Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific [Hardcover]

Joseph H. Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2009

The Pacific War changed abruptly in November 1943 when Adm. Chester W. Nimitz unleashed his Central Pacific drive, spearheaded by U.S. Marines. The sudden American proclivity for bold amphibious assaults into the teeth of prepared defenses astonished Japanese commanders, who called them "storm landings" because they differed sharply from earlier campaigns. This is the story of seven now-epic long-range assaults executed against murderous enemy fire at Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa - and a potential eighth, Kyushu. The author describes each clash as demonstrating a growing U.S. ability to concentrate an overwhelming naval force against a distant strategic objective and literally kick down the front door. The battles were violent, thoroughly decisive, and always bloody, with the landing force never relinquishing the offensive. The cost of storming these seven fortified islands was great: 74,805 combat casualties for the Marines and their Navy comrades. Losses among participating Army and offshore Navy units spiked the total to 100,000 dead and wounded. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of research in original battle accounts, new Japanese translations, and fresh interviews with survivors. Richly illustrated and abounding with human-interest anecdotes about colorful "web-footed amphibians," Storm Landings vividly portrays the sheer drama of these three-dimensional battles whose magnitude and ferocity may never again be seen in this world.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (April 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557500320
• ISBN-13: 978-1557500328
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Science of Savagery, July 5, 2000

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific (Hardcover)

The debacle of the British amphibious assault at Gallipoli during WWI caused conventional wisdom to say that amphibious assaults were too risky and too bloody to attempt. Between the wars, the Marine Corps developed a theory for making them work. They tested and refined this theory in the bloody crucibles of Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Pelileu, and Iwo Jima, with their magnum opus being Okinawa. Success came at a high price, and Alexander pulls no punches in describing the horror.

As a teenager, I once expressed the opinion that it was wrong to drop The Bomb on Japan. My father, a veteran of the Third Marine Division who saw combat at Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima, quickly informed me that I would never have been born if The Bomb had not been dropped. The Third Marine Division had been chosen to spearhead the amphibious assault on Kyushu, an isle of the Japanese homeland, and my father sincerely believes that he would not have survived the assault. Alexander dissects the plans for that invasion, and sums up the anticipated carnage. The assaults from Tarawa to Iwo Jima had this in common. Each was bloodier than the last. Kyushu promised to be a mini-Armaggedon. We can never really know what the bodycount would have been had The Bomb not been dropped. From Alexander's description of what was expected to happen at Kyushu, one could make the case that the death toll would have been much, much higher, both in Japanese and American lives.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An analysis of 7 Marine amphibious landings in the Pacific., November 14, 1999

By 

Raymond W. Russell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific (Hardcover)

Colonel Joseph Alexander's book is an analysis of seven Marine amphibious landings in the Pacific in World War II. In his book, "Storm Landings," Alexander lets the reader see these battles through the planning and tactical stages of the Marine and Navy generals and admirals -- as well as the Marines who made the landings. This historical document contains a wealth of data and information, but at the same time is rich in describing the chaos, noise, suffering, and uncertainty of all these storm landings. (Tarawa came very close to being lost.) I particularly remember the words of a Marine batallion commander on Iwo Jima who described the firepower facing the Marines: "I could have lit a cigarette on the stuff going by." The Marines made mistakes, large and small, in these landings, but they studied them and learned from them. For instance, the Marines learned that the hiatus in Navy barrages just before the landings allowed the enemy to regroup and adjust. They learned to get the men ashore more quickly, obtained more efficient landing vessels, and developed weapons suited to the conditions, such as flamethrowers. This book is particularly interesting, since Alexander had access to Japanese documents showing how the Japanese prepared for, and learned from, the assaults. The Japanese moved their defenses from the water's edge, dug intricate tunnels, eliminated mass counterattacks which had proved unproductive, and instead calibrated their mortars and artillery to kill the Marines once they were on the beach. The author makes a hard analysis of these seven amphibious landings and it must have taken some courage on his part to criticize some of those at the highest levels for their mistakes, for even dead generals and admirals have friends and relative whose anger might be brought to bear on a retired colonel. "Storm Landings" is a rare historical book, for it captures the big picture, contains an abundance of relevant detail, gives an inside view of how the Japanese were dealing with these landings, plus it captures the experiences of the Marines who participated in these incredible military maneuvers.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Col. Alexander surprises to the up side...again, May 30, 2001

By 

George G. Kiefer (Sevierville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific (Hardcover)

Once again Retired Col. Joseph Alexander has penned a superb text. In "Storm Landings" he captures the essence of seven violent island assaults and the planning of a eighth; Kyushu in the Japanese home islands. These epic battles spearheaded by Marines were the core of the Central Pacific drive. Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, amphibious landings all, were distinguished as storm landings by the Japanese commanders. They were so called as they contained six additional elements: extreme danger, long-ranged, large scaled, self-sustaining, against defended positions under the protection of fast carrier forces. Col. Alexander's strength is his prodigious research skills and an ability to preceive the over all connection between diverse elements. Drawing on these skills the author reflects on the five separate landings on D-Day, Guadalcanal. In an interesting introduction to the main battles, Alexander notes that on Gavutu and Tanambogo the 1st Parachute Battalion, subsequently reinforced by B Co. 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, engaged in the first opposed landings. To Alexander's perceptive eye, the Gavutu-Tanambogo landings represented a microcosm of opposed landings to come. All were violent, relatively short, thoroughly decisive and always bloody. One can not read this work without coming away with a profound awareness of the increasingly fierce determination of the Japanese defenders the closer the din of combat came to the Japanese home land. 100,000 Japanese died defending Okinawa along with 150,000 native Okinawans. On Kyushu alone, 600,000 defenders awaited the invasion force that was to come but for the bomb. Obviously, for both combatants, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, were saved.

The epilogue, quoting war correspondent Robert Sherrod adds, "...no man who saw Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa would agree that all the American steel was in the guns and bombs. There was a lot, also, in the hearts of the men who stormed the beaches." Lt.Col. Robertson after watching the Marines landing at Iwo Jima during the worst of the shelling asked himself, "What impels a young guy landing on a beach from the very first craft in the face of fire?" Reading this book, Marine or not, one has a deeper understanding of the answer to that question. It lies in the Hallmark of Marine pride: "Semper Fidelis".