Customer Reviews

Across The Dark Islands

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"Across the Dark Islands" seems to have been completed by 1984 but was not published until after Floyd Radike's death. No wonder. This is one of the harsher indictments of Army incompetence and dishonesty to come out of World War II.

In addition to that, it is a finely-crafted, too brief memoir of a platoon leader's three campaigns in Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Luzon. Radike was a National Guardsman (apparently originally in a Michigan outfit, later in California) who went through OCS shortly before Pearl Harbor. He ended up in the 1st Battalion, 161st Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. (Not the 37th, as one sloppy reviewer in a military publication has it.)

The 25th was a wartime incarnation of the old Hawaiian Division, a Regular outfit, but the 161st was a Washington National Guard unit. Radike was a double outsider -- the Regulars weren't going to let the Guard get ahead, and the Washington Guard officers formed, he says, a tight clique. The result of this careerism and militia incompetence was needlessly dead young GIs.

Radike is scathing in his criticism, but this, the most important part of the book, is ignored by all the published reviews I have been able to find, which have been in military specialist magazines (mostly of the yahoo blood and guts variety). Too bad. "Across the Dark Islands" deserves more and more thoughtful attention than it has gotten.

The book is particularly valuable because Radike tells what he knows of the American regiment that turned tail and ran on New Georgia. The 161st was attached to the 37th Division to plug this hole. According to Radike, the story of the panic-stricken regiment of the 37th (which he calls X Regiment) is not included in the Army's official histories, and even the name of that regiment has been suppressed.

The Navy knew, though, and while details are made available here that have been lacking in the naval histories, the disgraceful slowness, confusion and incompetence of the Munda campaign are sketched out in the naval histories. Radike's is, however, the closest to an eyewitness account I have discovered.

On a more personal level, "Across the Dark Islands" would be a wonderful gift for any young infantry officer or enlisted man. Radike, who eventually became a one-star in the Michigan National Guard, was a thoughtful officer, and there's more here about how to lead and fight a platoon than in a stack of Field Manuals.

Last but not least, Radike, a teacher in civilian life, is a graceful and careful writer.

All in all, the book is a pleasure to read, a valuable if small contribution to Pacific War history and a cautionary tale that our 21st century higher command ought to become familiar with: the stupidity that Radike had to live with in 1942-45 is still killing young GIs in 2006.

i couldn't put this book down. the author gives a very graphic & detailed account of the war in the pacific. what i found idelible, was the authors desciption of the whole setting of the war. it was as clear and detailed as the moment he had experienced them.
the WWII generation was truly the most extraordinary generation of americans, complaining very little, & offering everything to their country for a better and safer future. to hear their experiences in their own words, is a truly invaluable.

Across the Dark is Brigadier General Radike's descriptions of his own personal experience of World War II where he was in the National Guard and was involved in many of the combats in the Pacific (NOTE: he was not a Brigadier General during the war).

Radike is very specific in his opinions of the way the situations he was involved in were handled and he doesn't hold anything back so he is quick to point at flaws of the US Military, but he does try to be fair in pointing out the things that are done right.

While reading this I got the feeling that this was written during the war or immediately after because it sounds very simliar to the way a lot of people complain about their current companies. I also came to that conclusion since this was not published until after his death, almost as if he didn't want to publish it, but who knows.

With that criticism in place, I thought this was a very well written book that helps to explain the parts of war that are not always advertised. Most of us have heard about Iwo Jima or Normandy, but not many people have heard about the events that took place on all of the other Pacific Islandsd and he does a great job of explaining all of the obstacles that had to be overcome and the lack of knowledge that soldiers often had to deal with such as landing on an island and not having a map available.

The one thing I really wish would have been included would have been an introduction or prologue by Radike describing his thoughts on everything after making it to the ranking of Brigadier General and having that much more experience under his belt. It would have been truly interesting to see how his thoughts might have changed if at all.

This is one of the best books I've ever read, about any subject, hands down. Floyd W. Radike was a Lieutenant in Company B, 161st during WWII. They were a Washington State National Guard unit that was attached to the 25th Infantry Division after Pearl Harbor in 1942. I bought this book because I wanted an on the ground account of what the men of the 161st actually experienced during WWII. I was not disappointed and I believe that any person wanting a first person account of the war will not be disappointed either.

Brigadier General Radike never intended to publish this as a book. These were his private memoirs. His wife, Lydia, was not even aware that he had written them until after his death. She did us all a great service by deciding to publish his memoirs. She is a really wonderful woman who deserves our thanks and appreciation for publishing this book. Nothing has been omitted or rewritten. What you read are the true words of Floyd W. Radike.

Inside this book, you will find accounts of hardship, humor, bravery, cowardice, friendship, and rivalry. You will come away with the understanding that the Marines and Navy were not the only branches of the Armed forces to deserve widespread recognition for their service in the South Pacific. The Marines were first in, but the Army stayed for the long haul and finished the job while battling some of the worst conditions men ever faced during WWII. They fought while suffering from dissentary, malaria, jungle rot, dehydration, and exhaustion. They waded through mud up to their knees in sweltering heat and lived in constant tension and fear. Despite the horrendous obstacles they had to overcome, they got the job done. That's why the 25th I.D. earned the nickname "Tropic Lightning" during the Pacific Campaign.

The words of Floyd W. Radike sum it up best: "Ninety percent of the casualties (death, wounds, disease) were borne by the infantry. Since replacements were slow in coming, infantry companies were the size of platoons after Guadalcanal and the size of squads after New Georgia. In contrast the reduction in strength for support troops was minimal. When we speak of war, in its fullest sense, we speak of the fighting men-the infantry. Only the medics shared-often in heroic fashion-the stringencies of the front line."

Radike was an officer in the National Guard. Prior to the war he was posted to the 161st Regt, also a Guard unit, which was assigned to the regular 25th Division. He was with the unit throughout it's time in the Pacific, serving on Guadalcanal, New Georgia and Luzon and also for a time in Japan. Radike was a junior officer, serving firstly as a line company platoon officer, then as commander of the battalion recon platoon and then in various HQ roles.

In terms of combat, Radike sees most of his action on Luzon. In the earlier campaigns his unit is relegated to patrols, though on New Georgia it is used to plug a gap and some light attacks by the Japanese are fended off. On Luzon however he sees quite a bit of action against the Japanese 2nd Armoured Division and later in clearance operations in the mountains. This action is generally described from his perspective as an officer and though he clearly uses it, he doesn't write specifically of firing his rifle. The nature of combat is clear however. He loses friends and faces the usual risks. His perspective on such things is very interesting. One of his highlights was sharing a position with General Collins as he directed an attack. Radike was very impressed (he liked MacArthur too).

The strength of the book to me though, was his scathing expose of factionalism and incompetence in the army. As a `New' Guard officer, he is an outsider to the longer served `Good Old boys' of the 161st, many of whom seemingly achieved their ranks by their connections and social skills. There's no bones about it - he was `disgusted' with most of the field grade officers he found. He is appalled at the cronyism and the incompetence he encounters. In addition, the 161st is regarded with suspicion by the regular army soldiers of the rest of the division. On Guadalcanal it is treated like an `orphan or an unwanted relative' and gets only the most basic of assignments. Radike explores the reasons for this. For the regulars, war is their `Olympics', their chance for glory and promotion and his regimental commander is, in Radike's opinion, a glaring example. So yes, he names names and I imagine this is why this book was only published after his death. There'll be a few descendents who'll read uncomfortable things about their relatives. He also opens the lid on the case of a regiment of the 37th Division (it appears to be the 147th*)that failed and ran on New Georgia - something he claims was completely hushed up and struck from all official records.

I learned a lot from this book. Why Henderson Airfield, or at least the plain it was on was so vital. The consequences but also value of rumours. Most revealing though was the extensive critique of aspects of the army at that time - poor logistics, planning and tactics, the absence of good food, maps and suitable jungle equipment - it's a very eye opening account. Radike's combat involvement is that as seen (and directed) by a line officer, so there is less direct combat action to be found than in other memoirs on my list but as for sharp, detailed criticism, even ridicule of the army, this is an explosive read.
Highly Recommended.

*The 147th was an Ohio National Guard unit. Radike's claim is supported by the failure of Shelby Stanton in his substantive `World War II Order of Battle' to record its service on New Georgia, who only notes that is was relieved from the division in July. One website quotes a book saying the regiment was withdrawn due to casualties but elsewhere there seems to be silence - including the various Div/Regt associations. An article in `World War II' magazine (Pacific War: Special Collectors Issue 2003) mentions only units of the 145th and 148th regiments in a fairly upbeat account of the campaign. Stanton later notes that the 147th finally returned to action as the garrison on Iwo where it accounted for many Japanese holdouts and stragglers. Interestingly, an article in `Military Illustrated' (No 171) writes of the 43rd Division collapsing under the strain and only two of its regiments are mentioned.

A rather humble soldier (who later became a general) describes his experiences in the Second World War as he island hopped from the Canal to New Georgia, and finally the Phillappines. He relates his combat experience to those who sought to advance their own career without regard to the men underneath them. This showed the appearance of advancement when in fact it was needless loss of life and little gain. Floyd also shows how the command system expropriated the physically best men and gave the front lines units those that nobody wanted. This shows how war is unequal to both the uneducated and unfit.

The author describes it on how it is. It is a nice read that shows the bad life of the grunt on the line. Since this is the author's only book, it is more believeable than many from this time period.

I enjoyed this book very much with its "in the trenches" descriptions. My father was in the 145th Regiment of the 37th Division, so I was especially interested in the author's 161st Regiment role in the Munda Airfield attack. To be fair to the 37th Division, it was the most decorated Army Division in the War, with a Medal of Honor being awarded to the medic of the 145th in this campaign and a raft of Silver and Bronze Stars for bravery going to other members of the 37th. A Medal of Honor was also award to a member of the 148th Regiment of the 37th Division.

I tried to square the author's account with the official Marine and Army accounts, and, of course, the account of my father. The campaign started on the 6th of July, and the author's unit did not arrive until the 25th. There were no maps, poor food, torrential rains, and air raids on shallow foxholes. But more importantly, the enemy was dug in on Horseshoe Ridge with subterranean bunkers and pillboxes, raining down mortar and machine gun fire on the 145th and 148th. The 145th was also subject to many night grenade attacks as well.

His criticism of the 148th occurs immediately after a few of his men are killed. The author orders two soldiers to retrieve ammunition, and he witnesses their mortal wounding soon after. After this incident, he has it out with Regimental commander of the 148th for not supporting his flank. I believe the aftershock this incident caused this. I do know the 145th only had hand grenades and mortals and small arms for taking out the pillboxes which the author describes.

In consideration of all the accounts, I found the criticism a little petty and the taking of the sole credit for Munda a little grasping.

Floyd Radike's memoir from the 25th Infantry Division is an honest record of his service, and does not hesitate to list many grievances with Army command structure. The dissatisfaction the author felt towards the Army can be explained because his 161st regiment was mostly comprised of National Guard units, which often were considered "second class" by many in the regular Army. They typically found themselves on the low end of the totem pole throughout the early days of the war.

The 25th Division entered the war before most, and their lack of preparation showed. A very large percentage of the 161st regiment was simply exhausted by the unforgiving jungle terrain of Guadalcanal, shortly after their arrival in December of 1942. Although the regiment was in reserve, the majority of older Guardsmen were sent off the island with sickness and fatigue. While the other regiments in the 25th engaged in the battle for Mt. Austen (which would prove to be the crucial fight in breaking the Japanese perimeter around Henderson Field), the 161st found themselves in a strictly supportive role, not taking any objectives whatsoever until the final week of the campaign. Radike's dislike for military hegemony begins here, as he cites numerous cases of career officers hungry for glory and promotion. In their overly ambitious offensives, Radike believes that many soldiers were wasted in assaults with little or no tactical value; the only objective being a slight advance on the ranking officers battle maps.

After the fight on Guadalcanal ends, there are some interesting chapters about the garrison duty on the island, where Radike meets natives and missionaries, while getting to know the rugged interior mountain ranges. Before long the regiment is called upon to assist the 37th Division on New Georgia, the next stop in the Solomon Islands campaign. Here the reader witnesses perhaps the most scathing critique of Army blunder in the book, and the collapse and rout of a unit similar to the devastating loss in North Africa at Kasserine Pass just months earlier. Radike cites numerous reasons for the utter failure of the 37th , among them minimal training and jungle acclimation, poor use of artillery in conjunction with ground advances and most of all poor field grade officers, who allowed the men to believe in the stereotype of the Japanese soldier as mythic and nearly impossible to defeat. Though Radike is probably right in many of his judgments, I think he is somewhat biased because of his status as a National Guardsmen, which left him very bitter in dealing with supposedly superior Army regulars. But his depiction of incompetence in the early days of the war in these two campaigns is almost chilling at points; with a few slight adjustments and Naval reverses, the Japanese could have made the Solomon campaign a protracted and bloody affair which could have drawn out for years had the Army and Marines not began to fully mobilize, train and equip their troops in a fashion that would allow for tactical cooperation between all units on the ground.

The last campaign the 161st endures is on Luzon, where they encounter the most difficult task of the whole war, clearing the rugged mountain ranges of heavily entrenched Japanese fortifications. These battles are by far the heaviest action the regiment saw and consequently produced the best firsthand accounts from Radike. He is promoted to Captain, assigned to HQ Company following a costly assault on the town of San Manuel. Radike and the 25th fought through village after village (known as barrios) before entering the mountains, where his telling of the assault on Mt. Taka is the best part of the whole book. The attempts to dislodge the Japs from hillside entrenchments are emblematic of the late stages of the Pacific war, and they are savage to say the least.

Across the Dark Islands, by Floyd Radike

From the perspective of a military historian this is a very useful book, but one that must be handled with care. It's very well written and it certainly doesn't pull any punches. On the plus side, this book provides an excellent inside view of the relationship that existed between the Regular Army and the National Guard up to and during WWII. It is also an excellent view of the internal politics of the Guard. On the down side, 2nd Lieutenant, and later Captain, Radike's views of his fellow officers and the division's senior officers are definitely biased. What one reads here is often a matter of sour grapes. But to be fair, he does have some legitimate gripes.

I was a bit disappointed coming in to this one. I knew that the National Guard Units usually took a back seat to the regular army units, if for nothing else than to let the WestPoint boys attain their stars, but Radike, it seems, played next to no part in the Pacific War.

What we get is a bunch of stories of his unit setting down in places that the marines had already been through and secured. You might hear about some gun fire from far off, but the overwhelming bulk of this memoir is directed towards the logistics of running a unit in the boonies. You finally get to see some action in his third and final battle, the Battle of Luzon, which was the only battle where his unit was put into direct conflict. This was much better, but still lacked some of the detail that you would find in other war memoirs by Leckie and Sledge, or even by another memoir by a National Guard officer in Combat Officer by Charles Walker.

All in all there was a lot of detail that either seemed to be left out or just didn't exist. What detail you get is more the day to day life of a soldier in a combat zone, yet not under direct fire. Of the logistics of supplying the unit, of the personalities of the soldiers on one another. This has its worth when set in the right light, and in that sense Radike does a fine job, but when I read a WWII memoir I am looking for the combat, the struggle to survive amidst enemy fire. You just don't get that here, and Luzon is almost too little too late. A recommend once you've read other combat memoirs of WWII.

3 stars.