Customer Reviews

Alaska's Hidden Wars: Secret Campaigns on the North Pacific Rim

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The author has done a valuable service by unearthing material that sheds light on World War Two in the Northern Pacific island chains of the Aleutians and Kuriles. For this he is to be commended.

But the book does not rise much above the compliment "decent little book." The author writes in the sparing, bare-bones style of a journalist without imparting any sense of drama to the story. The facts are there, along with some interpretations, but no forceful sense of conviction. One could say that this is more of a series of articles rather than a book, per se. The book contains several appendices that could have been used to more effect in the chapters rather than tucked in at the end.

Nevertheless, author Hays does give the reader a better understanding of the war in the Northern Pacific, especially the effects on the troops who were stationed there.

On the eve of World War II Japan, the US and the Soviet Union collided in the North Pacific - and Alaska's Hidden Wars: Secret Campaigns On The North Pacific Rim charts these conflicts for the first time, revealing not minor skirmishes but major campaigns which pitted Americans against the Japanese well before Pearl Harbor. Alaska's Hidden Wars tells of Japanese raids, American campaigns, and two years of air raids and bombardments in Alaska during the war. Newly declassified archives allows the story to final come to light!