ISSUE 182 : Jul/Aug - 2010 - Australian Defence Force Journal

The PacificHugh AmbroseText Publishing: Melbourne, 2010ISBN: 978-1-9216-5610-1War in the Pacific 1941-1945Richard OveryAllen & Unwin: Sydney, 2010ISBN: 978-1-7423-7276-1Reviewed by Drs Gregory P. Gilbert and David M. Stevens, Sea Power Centre - Australia“Sledgehammer, do you think I’ll lose my leg?” He had already lost his lower leg. Gene lied andsaid, “Buddy, you’ll be alright.” As he said the words, he saw the man die.The Pacific, p. 414.For those who have seen the HBO miniseries The Pacific, the intimate description of a marine’spersonal experience of death would not come as a surprise. It is a timely reminder, in a worldwhere video games tend towards ‘combat pornography’, that the grisly finality of modern waris not a game. Hugh Ambrose’s The Pacific, which is marketed as the official companion tothe miniseries, is a meticulously-researched narrative of the personal experiences of everydayAmericans who fought (and died) in the Pacific War 1941-45. Using the diaries, letters andreports of five individuals, Ambrose develops the thoughts and ideas of these players into anintensely personal overview of the war in the Pacific.The Pacific is not a general history of the Pacific War. Many events which one might think areessential for an understanding of the strategic conduct of the many campaigns that led to thedefeat of Japan in 1945 are not included. Rather, it is the individual experience of this handfulof Americans that drives the narrative. Where the miniseries concentrated on the lives of asmall number of US Marines fighting at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester and Okinawa, Ambrose’sThe Pacific has an expanded ‘cast’ of five. By including the remarkable stories of Austin Shofner,a US Marine officer captured by the Japanese in the Philippines, who managed to escape andfight in the later campaigns, and Vernon Micheel, a naval aviator who flew dive-bombers atMidway in 1942, from Guadalcanal in 1942 and at the battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944,the book has managed to come into contact with a good many ‘typical’ campaigns of the war.89