Customer Reviews

Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Strategies, February to June 1942

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The Barrier and the Javelin proves to be well written and well researched book which centered around Japanese and Allied strategies that led up the stalement battle at Coral Sea and total American victory at Midway.

The book revealed that Japanese naval forces, despite of all its abilities, superior ships and planes and its highly trained crew, could not defeat its outnumbered enemies due to poor strategy. It was clear that the Japanese have badly over extended themselves and try to be too clever with their strategies which backfired on them.

I agreed with the previous reviewer that the author, H.P. Willmott was bit too judgmental on the wrong sides at times. A good example would be those Japanese raids into the Indian Ocean which was a terrible waste of men and material, especially since the British navy in that area served as no threat and primary duty of the Imperial Navy was to chased down the American carriers. But on the other hand, I thought Willmott's condemnation of Admiral Yamamoto was right on the mark. Too long have this Japanese admiral been overrated by many historians based on one successful attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto fumbled terribly at Midway. (Personally, I thought he fumbled badly at Pearl Harbor too.) The author also cites superior American military intelligence as well as a lot of luck to win a battle of Midway that the Japanese should have won hands down.

Anyone with any interest in this subject should be reading this very insightful book. Its not really for casual reader so I would recommended folks who already have a good background on the Pacific War to tackled this book. A good companion book to Willmot's earlier book, Empires in the Balance, both books, in my humble opinion, belong to any library of a military historian who got an interest in this field.

This book is about Japanese and American planning and strategy in the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. At the Coral Sea in May 1942, the Americans scored their first semi-victory of World War II. At Midway in June 1942 the Americans stunned the over-confident Japanese by sinking four of their aircraft carriers at the loss of one of their own.

Willmott's theme is that Japan should have won both battles against an out-numbered and inexperienced American navy, but did not because of woolly strategy and poor planning. At Midway Japan had two objectives: conquer the island and destroy the American fleet. These objectives should have been reversed in priority. Moreover, Japan split its superior naval forces into three isolated groups and thus permitted the Americans to meet and fight one of these groups on equal terms. The Japanese also assumed that the Americans would always do exactly what Japan wanted them to do and were unprepared for surprises.

The Americans, on their part, had superior intelligence (based on breaking Japanese codes), more durable ships and planes, and good luck. Willmott illustrates luck in his minute-by-minute examination of the mishaps of the Japanese in locating the American fleet at Midway. First, mechanical problems delayed the dispatch of a scout plane for half an hour and, next, the pilot inexplicably lingered near the American fleet for an hour before he reported the presence of carriers, an oversight that paralyzed the Japanese when they should have been attacking. As a result, American bombers scored first -- and decisive -- strikes against the Japanese carriers. But, Midway was a very near thing! 41 American torpedo bombers attacked in the first wave -- and only five came home again.

Willmott, a Brit, is opinionated and in the course of 500 pages, he makes some judgments I found questionable. For example, he seems to think it would have been a good idea for the Japanese navy to invade the Indian ocean and expel the British. That seems like a very bad idea. In my opinion, after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Japan's overwhelming priority should have been to destroy the American aircraft carriers in the Pacific- but Japan dithered with raids on Ceylon and Australia and invasions of New Guinea. The delay proved to be fatal.

This is a good book for those whose interests go toward detailed examination of the thought processes of military planners and the battlefield decisions of leaders in charge of ships, planes, and men. Willmott probes deeply and provocatively into the calculations and miscalculations of men at war.

H. P. Willmott has written three books of analysis on the critical first two years of the war between Japan and the Allied powers, including "Empires in the Balance", this one, and "The War with Japan". Of the three I think this book is the best. The book covers the naval war between the Allies and Japan from Pearl Harbor to after Midway. Willmott provides accounts on the combat between the adversaries, focusing on the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, and does a great job of giving inside details on Japanese operations, something which is often, unfortunately, lacking in other books by western historians.

More importantly, however, Willmott gives in-depth analysis of the reasons why Japan basically lost the war during this time period. I think Willmott's arguments are sound. I have seen his reasoning quoted in many other books, including, for example, "Shattered Sword" the recent book by Jon Parshall and Anthony Tully about the Japanese at Midway. I see that some reviewers here take issue with Willmott's opinions of the Japanese campaign, or lack thereof, against the British in India. Having read "Empires in the Balance" I believe I understand that the point Willmott is trying to make is that, in the great scheme of things, Germany and Japan really had only one way to defeat the Allies, and that was by coordinating their efforts to completely destroy the British Empire.

I would say that this is probably one of the best books on the first year of the Pacific War. The book also gives a good account of the Battle of the Coral Sea, which oddly has yet to receive the treatment it deserves in a single book. For these reasons I recommend this book to anyone interested in studying the Pacific War, especially the first year.

...is how I describe this book. While careful to give historical background to the goings-on within the Japanese military and policy-making establishments, this book also minutely explores the back-and-forth of debate and factional conflict within them as they struggled to find a direction in this surprisingly ad hoc war effort of theirs. I've never seen this analyzed with this level of all-inclusive detail.

This is the sequel to Empires in the Balance which covered the build up to war, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the loss of Java and the DEI. This one covers the fall of Malaya and the Philippines, Coral Sea and Midway. As with the first this is a great book!! Very lucid, easy to follow, grounded in the big picture but still lots of interesting detail. Willmott points out that both the Brits and Americans displayed almost criminally poor judgment reinforcing the Philippines and Singapore with a force they knew at the time would be inadequate to hold it and thus condemned tens of thousands of men to Japanese POW camps.

Originally Willmott set out to write a trilogy on WWII in the Pacific, but he found that he needed two volumes just to get through Midway. He would probably have needed another volume just for the Solomons and God only know how many for the rest of the war. It seems that these two books make up two thirds of a projected trilogy, but I can't seem to figure out what the third book is or if it was ever published. Anyway, great read, highly recommended!!

This book is the second volume of the trilogy on the Pacific War written by British professor H. P. Willmott, and covers Japanese and Allied Pacific strategies from February through June, 1942, specifically encompassing the great carrier actions of Coral Sea and Midway. Both the first volume of the trilogy, entitled Empires in the Balance, and The Barrier and the Javelin are remarkable for their depth of analysis. As an historical document, however, The Barrier and the Javelin is superior to Empires in the Balance for the following reason: Empires in the Balance lacks footnote references, whereas The Barrier and the Javelin is extensively footnoted, making it a much more useful tool for the historian or serious Pacific War aficionado.

Willmott opens The Barrier and the Javelin by pointing out that Japan, alone among major combatants in WWII, was fighting a war for a limited goal: that of forcing the Allies to accept as fait accompli the Empire's gains in the opening months of the war, as described in Empires in the Balance, wherein they seized the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Burma and the Philippines and bombed Pearl Harbor. In other words, they had woefully misjudged the nature of the conflict they brought upon themselves: a total war of annihilation. Japan's success in the opening phase of the war was achieved through wide dispersal of economical forces with inflexible timelines and slim margins for error logistically and operationally. The crucial error of the Japanese, Willmott demonstrates, was believing that the next phase of the war, that of defending their empire's vast perimeter, could be fought the same way as the first.

Willmott's accounts of Coral Sea and Midway are comprehensive and deeply analytical. The planning and command decisions are all carefully examined, and not even the weather patterns of the combat areas are left unexplored. Willmott cites mostly secondary sources, and well known primary sources, so the book is unremarkable in terms of utilizing previously unknown sources. What Willmott is able to do, however, is synthesize existing sources and reach his own conclusions, often ascribing great importance to episodes that earlier authors either treated lightly or ignored all together. To cite but one example, Willmott finds great significance in the incident of February 20, 1942, where the USS Lexington was attacked by Japanese bombers out of Rabaul and most of the bombers were shot down, with minimal loss to the Americans. Willmott uses this to demonstrate the fallacy of Japan's defense perimeter attrition strategy.

In the last chapter, entitled Final Perspectives, Willmott examines the historical importance of Coral Sea and Midway and whether or not, as many have claimed, Midway was the "decisive" battle of the Pacific War, and what it means generally for a battle to be considered decisive. No spoiler here: you should read the book and find out Willmott's conclusions for yourself. But a word of warning: The Barrier and the Javelin is not for the faint of heart. For those not yet familiar with Coral Sea and Midway, S. E. Morison's volume on these two battles would be a much better place to start, and then read Willmott if you want a more exhaustive analysis.

This book is the second in a trilogy by Willmott. The first, Empires in the Balance, explains Japan's dilemma in 1940-41 and why it chose war against 4 of the world's empires simultaneously -- France in Indo-China, Britain in Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and Borneo, the US in the Philippines, Wake, Guam, and Hawaii, and the Netherlands in the Dutch East Indies. It also explains how the Japanese brilliantly accomplished all of their immediate objectives so quickly and decisively, against 4 empires that really did not want to have war in teh Pacific at this point.

Barrier and Javelin takes the Japanese, British, Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans forward from February to June 1942. It covers the key strategic choices facing each nation -- and especially those confronting Japan which had only a vague idea of what to do after its initial victories. Wilmott makes the point that, alone among the nations at war in 1942, Japan was not seeking total defeat of its adversaries. It had hoped that the West would, as it had in previous wars with Japan, seek terms quickly. This misjudgment, and the amazing American response to Pearl Harbor, the British abandonment of the ANZAC nations after the fall of Singapore, and the destruction of the feeble Dutch forces in the area, led to Japan's decision to move further into the South Pacific as well as to a second assault on the Hawaiian Islands at Midway. The stage is set for the battles for New Guinea and Guadacanal.

Well written, thoroughly researched, impeccably balanced in presenting the strategic options for each party, and keeping at the high level -- this is not a blow-by-blow battle book -- Willmott makes the War in the Pacific understandable. A must read (with its predecssor) for any serious student of the War in the Pacific.

Having been a student of the Pacific war for well over 30 years, I have read just about every book I could get on the topic. I quickly become captivated or bored depending on the author's acumen on the topic. Some authors give you the high-level look at a battle or time period and many times you can find inconsistencies in what they write or you clearly recognize errors or supposition. Those are the ones you set aside and start looking for richer material.

What H. P. Willmott has done in this book is provide the high-level perspective and, rarely seen in the same analysis, rich detail of the tactical situation as well. He has information in this book that I have never encountered before, except in another well researched book, Shattered Sword. The analysis and description of each stage of operations and battles makes you feel you were there. Additionally, when explaining strategic and tactical errors, he goes to great lengths to show how the error occurred. In many cases, the decision at the time seemed sound but when analyzed, it is easy to see the great risk that was presented by the decision. I like the way he will establish a point and not leave it to stand alone. Many times he provides the logic behind the point and multiple reasons the Americans or Japanese would have adopted a tactic.

Naval Institute Press does not disappoint. They are selective in the quality and scholarship within their publications. Willmott has done a fine job in revealing new information and perspectives on a well studied battle. A must read for any World War II Pacific scholar. Abel

Though in my opinion it is not quite as good as Empires in the Balance, Willmott produces another fantastic evaluation of Japanese and Allied strategies during in the Pacific War. A must read for the student of the conflict.