Customer Reviews

1942

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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 rperry1778@aol.com

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.

Winston Groom is perhaps best known as the author of the novel Forrest Gump, which eventually became Tom Hanks's Oscar-winning title role in the movie of the same name. For whatever reason, though, Groom's decided to turn himself into a military historian, and his last three books are in that field: one book each on the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.

1942 is different from the other two books in one very large sense: the other two books attempted to illuminate for Americans two campaigns that (to Americans anyway) are obscure. Groom openly was trying to change that with those first two books. This current book isn't about an obscure campaign: it's instead a retelling of America's role in World War II during 1942, our first full year of participation.

Groom doesn't attempt any ground-breaking research, here. The bibliography mentions only secondary sources and autobiographies of participants. If he consulted any archives or documentary sources he doesn't mention it. Instead, he's distilled what must be a couple of hundred books into 400 pages of entertaining prose, covering American participation in the war over the course of a year.

Since the year he chose to cover is 1942, the book mostly deals with battles in the Pacific against the Japanese. Pearl Harbor, the Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal are the heart of the book's narrative, and in these he largely succeeds in doing what he's trying to do: explain what American participation in the war meant, and how it was fought. He also includes a considerable number of anecdotes and personal accounts of various stages of the war, from American females spies to the guy who escaped from a POW camp in China and walked 700 miles to freedom. Since Groom's prose is very good (he is a novelist, after all) the whole thing works together very well.

While Groom's a good writer, he sticks pretty closely to the "official" version of what happened in various battles and campaigns, and won't surprise anyone with any of his major conclusions. This book isn't for people wishing to study World War II in depth: it's for those who don't know anything, or much, about the war.

I did enjoy this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't know much about World War II. It does suffer somewhat from being very America-centered, but it can be supplemented by other books, and it's good for what it is.

Winston Groom's history of an early year of WWII, 1942, is an excellent book. For those that read little on WWII, 1942 gives a fast-paced overview of that difficult year of the war. If you are already well-read on WWII, 1942 provides some reasonable social history of the war, linking together actions, backgrounds and connections of key personalities of the war and giving some useful citations along the way. Of course better histories have been written of this period - Groom is not trying to outdo professional historians. Rather he has created a fairly thorough and entertaining narrative of the early part of WWII (early for Americans) and does an excellent job of placing the reader in the shoes of Americans living through that difficult time. One minor weakness of the book is that emphasis is given to U.S. campaigns in the Pacific; much less time is given to the Atlantic and the European Theatre. Maybe Groom will do another book on that topic, perhaps covering the famous battles of operation Barbarossa. By all means read this book, it is very well-written and a page-turner from start to finish. Hopefully, Hollywood will do another feature length film on one of the book's many subtopics, such as the British and American code breakers. It would prove as entertaining as Forrest Gump.

I agree with the other high ratings for this book. Groom did an excellent job in his previous historical efforts, and has surpassed that. The narrative is entertaining, well sourced, and fuses the chronology and topical accounts to create a very readable delivery.
Without using a historical bludgeon, he addresses some of the main controversies - did FDR manipulate events to instigate a Pearl Harbor? The answer is no, but he did blunder and vacillate at key times. Did the US have some justification for its suspicions of resident and citizen Japanese who had divided loyalites; and hence, their incarceration? - Yes, but not in the manner some other ideologues, such as Michelle Malkin have portrayed.
Groom handles these, and other areas of polemic in a detached, but still engaging fashion. For instance, he discusses MacArthur and criticizes him, but does not rail incessantly. It is balanced and informative.
It is almost novel level excitement as he walks you through the Doolittle raids and the subsequent fate of the pilots. Both the nuggets and the big picture are woven into quality storytelling. I would rate it a rank higher if the scoring permitted.

This is an excellent work that focuses on the dark days at the end of 1941 through mid-1942 when the question regarding World War II was in doubt, through the remainder of that year when the tide turned full well to the Allies.

From Midway, to the horrific battles for the Philippines, Gaudalcanal, North Africa, referencing the issue in Russia, and the many battles on land and sea in between. From the breaking of the enemy codes and the huge impact that had through the coincidnetal plays of fate in the major battles and the impact of tremndous production capabilities of the US as they came into play.

Any student of history should read this work. Groom has created a riveting and at times anguishing and very accurate portrayal of that year, 1942, when the future of the world hinged on the outcome of the battles and strategies that guided the US and the allies through that time period.

Very well done.

Most of the Pacific fleet resting at the bottom of the ocean. Wake Island's stalwart defenders forsaken like at a modern Alamo. The Philippine garrison under siege. German U-boats menacing Atlantic shipping lanes.

Trying times, indeed, at the outset of America's involvement in World War II. "1942" is Winston Groom's brilliant, often lyrical, account of America's desperate struggle to overcome years of un-preparedness and underestimation of the enemy, and to turn the tide against the Axis powers.

The book, by definition, is primarily (though not exclusively) focused on the Pacific War, and Groom eloquently re-tells the epic battles that halted the Japanese offensive on the threshold of Australia: Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, etc.


It abounds with colorful anecdotes of individual heroism: Claire "High Pockets" Phillips, a Manila nightclub impresario who risked her life to deliver food and medicines to starving prisoners at the infamous Cabanatuan prison camp. A young American woman known as "Cynthia," who literally bared all to help procure the Vichy naval codes prior to Operation Torch. Columbus Darwin Smith, the first American captured by the Japanese, who escaped from captivity and survived a harrowing, 700-mile trek through Japanese-held China. The famous Doolittle raid, Bataan Death March, etc., etc.

Groom is not the first to recount these events. But he has an unsurpassed gift for storytelling and a writing style that produces an engaging, highly accessible narrative. Even readers who loathed high school history will find this book irresistible. Five stars all around.

In this remarkable book, Winston Groom takes us through the pivotal year of 1942 when the war between the Axis and Allies hung in the balance. Rarely in the annals of history has one year been identified as so momentous. During this time, Hitler's armies were plundering Europe and Russia through countless victories. The Japanese ruled the Pacific. The American fleet had been smashed at Pearl Harbor. The Russian reeled before the onslaught of the Wehrmacht. But in this book, you get much more. You get the broad strokes of history - and the personal march of that history through the lives of the men and women who lived it. It is a book of enormous sacrific and honorable victory as the tide turns. This book is essential to any World War II history buff and any American who wants to honor the history of our men and women in the Armed Forces.

Other reviewers have commented favourably on Groom's writing. Indeed, I readily agree with most of those remarks. But the book has a curious omission. There is not a single map of any of the battles that he describes. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guadalcanal etc. There are certainly many black and white photos from those events. All to the good. But surely the author or his publisher could have commissioned some simple maps.

In military histories written decades ago, maps were fairly rare, possibly due to the extra printing cost. Well that has come down. And for a subject such as this, surely a few would have seemed appropriate?