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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars for proffesionalism and 3 for possibility, June 20, 2001
These books have got to be a bear to write. Although certainly there are a fair number of pivot points in history there are darn few major things that could have been dramatically different. That means, for these books, that there is always a certain amount of hand-waving away of inconvenient facts to allow an alternate ending. Although much of this book is not as strained as the invasion of Britain volume (which completely glosses over the fact that Germany had no means to cross the channel and no navy to contest the channel with the Royal Navy) it does have the requisite hand-waving. The only real alternative is the invasion of the Soviet Union instead of an attack on Pearl Harbor which leads to some interesting and well explored speculation. There is the requisite rewriting of the Pearl Harbor attack which, while including the blocking of the channel by the Nevada which is a good idea, has the requisite attack on the oil farms which, sadly for the author, were not nearly as easy to destroy as portrayed and would have required a third attack wave into rapidly stiffening resistance. Most of the scenarios are like this, requiring careful ommision of inconvenient facts to allow the Japanese to win. This is not a condemnation of the authors, simply a statement that the Japanese had a poor army, a decent but over-extended navy, poor resource-management and availability and were against a huge wealthy power. The Japanese were overextended just taking what they had in the Pacific, no invasion of the US was seriously contemplated or possible. No resources for the landing craft, no capability to refuel at sea, no way to transport the troops, etc. They were destined to lose unless the US simply said "to hell with it". Even in that instance, the British and Australians would have fought on and perhaps done the job themselves. That said, the book is quite readable, very well researched (even the ommissions are done in such a way that you realize the authors knew of them and danced around them), interesting, and very well put together with fictional charts, OBs, etc. It's an excellent effort marred only by the lack of an epilog describing what inconvenient facts were ommitted for the scenarios to work. This ommission can make the reader think that a victorious Japan was quite possible had they been more savvy, when it was not. Matt
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thought-provoking and entertaining collection of essays, January 7, 2002
Title notwithstanding, this collection of essays offers for, the most part, a look not so much at how the Japanese might have won the Pacific War, but rather how the war might have gone differently as a result of different strategic or tactical decisions. Most of the authors conclude that while these decisions, and resulting successes for the Japanese, might have prolonged the war, or made it much costlier for the US, in the end the result would have been much the same as reality. For instance, one essay examines what might have happened had the American divebombers been unsuccessful in finding the Japanese carriers at Midway. As is well known, it was almost sheer luck that they were able to make the decisive attack on the carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu before low fuel forced them to return to their own carriers. Had they not done this, about 30 minutes later, it would likely have been the American carriers attacked in their most vulnerable state, with flight decks full of re-fueling and re-arming aircraft, and the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown dispatched to the bottom of the Pacific. As a result, Midway Island would have been lost, and the Japanese might even have been bold enough to launch subsequent attacks on the Hawaii and/or the West Coast of the US. In the long run, however, the author concludes that American industrial might and greater population would still have carried the day. Other well-known aspects of the Pacific War that turned on the decisions of one or two key individuals are also examined. What, for instance, if Admiral Nagumo had launched a third strike at Pearl Harbor, destroying the fuel tank farms and the dry dock facilities? Even if he had lost some of his own fleet as a result, this action would have rendered Pearl Harbor useless as a forward base, the American fleet would have found it impossible to react to Japanese advances in the Coral Sea and at Midway, and the Hawaiian Islands themselves might have been lost to Japanese invasion. Another essay asks: what if Admiral Kurita had kept his nerve and pressed on to attack the American transports at Leyte Gulf, when only escort carriers and their lightly armed escorts stood in his way? Result: perhaps the greatest disaster in American military history. This, incidentally, is one of the most plausible essays in the book. There's no question Bull Halsey almost got caught with his pants down on that one. Given that the giant battleship Yamato, which would have led this charge, was fated to be expended in a futile suicide attack just six months later, one can only wonder what Kurita thought he was gaining by withdrawing to fight another day. For the Japanese Empire, there was no other day - that was their last, best chance. Perhaps the most interesting essay examines what might have happened had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor at all - if their December 7 sneak attack had instead been directed solely at the Philippines and other US, British, and Dutch possessions throughout the Pacific. The result would have been the execution of "War Plan Orange" - a sortie by the US Pacific Fleet to relieve the Philippines. Had the Japanese, with their fleet at a much higher level of training and readiness, and with their vastly superior night fighting skills, been able to lure our fleet of old battleships into a night engagement in the confined waters near the Philippines: well, it's a pretty scary thought. Think of the Battle of Savo Island writ large. This is the one essay, by the way, that actually has the Japanese winning outright, although a few others do end with them winning at least an armistice or the right to hang on to some of their captured territory, as opposed to the actual reality of unconditional surrender. Altogether, this is an interesting book sure to be enjoyed by students of the Pacific War. With one or two exceptions, the essays are detailed enough to be realistic, yet well-written enough to be entertaining.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "What if?" that informs as well as entertains, June 6, 2001
The field of "counterfactual" history or Alternate History is divided into fictional accounts, written up as novels, and pseudo documentaries, written up as history books might be done in the alternate future caused by the changed events. The more challenging task is the latter because in fiction one can mix fact and fantasy without having to explain the choices... after all, it's a novel. However the essay format requires some hard thinking and deep research, because even a fake history has to be footnoted. This counterfactual collection of essays on might-have-been wars in the Pacific does not disappoint. Many of the entries utilize fake references which are supposedly written in that rearranged future. The fake notes are distinguished from the real by an asterisk. It's a measure of the verisimilitude of the accounts that many of these fake references could be accepted as real, though some, such as court martials of Douglas MacArthur and victorious Japanese generals' memoirs are more self-evident. Just because these alternate histories are cast as essays does not mean they are colorless didactic prose. The reading is lively and provocative, just as good military history should be. Some discussions with a few of the contributors at a book signing convinced me that these authors had considered most of the pitfalls of their thesis in advance. This book is not simply another variant of that old Saturday Night Live gag about a television show that answers adolescent inquiries such as "what if Napoleon had B-52s at Waterloo" or "What if Margaret Truman could fly" (she lead a wing of B-24s in a raid over Germany). None of these conjectural essays depend on "magic"....such as wonder weapons concocted from thin air, or giving allies or axis forces that could not have been possibly available. Nor are there dramatic personality changes. The key commanders and political leaders all stay "in character" reacting to each changed situation as one might expect. This book broadens horizons and, miracle of miracles, finds something new to say about WW II. Highly recommended.
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