Customer Reviews

Mr. Michel's War: From Manila to Mukden: An American Navy Officer's War with the Japanese

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This book presents a rather objective view to a profoundly painful period in a service man's life. It is broad in scope. It covers a wide array of emotions. It starts as an adventure , hope barely alive.As it suffers through the senseless horror,death and pain of war and imprisonment it become gray and somber. The author wrote it over 50 years ago in an easy yet compelling style and tone. It is ejoyable and informative , an good addition to any library especially one dealing with WWII naval history in the Pacific Area.

An informative and educational work. The war can best be felt through the eyes of those who participated in it, from the time before the U.S. entered through the pre-pacific war days to Pearl Harbor and beyond. An interesting cast of characters on the ship (the pope) and in the POW camps. I was surprised at how badly the Dutch acted and, at times, how well the Japanese behaved. One of the best books I have read in a long time.

This is not a perfect work at all; it lacks maps and its photo section is somewhat thin. But, the amazing diversity and richness of experiences so vividly described by "Jack" Michel, and his preservation of innumerable historical details, far supersede these issues. For that I give the book five stars, and make no apologies for it.

John J. A. Michel wrote his account of his wartime experiences in 1948, when many of the events he describes were relatively fresh in his memory. The book he published in 1998 was little altered from the original MS, he claims. In any case it is an absolutely invaluable and precious historical record.

For any student of the early months of the Pacific War and the venerable U.S. Asiatic Fleet, this work, along with those of Walter Winslow, Kemp Tolley, and Dwight R. Messimer, is absolutely essential reading. It is also easily one of the finest first person accounts written by an Asiatic Fleet officer, and makes one realize all the more powerfully just what may have been lost aboard some of the other ships sunk in the forlorn NEI campaign of Jan-March, 1942, since we now know that other officers aboard other ships--such as the USS EDSALL (DD-219)--were keeping journals of their experiences, too.

"Jack" Michel was much too modest & unassuming; his book is clear, unemotional, and humane without ever becoming maudlin or embittered--which it might well have. From his assignment to the Far East in March, 1941 as a young communications officer aboard USS POPE (DD-225) to the loss of that warship a year later on 1 March, 1942 in the upper Java Sea near Cape Puting, Borneo, subsequent capture, and incarceration for the war's duration, Michel covers a world of details, large & small, that would have been largely lost otherwise.

He meets, or crosses paths with countless figures who play important roles in the final, dreadful weeks of the Asiatic Fleet's existence, from Richard Nott Antrim & Welford Blinn of the POPE to Admiral Thomas Hart, CINCAF; from the tough, fearless old Dutch LT COL Gortman ("Johnny War")--who was eventually executed by the Japanese--to LT CDR Tom Donovan, First Lieutenant of USS LANGLEY (AV-3), stranded on Xmas Island, and later captured by the IJN when that island fell; from RADM Mori Kunizo, former C.O. of the Kaigun Tokubetsu Rikusentai at Kendari & Makassar, Celebes, and later head of the 23rd Special Base Force at Makassar and of all regional P.O.W. camps, to SGT Frank "Foo" Fujita, of the so-called 'Lost Battalion', who was one of the only Japanese-American soldiers captured in the war, and who ended up in the same camp (Fukuoka No. 2 near Nagasaki) as Michel. The list of men Michel encountered is worth getting the book in itself.

An important work in every regard that all Pacific War researchers would do well to familiarize themselves with, and that students of the old Asiatic fleet simply must read, and read again...

Well-done, indeed, Mr. Michel!

Written shortly after the Second World War, Mr. Michele's War is the memoir of a US Navy officer who fought in America's first battles against the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war. Hopelessly out gunned and out classed by superior Japanese forces a scratch fleet of American, British Dutch and Australian naval ships sought to slow Japan's war machine down in the critical early days of 1942. However valiant, the allied forces were defeated by the Japanese and the last two-thirds of Michel's book details his time as a prisoner of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan.

Michel's 3 1/2 years as a POW ranged from the absurdly comical to the painfully brutal. Perhaps atypically, Michel details not only the brutal and criminal treatment he and other POWs received but also some of the more humane treatment that he was fortunate enough to receive (or witness). His book doesn't vilify every Japanese soldier and/or citizen which, given the fact that he wrote the original manuscript in 1948, says quite a bit about his character to this reviewer. However, where war crimes were committed, he doesn't pull any punches. There were many Japanese soldiers and officers whom he encountered who were later tried for war crimes (several of whom committed suicide rather than face the gallows).

Overall, Michel's text is engaging and well written making this book an easy to read memoir. Certainly, as the members of this "Greatest Generation" pass away, it will be these narratives that live on and serve as testament to their sacrifice and dedication. Michel's is a worthy addition to this collection and certainly worth the time of anyone interested in the Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII.