4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential reading, September 3, 2009
Those who cannot handle the ugly truth about warfare, and about warfare in this theater in particular, would do better to stay away from this harrowing book. Those who can, should be encouraged to buy and read it soon, in anticipation of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's much-awaited television series The Pacific.
The Atlantic Monthly is absolutely right: this is a terrifying book, but at the same time - because of that, because it refuses to pull any punches about the true nature of warfare in the Pacific - it is one of the best books ever on what American boys had to go through in the war against that most vicious of foes, the Japanese.
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4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Sadly Lacking, June 25, 2009
"The GI War Against Japan" by Peter Schrijvers. Subtitled: "American Soldiers In Asia And The Pacific During World War II." New York University Press, 2005, Paperback Edition.
Peter Schrijvers has a PhD in History from The Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium and currently teaches at the University of New South Wales, Australia. This book, "The GI War Against Japan", follows the pattern of his previous books which deal with the often neglected effects of World War II on the civilian population. In his current effort, the author has expanded his emphasis to consider the ecological impact of the war. The book is sadly lacking because, in my humble opinion, Dr. Schrijvers has committed the mortal sin of Historians: Judging past events by the moral principles of the present. Do you think that the Imperial Japanese Navy considered the ecological damage that would be caused by the sneak bombing of all those battleships in Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941? Do you know that, today, the Battleship, USS Arizona, BB-39, is still leaking about a quart of oil into the waters of Pearl Harbor? Thank you, Japan. But, Dr. Schrijvers, in his book, emphasizes the ecological damage wrought by American forces in the Pacific Theater. Sorry, but don't you know there was a War on?
The racial card is played by Dr. Schrijvers. Sadly, I do not think that he has given enough emphasis to the racism of Imperial Japan. Recall the "Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Imperial Japan was at the top of her newly conquered territories. Racially speaking, at the top were the Japanese, the Yamato Race as a nucleus, then the Chinese and then brown skinned Asians, such as Indians or Malaysians or people from the Philippines. On the bottom, of course, were the whites...the European types. The Pacific War, a Naval war, came down to a struggle between a "white" navy, the United States Navy, and the Imperial Japanese Navy. From the highest American admiral to the lowest sailor in the Pacific fleets, the motivating theme was "Remember Pearl Harbor". American propaganda was directed at the sneak attack, well planned, but still a sneak attack by the Japanese. Extravagant propaganda claims in the 1940s appear like racist remarks in 2009. By the way, in December 1944, when Nazi German forces charged through the Ardennes, then President Franklin D. Roosevelt corresponded with General Leslie Groves, (1896-1970), of the Manhattan Project, to ask if the A-Bomb could be used against the ever so-white Nazi Army. The Bomb was not ready at that time.
Sadly, the book is lacking a strong differentiation between US Army forces and the United States Marine Corps. Japanese fanaticism triggered their mass destruction when Japanese forces attacked United Sates Marines. This is not racial, but rather a difference in cultures. The Marines performed mass destruction on another Asian enemy some six years after World War II; see, for example:
"Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950"
by Martin Russ. Dr. Schrijvers appears to be a wee bit confused about the Marine Corps. On page 217, he describes the horror of Americans who watched a man, near the Taj Mahal, carry a dead child to the Jumna River to dispose of the body. Dr. Schrijvers states that the man tied "... a sinker to the corps, then heaved it into the water". Yes, it is the Marine Corps, but the good doctor wanted the English word CORPSE, meaning a body.
Tropics. Let me say that I spent almost three years at Naval Air Station, Key West, Florida. Instead of practicing Anti-Submarine Warfare, we spent our time flying around Cuba, as Dr. Fidel Castro had just converted that island into a Communistic paradise. I spent many a day in sick bay, with cases of tropical boils. This was despite access to modern medicine and fresh water showers daily. I empathize with those Americans who had to live in terrible tropical conditions in order to carry the war to the enemy. The tropical jungle is a terrible place to live, and a horrific place to fight a war, to kill the enemy.
And they were the enemy. Dr. Peter Schrijvers has researched a wealth of material: diaries, newspapers, field reports, letter to the folks back home. Sadly, the book lacks much on the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese. If the good doctor had included some of the stories that are presently available concerning the inhumane treatment of prisoners by Japanese forces, then the scales would be balanced. This book, therefore, does not capture the full range of American experience in the Pacific. The author virtually ignores POWs.
Finally, let me say that my son, Sean, graduated from The Catholic University, Washington, DC, in 2000; so I have nothing against graduates of Catholic U.
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