Customer Reviews

Coast Watching in World War II: Operations against the Japanese on the Solomon Islands, 1941-43 (Stackpole Military History Series)

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A. B. Feuer again uses first hand accounts coupled with his excellent style to tell the story of those brave individuals who were the coast watchers of WWII.
Early on, the Japanese did not pay much attention to this handful of under-trained, under-fed, under-equipped Aussies who were trapped on the islands they invaded. But despite their Australian heritage, these men were well experienced with the jungles of Buka and Bouganville, and with the help of local natives and the US Submarine Force, they soon developed an intelligence network which provided the Allied Powers with much needed information on Japanese ship and aircraft movements. Eventually, the Japanese realized that these men and their radios must be put out of action, and the cat-and-mouse tale which ensued is one of the more exciting I have read. A must-read for any WWII history buff.

Bud Feuer is a pretty prolific military historian, having written more than a dozen military history books. But what makes Feuer stand apart, in my opinion, is his histories of little known, unheralded, unusual military units. A case in point is the Australian coast watchers who performed heroic duty when the Japanese were advancing through the South Sea Islands during World War II.

In Feuer's book, Coast Watching in World War II: Operations Against the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, 1941-43 (Stackpole Military History), the author details the activities of up to 400 coast watchers scattered along the coastal areas of the Solomon Islands. These units would hide away in the jungle/mountain areas, keep an eye on Japanese ship movements, and then radio reports to headquarters on what ships were moving into the area.

The Japanese most likely would never have been halted if they were able to maintain the element of surprise. But that was taken away, unknowingly to them, by the coast watchers. Feuer makes a good argument when he states that "coast watching alone was responsible for the success of the air war. During the early and uncertain days of the American struggle to wrest Guadalcanal from the Japanese, the reports and timely warnings from Stations JEF and STO on Bougainville were directly responsible for the enemy's defeat."

To perform their tasks, the coast watchers relied on "teleradios" which were relatively large, heavy and clunky radio communications equipment that had to be hauled from one hiding spot to another. The teleradio had a voice range of about 400 miles and had a range of an additional 200 miles if you used the telegraph key. Besides having to lug this heavy machine around, the men in the unit had to lug around the batteries, charging engine, and benzene fuel. It took several men to carry the teleradio from one site to another. Imagine what these guys could have accomplished today with micro-electronic technology?

Feuer points out why propaganda is so important in wartime, recording the successes of the coast watchers and failures of the Japanese who angered the natives by arresting men and women in the villages and using them as free laborers. The Japanese also knew little about mountains and were unskilled in tracking.

While I enjoy history, most of the time I am bored silly by voluminous military histories that fail to record the lives of the soldiers involved or capture the overall picture of what is taking place. Bud Feuer accomplishes what many military historians fail to do - Feuer writes a compelling, riveting history that grabs your attention early and keeps it. Bud Feuer is a great story teller and an accurate historian.

--- Emory Daniels

I enjoyed that this book was basically a compilation of the coastwatchers own memoirs rather than a biography from a 3rd person. I read this book while I was visiting Bougainville and it was really nice to be able to tie the two together. The book also touched on some local customs that I encountered during my stay.

During my stay, we visited the remains of a crashed plane on Buka Island ...the locals were also able to tell us that it was also the former plantation of Percy Good whose murder by the Japanese was detailed in this book.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, having been curious about the coast watchers for some time, but in this book, I think Stackpole should have found a different main narrator who wasn't so modest. Near the end the author states that he felt he never was in any real danger, so why does he seems to feel somewhat bitter about not getting more recognition? He definitely seemed to have several axes to grind but I don't think this book was the place for it. In addition, while Stackpole normally does an excellent job of not going into the 'big picture' but allowing average Joes and Jills to tell their story, in this case a bigger picture would have been much appreciated. Just even the basic facts of, how many coast watchers were there, what islands and how many surivied the war would have been appreciated.