Customer Reviews

The Eagle and the Rising Sun: The Japanese-American War 1941-1943: Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Having read extensively on the subject matter within this book previously, it was nice to read a build up to Pearl Harbor (making the subtitle of the book somewhat of a misnomer) and not just diving into the war in the first chapter. I had read the history of SE Asia preceeding WWII in bits and pieces mainly, but had never read anything where the author skillfully and successfully put it all into a compelling narrative before.

Additionally, the author frequently added small biographies of many important historical figures. Some last less than a page, others up to five pages of information (like McArthur). Regardless, these are revealing and convey excellent information to the reader regarding motivations, personalities, and mannerisms.

In several cases the author presents evidence about such historical figures in a somewhat objective manner and lets the reader form their own opinion before either lambasting or praising the actions of such figures. Never over the top however.

Largely, the author doesn't get into much minutiae regarding combat operations and instead concentrates on policy decisions and operational history and the people that made or reacted to these events. That's not to say there aren't any reference to combat and it's impact, however it's just not a history intended to be that detailed in this regard. Regardless, it is still compelling and highly informative about the personages and policies of the period in question.

Overall, a highly regarded operational history with detailed information on the people who made the deicions at the time. Maps are decent, but not detailed and the bibliography is well documented as well. Not an unflawed history by any means, but certainly full of relevant and detailed information in the areas specified earlier.

I could not finish this book. I had to put it down after finding myself wanting to hurl it across the room at every third page. This book is not "fresh", his opinions and conclusions are hardly "iconoclastic" (let alone having much of a foundation), and the author's tendency to back- and sidetrack is maddening. This book is rife with mistakes, both grammatical and factual. There were enough mistakes, in fact, that I began to doubt the veracity of the few bits of information that I hadn't read before. About the only point on which I agree with Mr. Schom is MacArthur. All due respect to the opinions of other reviewers on this page, but my grandfather knew MacArthur at that time, and had nothing good to say about him. Furthermore, I doubt very much that Mr. Schom intended to, nor do I feel that he did, diminish the heroic efforts of the Battling Bastards of Bataan.

That being said, here are a few things that stand out to me as being particularly irksome:
Mr. Schom's apology (to the Japanese, I would imagine) for the use of the word "Jap", by historical figures, in his work. Since when do "historians" apologize for the use of material that they may not agree with?

Mr. Schom's unfairly harsh treatment of Lt. Kermit Tyler. Lt. Tyler was the duty officer that took the call from Opana Point about the large air contact approaching Oahu. Tyler's attitude merely reflected the attitude of his command. If this were not so, why wasn't a tracking party assigned around the clock?

"And thus was cast the proverbial dye, blood-red, as in the imperial flag"[sic]. Words fail me.

If one more author describes the angle of FDR's cigarette holder as "jaunty", I'm going to ....well, you get the idea.

If you want to read this book, I'll send you mine.

I had high hopes for this work - I specialize on the Pacific campaign and the period covered by Schom is the most vital and interesting of the war. Unfortunately, the book not only fails to deliver anything new, it fails to deliver the old information accurately. Despite the rather impressive footnote section, the massive number of errors (historical and grammatical) call the veracity of the entire work into question.

Schom's attempts to offer something new and exciting lead to him focus on ADM Turner, a highly under-rated actor in the Pacific War and someone deserving of far more attention in historiography than he has yet received. But the work's massive flaws dilute even this impact.

The errors range from minor to gigantic. Many are small things or even editorial errors; i.e. the statement that the 1922 Naval Treaty limited the USN to 100 million tons of shipping - a rather astonishing amount - or reflecting on ADM Yamamoto eagerly awaiting word of the outcome of the attacks on Pearl aboard his flagship YAMATO - a peculiar statement when the YAMATO was not even formally commissioned until mid December 1941 and did not become the Combined Fleet flagship until Feb 1942.

Other issues cause problems for the work as well. Schom takes continual personal asides to discuss the upbringings or backgrounds of actors in the events he covers, but they are constantly distracting from the narrative. Other items, like his constant minor snipes at the French performance in the war, are puzzling at best. He tosses in glib comments about the Vichy French using American planes to bomb Allied troops in Syria and North Africa without mentioning the little fact that both areas were being invaded by British or American forces. Likewise, he somewhat snidely comments on the Vichy government's decision to break diplomatic relations with England in July 1940, but again fails to mention the minor detail that it followed the British attacks against the French naval forces at Oran. None of these are central to his work, but all call into question the balance and research of the views provided to the reader. While all historians (myself included) have axes to grind, care needs to be taken to present more balance and background - particularly if authors wish to take time away from their topic to address tangential issues.

Overall, I had high hopes for the book that were invariably dashed. Though the book appears well-researched from the extensive notes section, the glaring and continual errors and sidetracking editorials call all of the author's conclusions and balance into serious question and eliminates any utility to this work. So approach with caution...

This book gives a good overview of the Pacific theater of operations in WWII from Pearl Hargor through the battles of Guadalcanal. Intersperced with the main line are many mini-biographies of major players in the action. While the work is, as a whole, fairly well-written, some of the detail becomes mindnumbing, causing the eyes of the reader to glaze over. The author takes many of the Navy and Army leaders to task for their failings, particularly Douglas MacArthur, who appears to be the chief villain in the piece. According to the author, if MacArthur had done some things differently, there might have been quite different outcomes. Hindsight is always 20-20, as we well know, but it's always interesting to see that our national heroes have their own failings also. This is by no means a "perfect" book, but it's worth reading to get the overview of the time period and the action that took place within it.

When I first read about this book coming out, I was tremendously excited and couldn't WAIT to get it. I was wrong. This book (in my opinion) is a total waste of time and money - NOT because the author doesn't have some good things to say... he does, particularly about MacArthur's failings, Hirohito's guilt, and a couple of other "human" aspects.... but because of all the factual errors in the book, far too numerous to list here. How anyone can claim to write a history of the first year of the war and not even list Eric Bergerud's Land Touched with Fire, or Fire in the Sky, and Russell B. Frank's Guadalcanal in the bibliography is beyond me. Schom (as one other reviewer says) thinks Adm. Turner walked on water, but never says WHY. He totally neglects the fundamental role of starvation and disease in destroying the Japanese Army on the 'Canal. This book is a total waste because if you already know enough to see the factual errors in it, you know enough to not need it or be interested in it -- and if you DON'T catch the errors (the "Faruna" and her 16 14" guns(!), Tanaka fleeing with his 6 DD's while 7 are named, Gatch and Lee being responsible for sinking both the Hiei AND Kirishima, why Vandergrift didn't try to capture Mt. Austen immediately, the "Gifu sector" NOT being the same thing as Mt. Austen, Kenney and his skip-bombing that did (or didn't) start in Octorber 1942, etc), then the book will fill you with "facts that ain't so", and hamper any quest to truly understand what went on. I have never rated a book this low before --- and hope I never have to again.

My Bottom Line to anyone reading this review: For now, stick with some of the basics: Spector's Eagle against the Sun, for example, or the Bergerud books cited above, or the Frank work, etc.

After reading dozens of WW2 Pacific theatre books that are filled with careful research and relevant quotes, Schom's was a great disappointment to me. "The Eagle and the Rising Sun" is filled with factual errors, and Schom clearly has no feel for the subject. In place of clarity he substitutes a LOT of personal bias toward major parties. I'm no fan of Dugout Doug, but Schom spends over 50 tedious pages showing Macarthur's faults. He denigates Spruance, Fletcher and others without demonstrating he knows his subject. The paragraphs are filled with stilted, jerky prose, with little regard for the flow of events or their proper context. "The Eagle and the Rising Sun" is a very bad book, to be avoided unless you want to compare the many mistakes with authorative sources. The title is also a near-ripoff of another WW2 book, "Eagle Against the Sun".

Alan Schom book, The Eagle and the Rising Sun, I found it disappointing. I purchased the book for one reason; I wanted to read what he had discovered about the ground war on Guadalcanal Island, (pages 311-456) which I did not know. To say, I was very disappointed is putting it mildly. If there was ever a `miss-fit' on military history, this is it. To begin, the author writes: "lights of two planes [Japanese] were seen taking off [7 August] near Lunga Point". Impossible--there were never any Japanese aircraft on Guadalcanal! And, if there were aircraft they could not liftoff because there was a 160-foot open gap in the uncompleted airstrip!

He writes that Mount Austen is 90 miles away from Lunga Plains. The last time I drove to Mount Austen it was 8 miles west of the airport [Henderson Field] on Lunga Plains. However, the entire island is only 80 miles long and 25 miles wide.

On page 328, he records the Formalhadt as AK 2; it is AK-5. Two pages later he mentions 1,330 sailors and laborers had fled westward [from Kukum]; where did the other 1,100 go? He noted 2,230 construction workers only two pages earlier. Did they vanish? .

Several pages further, he mentions fifteen hundred or so Japanese on Guadalcanal. I record 2891. Twenty-seven were killed on 7 August as members of the 11th Encampment Corps (EC) and seven from the 13th EC, one from the 84th Guard Unit. On this page he also mentions that on [get this] "19 August three companies of the 4th Marine Regiment attacked," How could that be? The members of the 4th Marine Regiment were either killed or in POW camps in the Philippine Islands after their surrender on Corregidor on 6 May 1942!

On page 349, he mentions a half-dozen submarine transports landings at Tassafalonga on 17 August. The first troops to land on Guadalcanal from the Ichiki Detachment were transported in destroyers. (Kagero, Hagikaza, Urakase, Hawakaza, and the Arashi) and landed at Tiava Point, the lookout post maintained by the 81st Guard Unit. The big submarine transport series, D1s, D2s or HA 101s, were not used in the early stages of the campaign.

Next page he would write, "...Japanese troops ambushed a Marine Special Weapons Battalion in strength along the Ilu River." [The Battle of Tenaru]. It was 939 members of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment supported by the 1st Special Weapons Battalion. The Japanese did not ambush them-----the Marines were waiting for them behind a thin line of rusty barbed wire. They knew they were coming.

He wrote about two transports being sunk with all crews lost. Which two transports? Why leave the readers in the dark?

On page 351, Schom writes, "on September 1, 392 men and officers landed." He did not specifying they were members of the 6th Naval Construction Battalion, [Seabee's] but he did write they were "inducted as marines and given combat training". You are either a sailor or a Marine. The 6th Seabees were never Marines, and had very little combat training. The errors continue as he mentions Lt. Col. Merritt Edson's Raiders (Edson was a full colonel since 1 July) and his 1st Raiders (and Paramarines) came from Tulagi for the Tasimboko raid and they returned to Tulagi. Not so. They came from Guadalcanal and returned there.

He seems to assume his readers know what he is what writing about. On the top of page 371, he writes:"....September 23, Lieutenant Lewis Puller's 1st Battalion....." First battalion of what? It was the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. A little further he mentions,"men pulled back to the mouth of the river at Ironbottom Sound." Which river? What is Ironbottom Sound ?Does he mean the Matanikau River? [Ironbottom Sound is a name given to the waters between Guadalcanal and Tulagi Island for the great number of warships sunk there. This name applies after the Guadalcanal Campaign.] On the same page he has the 8th Marines on Guadalcanal sandwiched in between 8 October and the 15th. The 8th Marines did not reach Guadalcanal until 4 November.

A few pages further he does it again, and writes Col. William Whaling's 3d Battalion. Third battalion of what? Bill Whaling, was the temporarily the commander of the 3/5. He repeats the same assumption a few pages further and introduces Colonel John Arthur's 3d Marine Battalion. Who was John Arthur? What 3d Battalion? Colonel Arthur commanded the 2d Marine Regiment, and a Marine regiment has three battalions.

He writes: "Bill Halsey flew out to the South Pacific to take up his new carrier command off Guadalcanal." Off Guadalcanal where? He was to take over a carrier at Noumea, but because of a change of orders he was given a new assignment, as the Commander, South Pacific Area and Force replacing Admiral `Tiny Tim' Ghormley, several hundred miles from Guadalcanal. He continues---"the Free French refusing to allow him to land at the Noumea airport." There is no Noumea Airport. The airport is at Tontouta, 30 miles away. The Free French had nothing to say about any landing or liftoff. I flew in and out of Tontouta airport many times----Anyway, Halsey could not land at the airport because he arrived in a seaplane, a four-engine Coronado.

The author writes about the activities of Douglas MacArthur. He records him as a Lieutenant General. Yet, he does not even get his rank right. MacArthur was recalled to active duty on 26 July 1941 as a Major General. The next day he was promoted to the temporary rank of Lieutenant General. On 18 December 1941 he was promoted to full General.

Schom states that Henderson's [airfield] runway was extended to accommodate bigger bombers? The B-17s had been flying in and out of the airstrip since the early days. What bigger bomber? The 17s were the biggest we had, and the B-29 was still on the drawing boards!

He writes:"on November 14-15 as Admiral Tanaka was unloading his eleven transports." Unloading his eleven transports? The real story is that twelve transports bearing the 38th Infantry Division left the Shortland roadstead for Guadalcanal, one turned back because of engine trouble, and the eleven continued. The Cactus Air Force sunk seven at sea [the Sato Maru, Arizona Maru, Shinanogawa Maru, Canberra Maru, Nagara Maru, Brisbane Maru and the Nako Maru for a total of 490,36 tons] and the others were left as four burning wrecks on shores of Guadalcanal [the Kinugawa Maru, Hirokawa Maru, Yamatsuki Maru, and the Yamatsuki Maru,] including rations for 30,000 men and many tons of ammunition. The book is too full of nuances.

Mr. Schom has, Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka overseeing the Ke-go Sakusen, (3 February to 7 February 1943), the evacuation of the 17th Army from Guadalcanal. Another impossibility. Admiral Tanaka was reassigned to the Navy General Staff on 31 December 1942, and was replaced by Rear.Adm.Tomiji Koyanagi who assumed the command of the Destroyer Squadron 2 and was in charge of the evacuation. On 3 February 1943, Admiral Tanaka was assigned as the commanding officer (CO) Maizuru Navy Barracks and 13 October 1943 as CO 13th Base Force.

I just selected a few of the glaring errors, of the many, and left the minor ones alone. As an example, he has the 1st, 5th, 7th and 11th Marines leaving Guadalcanal on 22 December Again, all wrong. The 5th Marines left the island on 9 December, the 7th Regiment on 9 January and the 11 Marines on 11 January 1943. He does not seem to be able to get things right, no mater how small the detail?

His handling of the Guadalcanal Campaign is overloaded with errors plus poor and sloppy research. Added to that, it was inadequately edited. He has distorted history. So much so, that I figured the other parts of the book were not worth reading. Based on what I read, on a grade from 1 to 10, I would give his work a flat zero.

Stanley C. Jersey

This book describes the period from Pearl Harbor through Guadalcanal, while also providing information on the Japanese invasion of China, as well as the various arms confernces of the 1920s and 30s.

During this early phase of the Pacific war, the Japanese achieved victory after victory, while the United States and her Allies struggled to stop the rising tide of Japanese victories. From Wake to the Java Sea, the Japanese Army and Navy ruled supreme while the Allies lost countless numbers of men, planes, and ships.

For six months, the Japanese never lost, but in June, 1942, at the Battle of Midway, the Japanese advance was stopped. Four Japanese carriers were sunk, and many planes and men were lost which coluld not be replaced. Japan would never regain the offensive again.

This book has both its high points and low points. Among the high points is the very informative narration about the Japanese invasion of mainland China in the early 1930s. This is where the Japanese "Bushido" code was developed. Unfortunately for the Allied POWs, they found out first-hand how this horrible code worked. The background information about each principal player in the Pacific War was also helpful. From Yamamoto to Nimitz, Author Alan Schom provides good background information to help the reader understand these personalities and how they fought.

There are also some poor points in the book, too. For example, the heroic struggle for Wake Island in the days following the Pearl Harbor raid is barely mentioned. These heroic civilians and marines were the first true heroes of the Pacific war. They deserve more attention than they received from Schom. The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway are given just thumbnail sketches as well. More detail could have been given in these areas as well. However, the author does a god job describing the battle of Guadalcanal.

I do think this is a worthwhile read. The background information on the Japanese invasion of China is very good, as is the information on the Japanese and Allied commanders. However, I wish the author would have given due recognition and more information on some of the crucial battles of this period of the Pacific war.

Alan Schom refers to himself as a professional historian. Unfortunately one needs not read very far to discover that The Eagle and The Rising Sun is poorly researched, amateurishly written, poorly laid out and rife with grammatical errors and misspellings. The description of the Battle of Midway is terrible. On top of that Schom attempts to give credence to the value of his work by referring on the back flap to comments in the foreward written by RADM Thomas F. Marfiak, USN (Ret.), CEO and Publisher of the prestigious U.S. Naval Institute. I'm surprised Marfiak would agree to comment on this book. I do not believe the U.S. Naval Institute would publish a history of such poor quality. And to thank Marfiak for his effort, the foreward has a misspelling.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to learn that the author was writing a book about my favorite subject in history: the early days of the Pacific War. Having read Toland, Costello, Schulz, Spector, Falk and others, I was anxious to see what he would do with this topic.

Extreme Disappointment!!!!

The book meanders into areas of little or no significance over and over again. More space was devoted to Admiral King's personality than the battles of Bataan or Singapore.

The editing was poor, ranks were incorrect and words mispelled.

This does not deserve a paperback edition.