
by Gregory Boyington
Listed under Flying Tigers

The Battle for Okinawa
by Hiromichi Yahara
A first-hand account of one of the bloodiest encounters in the war of the Pacific, written by the Japanese strategist who designed and carried out the campaign. Editor Frank Gibney's unique perspective of having been an officer in Okinawa, who interrogated Yahara following his capture, adds a fascinating dimension to the account. Ingram
Paperback - 245 pages 1 edition (March 7, )
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471180807

A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945
by Paul S. Dull
Hardcover - 402 pages (February 1978)
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 0870210971

Before the Bomb : How America Approached the End of the Pacific War
by John D. Chappell
Hardcover - 272 pages (December )
Univ Pr of Kentucky; ISBN: 0813119871

Beyond Courage : One Regiment Against Japan, 1941-1945
by Dorothy Cave
Listed under Prisoners of War

Bougainville, 1943-1945 : The Forgotten Campaign
by Harry A. Gailey
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

Britain, Southeast Asia and the Onset of the Pacific War
by Nicholas Tarling
Hardcover - 434 pages
Cambridge Univ Pr (Short); ISBN: 0521553466
British policy in Southeast Asia in the early years of World War II. With its military strength directed against Germany, Britain drew on diplomatic resources to maintain its power in the area and to limit the Japanese threat. The book focuses on Britain's relations with America, Dutch India, the Philippines, French Indo-China and Thailand. Amazon.com

Carrier Warfare in the Pacific : An Oral History Collection
(Smithsonian History of Aviation)
by E.T. Wooldridge (Editor), John B. Connally
Listed under Aircraft Carriers

Combat Surgeon: On Iwo With the 27th Marines
James S. Vedder
Paperback

Crommelin's Thunderbirds : Air Group 12 Strikes the Heart of Japan
Roy W. Bruce, et al
Listed under US Air Force

Corregidor : The Rock Force Assault, 1945
by E. M. Flanagan
Paperback - 320 pages (April )
Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891416595

Day of Infamy
by Walter Lord
Listed under Pearl Harbor

The Day Man Lost Hiroshima, 6 August 1945
by Pacific War Research Society
Listed under Atomic Bomb

Devil Boats : The PT War Against Japan
by William B. Breuer
Listed under PT Boats

The Devil's Anvil
by James H. Hallas
The Devil's Anvil tells the history of the battle for the island of Peleliu in the Western Caroline Islands--a battle that was supposed to take two days and instead took two months.
Hardcover - 320 pages
Praeger Pub Text; ISBN: 0275946460

Double-Edged Secrets : U.S. Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific During World War II (Bluejacket Books)
by W. J. Holmes
Paperback - 256 pages
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 1557503249

Eagle Against the Sun : The American War With Japan
by Ronald H. Spector
Drawing on declassified intelligence files, British and U.S. archival material, Japanese documents and memoirs of politicians and military men, Spector reassesses U.S. and Japanese strategy of the 44 month struggle of the American war with Japan
Paperback - 589 pages (November 1985)
Random House
(Paper); ISBN: 0394741013
 

The Eagle and the Rising Sun: The Japanese-American War 1941-1943: Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal
by Alan Schom
Hardcover from W.W. Norton & Company
 
Ernie Pyle's War : America's Eyewitness to World War II
(Modern War Studies)
by James Tobin
The story of a WW2 correspondent in the Pacific Theater.
Paperback - 312 pages
Univ Pr of Kansas; ISBN: 0700608974

Every Other Day : Letters from the Pacific
by George Blanchard Lucas
Hardcover (November )
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 1557505284

First 24 Hours of War in the Pacific
by Donald J. Young
Hardcover
Burd Street Pr; ISBN: 1572490799

The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign : Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942
by John B. Lundstrom
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

The First Team : Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
by John B. Lundstrom
Hardcover - 547 pages (July 1984)
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 0870211897

The Fleet the Gods Forgot : The U.S. Asiatic Fleet in World War II
(Bluejacket Books)
by W. G. Winslow
Stories of the crews and ships of the Phillipines fleet immediately after Pearl Harbour, detailing the many losses and few victories. Dropbears.com
Paperback Reprint edition (April )
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 155750928X

Ghost of War : The Sinking of the Awa Maru and Japanese-American Relations, 1945-1995
Roger Dingman
Hardcover
The accidental sinking of a Japanese merchant ship sailing under safe passage negotiated clandestinely by the U.S. and Japan during the last part of WWII.

A Glorious Page in Our History : The Battle of Midway, 4-6 June, 1942
by Robert J. Cressman, Steve Ewing
Listed under Battle of Midway

Good Night Officially : The Pacific War Letters of a Destroyer Sailor : The Letters of Yeoman James Orvill Raines (Reville Book)
by James Orvill Raines, William M. McBride (Editor)
Orvill Raines served aboard the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Howorth from early 1944 until his death in action when his ship was hit by a Japanese suicide plane off Okinawa in 1945. Booklist
Texas A&M University Press
Paperback - 344 pages 2nd Rep edition

Graveyards of the Pacific : From Pearl Harbor to Bikini Island
by Robert D. Ballard, Michael Hamilton Morgan (Contributor)
National Geographic Society
Hardcover - 224 pages

Guadalcanal : Decision at Sea : The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Nov. 13-15, 1942
by Eric M. Hammel
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

Hiroshima
John Hersey 
Listed under Hiroshima

In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
by Doug Stanton
Listed under U.S.S. Indianapolis

In My Sights : The Memoir of a P-40 Ace
by James B. Morehead
Listed under Aviation History

Incredible Victory (Classics of War)
by Walter Lord
Battle of Midway, June 1942.
Listed under Battle of Midway

Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937-45 (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces, 22)
by Henry Sakaida
Listed under Japanese Aircraft WWII

Infamy : Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath
by John Toland
Listed under Pearl Harbor
 

Into the Rising Sun : In Their Own Words, World War II 's Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat
by Patrick K. O'Donnell
The author of Beyond Valor offers a new collection of oral histories from veterans of the Second World War, this time from the Pacific theater. In an introduction, Patrick K. O'Donnell warns, "oral histories are perhaps the best means available to reveal the horrors and pathos of the foxhole." Indeed, several of the accounts he compiles on these pages are grisly, such as the story of Tom Lyons, stabbed in the neck by a Japanese soldier on Guadalcanal. Lyons survived, but only after being heaped on top of a pile of dead bodies. Rumors of his death reached home: "My mother got a check from my insurance company saying I was dead the same day she got a letter from me written by a nurse at a hospital in New Zealand." Combat stories abound, including a firsthand account of Gunnery Sergeant William G. Walsh jumping on a grenade to protect his squad on Iwo Jima, a feat for which he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. O'Donnell organizes his material chronologically and introduces each chapter to help readers understand the context of the soldiers' individual narratives. For those who enjoy real-life war stories told from the perspective of the men who were there, Into the Rising Sun is hard to beat. John Miller - Amazon.com
Hardcover - 384 pages (March )
Free Press; ISBN: 0743214803
 
Into the Shadows Furious
by Brian Altobello
The struggle to take the Japanese airbase at Munda on New Georgia after Guadalcanal.
Hardcover - 352 pages 1 edition (December 15, )
Presidio Pr; ISBN: 0891417176

Iwo Jima 1945 : Pacific Theatre (Campaign, 81)
by Derek Wright
Listed under Iwo Jima
 

Japan at War : An Oral History
by Haruko Taya Cook, Theodore F. Cook (Contributor)
Paperback Reprint edition (October 1993)
New Press; ISBN: 1565840399
 
Japanese Army Air Force Aces 1937-45 (Aircraft of the Aces , No 13)
by Henry Sakaida
Listed under Aircraft of the Aces

MacArthur's Jungle War : The 1944 New Guinea Campaign (Modern War Studies)
by Stephen R. Taaffe
Listed Under General Douglas MacArthur

Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific
by Oscar E. Gilbert
Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific is a gripping narrative that combines exhaustive detail on Marine armor and combat with moving eyewitness accounts, never before published, of what it was actually like to be a Marine tanker in action in the Pacific - awe inspiring bravery in the face of a skilled and fanatic foe. Amazon.com
Hardcover: 356 pages
Da Capo Press; ISBN: 1580970508; (January 15, )

Midway : The Battle That Doomed Japan : The Japanese Navy's Story
by Mitsuo Fuchida, Masatake Okumiya
Listed under Battle of Midway

Munda Trail : The New Georgia Campaign
by Eric M. Hammel
A well written account of the Solomon Islands campaign.
Paperback - 292 pages
Pacifica Pr; ISBN: 093555338X

Naval Battle of Guadalcanal : Night Action, 13 November 1942
by James W. Grace
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

Nimitz
A biography by Elmer Belmont Potter
Listed under American Commanders of WWII

New Guinea and the Marianas : March 1944-August 1944
(History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,  Volume 8)
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns

The Naked and the Dead
Norman Mailer
Listed under Military Fiction

The Pilots
by James Spencer
(Hardcover)

Okinawa : The Last Battle of World War II
by Robert Leckie
Paperback Reprint edition
Penguin USA
(Paper); ISBN: 0140173897

Okinawa 1945: The Last Battle (Campaign, 96)
by Gordon Rottman, Howard Gerrard (Illustrator)
(Paperback)

Once They Were Eagles : The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron
by Frank E. Walton
Paperback Reprint edition
Univ Pr of Kentucky; ISBN: 0813108756
 

Operation Iceberg : The Invasion and Conquest of Okinawa in World War II
by Gerald Astor
Paperback - 576 pages (December )
Dell Publishing Company; ISBN: 0440221781
 
The Pacific War Atlas 1941-1945
by David Smurthwaite
August 1995 will mark the 50th anniversay of the conclusion of the Pacific War. This book brings to life all the famous, as well as little-known, battles and locations, and the brilliant island-hopping strategy that, by 1945, won back the Philippines and brought a striking force to Japan's doorstep at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Black-and-white photographs, full-color maps. 
Paperback: 141 pages 
Publisher: Facts on File; illustrated edition edition  
Language: English 
ISBN-10: 0816032866 
 
The Pacific War
by John Costello
John Costello's The Pacific War has now established itself as the standard one-volume account of World War II in the Pacific. Never before have the separate stories of fighting in China, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies, the Phillipines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Aleutians been so brilliantly woven together to provide a clear account of one of the most massive movements of men and arms in history. The complex social, political, and economic causes that underlay the war are here carefully analyzed, impelling the reader to see it as the inevitable conclusion to a series of historical events. And the bloody fighting that indelibly recorded names like Midway and Iwo Jima in the annals of human conflict is described in detail, through its ominous conclusion in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
The Pacific Campaign : World War II : The U.S.-Japanese Naval War,1941-1945
by Dan Van Der Vat
 
Pacific War, Nineteen Thirty-One to Nineteen Forty-Five : a Critical Perspective on Japan's Role in World War II
by Saburo Ienaga, Frank Baldwin (Translator)
Paperback (August 1979)
Random House
(Paper); ISBN: 0394734963

Ray Parkin's Wartime Trilogy
by Ray Parkin
An extraordinary work by an Australian who endured the sinking of his ship, HMAS Perth, after an epic battle against impossible odds. He then spent years as a POW on the Burma Railway and then in Japan working the mines until the dropping of the atomic bomb. The work comprises his three books: Out of the Smoke; Into the Smother; The Sword and the Blossom. Dropbears.com
Listed under Australia at War

The Rescue: A True Story of Courage and Survival in World War II
by Steven Trent Smith
In 1944, the US submarine Crevalle picked up 40 from a small island in the Philipines including 21 women, 12 children, and seven escaped American POWs. It also picked up the battle plans of a Japanese admiral whose plane had come down nearby.
John Wiley & Sons
Hardcover - 336 pages (April 13, )

The Ship That Held the Line : The U.S.S. Hornet and the First Year of the Pacific War
by Lisle Abbott Rose
Listed under Aircraft Carriers

South Pacific Destroyer : The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf
by Russell Sydnor Crenshaw
Listed under New Guinea Campaigns
 

Strong Men Armed: The US Marines Against Japan
by Robert Leckie
Paperback - 600 pages
Da Capo Press; ISBN: 0306807858
 
Storm Landings : Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific
by Joseph H. Alexander, Carl E. Mundy Jr
This is the story of seven now-epic long-range assaults executed against murderous enemy fire at Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa - and a potential eighth, Kyushu. ... The battles were violent, thoroughly decisive, and always bloody, with the landing force never relinquishing the offensive. The cost of storming these seven fortified islands was great: 74,805 combat casualties for the Marines and their Navy comrades. Losses among participating Army and offshore Navy units spiked the total to 100,000 dead and wounded. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of research in original battle accounts, new Japanese translations, and fresh interviews with survivors. Richly illustrated and abounding with human-interest anecdotes about colorful "web-footed amphibians," Storm Landings vividly portrays the sheer drama of these three-dimensional battles whose magnitude and ferocity may never again be seen in this world. 
Hardcover - 216 pages
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 1557500320
 
Tarawa 1943 (Campaign Series, 77)
by Derek Wright
In 1943 the island of Beito in the Tarawa Atoll was defended by the elite troops of the Special Naval Landing Force, whose commander, Admiral Shibasaki, had boasted that "the Americans could not take Tarawa with a million men in a hundred years". In a pioneering amphibious invasion, the Marines of the 2nd Division would overcome serious errors of planning to fight a 76-hour battle of unprecedented savagery. Amazon.com
Paperback

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
by Captain Ted W. Lawson
Listed under The Doolittle Raid

Touched With Fire : The Land War in the South Pacific
by Eric Bergerud
Paperback - 608 pages Reprint edition
Penguin USA
(Paper); ISBN: 0140246967
 

Utmost Savagery : The Three Days of Tarawa
by Joseph H., Col. Alexander
On November 20, l943, in the first trial by fire of America's fledgling amphibious assault doctrine, five thousand men stormed the beaches of Tarawa, a seemingly invincible Japanese island fortress barely the size of the Pentagon parking lots (three-hundred acres!). Before the first day ended, one third of the Marines who had crossed Tarawa's deadly reef under murderous fire were killed, wounded, or missing. In three days of fighting, four Americans would win the Medal of Honor. And six-thousand combatants would die.

Now, Col. Joseph Alexander, a combat Marine himself, presents the full story of Tarawa in all its horror and glory: the extreme risks, the horrific combat, and the heroic breakthroughs. Based on exhaustive research, never-before-published accounts from Marine survivors, and new evidence from Japanese sources, Colonel Alexander captures the grit, guts, and relentless courage of United States Marines overcoming outrageous odds to deliver victory for their country.

"Without a doubt the best narrative of the struggle ever produced." --Richard B. Frank, Author of Guadalcanal
Paperback - 326 pages Reprint edition
(February )
Ivy Books; ISBN: 0804115591

 
Victory at Sea : World War II in the Pacific
by James F. Dunnigan, Albert A. Nofi (Contributor)
Paperback - 624 pages (November )
Quill; ISBN: 0688149472
 
Victory in the Pacific 1945 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol.14)
by Samuel Eliot Morison
(Hardcover)

The Sea Hawks : With the PT Boats at War
by Edgar D. Hoagland
Listed under PT Boats
 

War Without Mercy
John Dower
This book draws on American, English and Japanese songs, cartoons, propaganda films, secret reports and official documents to show exactly what role racism played in the Pacific war.
Paperback / Published 1987
 
The War in the Pacific : From Pearl Harbor to Okinawa, 1941-1945 (G.I. Series)
by Jonathan Gawne
Paperback - 72 pages
Greenhill Press; ISBN: 185367253X

With the Old Breed : At Peleliu and Okinawa
by Eugene B. Sledge
Based on notes he secreted within his Bible, Eugene Sledge has written an extraordinary account of his combat experiences during the Pacific War. John Keegan describes this moving book on the American soldier as "one of the most arresting documents in war literature." 
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With the Fifth Army Air Force: Photos from the Pacific Theater
by James P. Gallagher, Eric Bergerud
(Hardcover)

You Can't Fight Tanks With Bayonets : Psychological Warfare Against the Japanese Army in the Southwest Pacific
by Allison B. Gilmore
Hardcover - 304 pages (April )
Univ of Nebraska Pr; ISBN: 0803221673

Tanks on the Beaches: Marine Tanker in the Great Pacific War (Texas A&M University Military History Series, 85.)
by Robert M. Neiman, et al
(Hardcover)

Saipan: Oral Histories of the Pacific War
by Bruce M. Petty (Editor)
(Hardcover)

Atlas of the Second World War : Asia and the Pacific
(West Point Military History Series)
by Thomas E. Griess (Editor)
Paperback Spiral edition (January 1986)
Avery Pub Group; ISBN: 0895293048
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Aces Against Japan : The American Aces Speak
by Eric M. Hammel
Paperback Reprint edition
Pocket Books; ISBN: 0671529080
Out of Print - Try Used Books

China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1931-1941
by Youli Sun
Hardcover - 244 pages
St Martins Pr (Short); ISBN: 0312090102
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Cohassett Beach Chronicles : World War II in the Pacific Northwest
by Kathy Hogan, Lucy Hart (Editor), Klancy De Nevers (Editor)
Hardcover - 256 pages
Oregon State Univ Pr; ISBN: 0870713841
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Goodbye Darkness : A Memoir of the Pacific War
by William Manchester
Paperback Rei edition (May 1987)
Dell Pub Co; ISBN: 0440329078
Out of Print - Try Used Books

My Father's War : A Son's Journey
Peter Richmond
Hardcover
By retracing his father's South Pacific experiences during World War II, the author seeks an understanding of the man who died when the author was six, of his own identity, and of the nature of heroism.
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Our Jungle Road to Tokyo
Robert L.Eichelberger
The story of the U.S. Eighth Army's ground war in the Pacific written by the Lieutenant-General who commanded and fought with them. It is the story of a tough and effective combat leader who was not afraid to be within range of Japanese mortar fire. Sent initially to Australia as I corps commander, General Eichelberger was given responsibility for the critical Buna front in late 1942. His successes there eventually earned him promotion to command of the newly formed Eighth Army. Under his leadership, much of New Guinea was retaken and most of the southern Philippines was liberated. With victory assured, General Eichelberger was given command of American and Allied occupation forces in the Japanese Home Islands. Our Jungle Road to Tokyo is more than the story of one man's war. It provides a rare look at the strategy of General MacArthur, the problems of inter-Allied and inter-service cooperation and the decision making process of America's high command in World War 11. And most importantly, it is a moving story of the sacrifices of American servicemen who fought a determined enemy 5000 miles from home.
Out of Print - Try Used Books

Disaster in the Pacific : New Light on the Battle of Savo Island
by Denis Ashton Warner
Hardcover - 298 pages (September 1992)
United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 0870212567
Out of Print - Try Used Books
 
 
 
 

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