1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls [Paperback]

Winston Groom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2006

From the author of Forrest Gump and A Storm in Flanders comes a riveting chronicle of America's most critical hour. On December 6, 1941, an unexpected attack on American territory pulled an unprepared country into a terrifying new brand of warfare. Novelist and popular historian Winston Groom vividly re-creates the story of America's first year in World War II. To the generation of Americans who lived through it, the Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century, and the defining events of that war were played out in the year 1942.

This account covers the Allies' relentless defeats as the Axis overran most of Europe, North Africa, and the Far East. But midyear the tide began to turn. America finally went on the offensive in the Pacific, and in the west the British defeated Rommel's panzer divisions at El Alamein while the U.S. Army began to push the Germans out of North Africa. By the year's end, the smell of victory was in the air. 1942, told with Groom's accomplished storyteller's eye, allows us into the admirals' strategy rooms, onto the battle fronts, and into the heart of a nation at war.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forrest Gump novelist Groom offers another of his nonfiction labors of love, centering his story of a pivotal year on the war against Japan. No revisionist, Groom delivers the traditional worshipful portrait of General MacArthur while admitting he made several key blunders that doomed the Philippines in the year's early months. In May the two fleets met in the Coral Sea. While the Japanese came out ahead, they abandoned their invasion of New Guinea, and Groom follows the standard account of calling it an American victory. He adds that brains and luck win more battles than courage, providing a perfect illustration in Midway, fought in June 1942. Having broken Japan's naval code, American forces surprised a vastly superior Japanese fleet and sank all four of its carriers. In August, the First Marine Division was deposited on an obscure island, Guadalcanal, then hastily retreated. For the next four months, in what is the book's highlight, the marines fought with epic heroism against repeated efforts to expel them. Almost as an afterthought, Groom shows American forces taking their first step against Germany, landing in North Africa in November and quickly bogging down. Heroism was not in short supply, but much of it occurred in 1943. A talented writer, Groom has written a page-turner; readers needing an introduction will love it. Agent, Theron Raines. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The first few months of 1942 saw perhaps the greatest threat in history to the survival of liberal democratic societies. In the Pacific, the American fleet had been devastated at Pearl Harbor, Singapore had fallen, and Japan seemed invulnerable behind a military screen stretching for thousands of miles. In Europe, Hitler had established Fortress Europe. But by the end of the year, the tide had clearly turned. The Japanese advance had been halted at Midway and the Coral Sea, the Afrika Corps had been defeated at El Alamein, and German forces were bogged down at Stalingrad. Groom is both a celebrated novelist (Forrest Gump, 1994) and historian, and he brings his skills as a master storyteller to chronicle the great events and the men, both powerful and ordinary, who pulled our societies back from the abyss. Groom sets the stage by showing both the confusion and bravery as Americans were defeated at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and his account of the subsequent death marches is heartbreaking. In recounting the steady recovery and then advances of Allied arms, Groom intersperses experiences of individual soldiers and sailors with the broader strategic picture. This is a superb work of popular history that is a worthy addition to World War II collections. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (April 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802142508
• ISBN-13: 978-0802142504
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #575,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A different look at the War, May 18, 2005

By 

Mitch Reed (Washington DC, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book, the style it was written, and they way Groom presents the story. One fact that I noticed and liked is that Groom checked his facts and used multiple sources to corroborate the facts he presents to the reader. The book focuses on many different levels of the conflict, from the strategic to the tactical level and also details the events that lead to the climate of 1942. Yes the book is written from an American point of view, but the scope of world events are woven into the story. I like how Groom takes the time to briefly point out some if the issues that have raised questions in 1942 and since. This is where Groom's use of various sources comes in handy; and He gives us his opinion which he is entitled to. The book flows excellently and portrays the events in this hectic year in great detail. As an avid reader of history I did find the book very interesting because of Groom's insight and how he is not afraid to insert a personal opinion. If you enjoyed 1942, I recommend "A Storm in Flanders" very highly.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pageturning narrative by a talented historian/storyteller, June 5, 2005

By 

Roy E. Perry "amateur philosopher" (Nolensville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls (Hardcover)

Best known for his novel Forrest Gump, Winston Groom is also the author of Shrouds of Glory (1995), an account of Gen. John Bell Hood's Tennessee campaign, culminating in the battles of Franklin and Nashville, the last significant Confederate offensive of the American Civil War.

In 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls, Groom combines a historian's careful attention to substance with the novelist's flair for style to produce an impressive account of the first year of World War II.

While Groom includes the requisite facts and figures of a historical chronicle, his forte is storytelling. Avoiding the boring presentations of many academic textbooks, he presents a vivid and suspenseful narrative filled with graphic descriptions of horrendous events.

In every sense of the word, 1942 is a page-turner.

In the first months of 1942, the outlook for the Allies was grim. The Japanese had captured Wake, Guam, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Manila, and Thailand. Following the fall of the Philippines, Japanese atrocities increased in intensity during the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March.

"The Japanese octopus continued to crawl all over the Pacific," writes Groom. There seemed to be nothing to stop its tentacles from reaching out in every direction.

"Following the Pearl Harbor disaster [Dec. 7, 1941]," Groom continues, "America was in grave military danger. Most of our Pacific fleet and air force no longer existed and the Japanese were running amok all over that ocean and in the Far East, banging at the very gates of Australia and India and even invading U.S. territory in Alaska.

"America was almost totally unprepared for war and would not be fully equipped for another year. By a wide margin she was losing the battle of the Atlantic to German submarines, and the U.S. fighting forces were nowhere near to being properly trained and ready to fight. That they did so anyway--so that by the end of 1942 the worldwide Axis onrush was blunted for good--should be considered nothing less than awe-inspiring."

The lion's share of the book deals with the war in the South Pacific, and the heart of the book deals with two "turning points" in this theater: the Battle of Midway, in which the U.S. fleet destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers (the Kaga, the Soryu, the Akagi, and the Hiryu), and the tenacious and heroic defense of Guadalcanal (in the Solomon Islands) by the First Marine Division.

"The importance of the Battle of Guadalcanal," writes Groom, "can hardly be overstated. First it stopped the huge Japanese Pacific offensive in its tracks. It helped make Australia safe from Japanese air attacks on its sea-lanes of communication and supply. It sucked up Japanese troopers destined for the New Guinea campaign. It gave the Allies a solid, strategic forward base from which to launch the long and bloody war across the Pacific to Tokyo. It relieved the menace to shipping lanes from the United States to Australia and New Zealand and protected vital U.S. outposts such as Fiji, Samoa, and the Hebrides. And, finally, it confirmed for the American public and its fighting troops that the Japanese army was not the invincible machine they had been led to believe."

Groom also points out the importance to the Allied war effort of radar and code-breaking in providing invaluable information that detected the intentions and movements of the enemy. "Intelligence," he asserts, "had as much to do with winning many World War II battles as the actual fighting ships did."

Although Groom writes briefly about the war in North Africa (the Battle of El Alamein and the drive toward Tunisia), he virtually ignores the terrible fighting between the German and Russian armies at Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad.

Groom's engaging work is a tribute to the Americans who sacrificed their lives in a heroic stand against a worldwide wave of brutality and barbarism. Reading about the courageous struggle of this greatest generation makes one proud to be an American.

Roy E. Perry of Nolensville, Tennessee, may be reached at [e-mail]

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best WWII Books I Have Read!, October 5, 2005

By 

Gary Turner (Powder Springs, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls (Hardcover)

Winstom Groom has written a terrific book around the subject of the year 1942. After laying some WWII groundwork (cause/effect), he shows the devastation that our country faced after Pearl Harbor. A country of isolationists became a country set on justice, but found themselves without the tools to fight the war. He develops how we as a country rose to the challenge of a World War, working with our allies to defeat the Axis.
Groom delves into the popular details, along with the "nooks and crannies" of the war. He does not present the facts in dry detail as some historians do, but makes history come alive with human details.
As to the remarks of a previous reviewer regarding the fact that Groom presents no new facts, perhaps he should have read the introduction where the author tells his readers that this book is not for the WWII buff who knows everything, but for the common person who desires a better understanding regarding the events that made this war the defining event of the 20th century.