15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Morning of the Rising Sun:The Heroic Story of the Battles for Guadalcanal, January 31, 2008
Having had a strong interest in the Guadalcanal Campaign since I read "Guadalcanal Diary" when I was in high school I couldn't resist buying Dr.Friedman's book as soon as it came out.I enjoyed the book and found it to be informative especially with the charts and maps that he supplied.He has laid it out in a fashion that shows how the naval and air battles tied in with the ground campaign.It looks like his main interest is in the naval battles as they showed the most detail.If he has a weakness it was in the air battles and being a 'junior birdman' myself(PPL) and having a close relative that flew SBD's from Guadalcanal I probably am more sensitive to this than most readers.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Solomons Campaign.I only gave it a four star review due to some editing and binding problems.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Morning of the Rising Sun, July 22, 2008
This reader has had an interest in the campaign since reading Guadalcanal Diary as a lad and I have read any number of books since, but this is the first that ties everything together, dots the "i"s and crosses the "t"s. The naval action has always been something of a mystery to me, but Dr. Friedman had done a marvelous job by and large with charts depicting the various actions.
Additionally, both the Allied and Japanese perspectives are presented without the bias one often sees. Dr. Friedman does a remarkable job presenting the personalities of the Japanese commanders.
The chronology is seamless and one switches from ground action to naval to air with little effort on the reader's part. He is also adept at going from high level Allied conferences to the cockpit of an aircraft to the bridge of a ship giving a great sense of what it must have been like to be there. Having served in the Field Artillery in the Cold War Army, I found Friedman's account of its use, supply, and effects right on. I got the feeling of being right there watching.
I particularly liked the charts of the naval actions and their position alongside the text describing the action. Dr. Friedman manages to keep these complex operations in perspective in a manner that facilitates understanding.
The book is massive as other readers have pointed out, about seven-hundred pages. Once I picked it up, I had a hard time putting it down. A first printing, I picked out four or five typos, so the rate was less than one per hundred pages, excellent I would say.
This was a campaign that is often overlooked in favor of more glamorous actions. Friedman brings it to life and ties the various parts together particularly well.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Reference to the Battles for Guadalcanal, March 31, 2008
At 702 pages, Morning of the Rising Sun is not the type of book you'd pick up casually but it is the kind of book that once you pick it up you'll find very hard to put back down. Ken Friedman has found a way of taking dry facts and figures and the myriad details of conducting warfare and making them come alive for the reader. His depth of research is astounding right down to the names of individual pilots of American and Japanese aircraft, often providing details of what they were thinking during combat actions. Friedman's bibliography and copious end notes show careful and painstaking research that will satisfy the most dedicated historian while the descriptions of the actions and the decisions behind them - on both sides - will please any reader of military non-fiction.
The strategic importance of Guadalcanal to both the Japanese and to the Americans has seldom been so clearly detailed as in Morning of the Rising Sun. The Japanese, after strategic losses at Midway and Coral Sea, were desperate to find a way to cut off Allied supply lines from the U.S. West Coast to Australia. A military airfield on the island of Guadalcanal in the extreme Southern Solomon islands would serve that purpose well. For the Americans, taking and holding that airfield for our own use meant a forward base for launching attacks against Japanese-held territory in the rest of the Solomons chain. It was a must win for both sides and for the Americans it was both far from any U.S. military assistance and the fighting came at a time when the Europe First assessment was depriving Nimitz and MacArthur of needed ships, planes, manpower and materials.
Morning of the Rising Sun is the kind of book that students of WWII history will want to have on their libraries' shelves for reference both because of the importance of the battles for the Southern Solomons and for Ken Friedman's treatment of them.
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