Pacific Campaign: The U.S.-Japanese Naval War 1941-1945 (Paperback)

~ Dan Van der Vat (Author) "JAPAN'S SOUTHWARD ADVANCE, even though it was in the opposite direction from all its previous expansion, derived directly from its military adventures, political scheming and..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Pearl Harbor, New Guinea (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Chicago Tribune An unsparing indictment of Japan's culpability in bringing about the Second World War....It blows away the rubbish....Van Der Vat writes with clarity and understanding. -- Review

Review

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Fast-paced, meticulously reserarched...has all the elements of a spy thriller.

The New York Times Book Review

Belongs on the bookshelf of every American who contemplates the meaning of the greatest sea war in history.

Stephen E. Ambrose

author of Eisenhower

A vivid account of the greatest naval battles ever fought and a thoughtful analysis of why war came...marked by fresh insights and new material.

The Chicago Tribune

An unsparing indictment of Japan's culpability in bringing about the Second World War....It blows away the rubbish....Van Der Vat writes with clarity and understanding.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Touchstone ed edition (December 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671792172
• ISBN-13: 978-0671792176
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #400,577 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introductory book about WW2 in Pacific, April 14, 2000

By	Drazen Kramaric (Zagreb Croatia) - See all my reviews

When I decided to purchase a single volume book about WW2 in Pacific I narrowed my choice between two titles: this one and Costello's book. Since I didn't know anything about these books nor their authors I based my decision on Amazon reviews and the fact that Van der Vat was European which I though would add to his objectivity.

Now, I am not so sure I made the right decision and I'll probably go after Costello in the future. Why? Well, as I wrote in the title, "Pacific Campaign" is good book on introductory level, but I wanted more.

To be honest, Van der Vat gives us good introduction (which I wasn't particularly interested in), he describes all the important campaigns and offers his own view about some key characters and their acts which I commend. Maps are well done and serves their purpose. Van der Vat's writing style is very good and easy to read.

Unfortunately, I already read book with similar characteristics written by Croatian author so "Pacific Campaign" didn't give me any new information. I wanted more detailed descriptions, more study about the strategies of opposing sides, more data about the battles. When I read about the battles like Midway or Philippine Sea I want to know every ship that participated down to cruiser level.

I don't criticise Van der Vat for not having all I wanted, but I unless it would be your very first work about WW2 in Pacific I suggest some other book with more detailed approach.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview, May 5, 2005

By	C. Ryan (Winthrop, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The most interesting and useful part of this book for most people may be the first 113 pages that describe events preceding Pearl Harbor as Japan, starting with their annexation of Formosa in 1895, maneuvered for two generations toward war with the United States.

Published in 1991, author van der Vat pays no homage to "the greatest generation" who fought the war in the lower ranks but focuses on their parents' generation, men largely born before 1895, who, sometimes wisely and sometimes not, actually strategized the war and lead the U.S. to Victory (Roosevelt, King, Nimitz, Halsey, MacAuthur, et al). The profiles of significant senior Japanese officers will be new to many Americans. Also, the author makes a good case that the two pronged assault toward Japan, MacArthur through the Solomons and Philippines and Nimitz through the Marshalls, Marianas, etc., was a poor strategy that needlessly prolonged the war by dividing Allied resources.

Another interesting aspect is the fanatical, even suicidal, attitude of so many Japanese both before the war and during pitched battles. This lead the U.S. to conclude that the only way to get them to stop fighting, either on a remote atoll or on their home islands, was to apply ever greater firepower. It sounds in some ways like the philosophy and practice of the Islamic supremacists the U.S. is fighting in recent and current times.

A few interesting tidbits were new to me. For example, the famous Normandy D-Day landing was not the largest or even the second largest single-day U.S. amphibious assault of the war; the largest was on Luzon in the Philippines and the second largest was on Okinawa. The first B-29 raid of the war was against Japanese forces in Bangkok. The Japanese killed 250,000 Chinese civilians in reprisal for (very little) Chinese support of the 1942 Doolittle (Thirty Second Over Tokyo) air raid. And, things never change, a U.S. congressman blabbed in a press conference that during a "fact finding trip" to the Pacific Theater he learned that the Japanese were failing to sink U.S. submarines because they were setting their depth charges to explode at too shallow a depth; the Japanese picked this up and thereafter improved their ability to sink our subs... Finally the Japanese had a significant atomic weapons program dating from before 1942 and one of their principal development sites, captured and dismantled by the Russians, was in what is now North Korea (!?).

This 429-page book is recommended as a "refresher" for someone who is familiar with the general facts of WWII in the Pacific but is vague on the specifics or someone with no prior knowledge who wants to learn the details (units, ships, commanders) of the principal campaigns and battles.

The maps could be better and the photos are mostly well know from elsewhere.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Overview of the Pacific War, April 11, 2001

By	Keith Endres (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

All the essentials needed to understand the war in the Pacific are well presented here, as Van der Vat offers a broad overview of the war in a way that covers all the aspects from both sides and neglects no significant area. Granted, the information is only relatively in depth, this book is not intended for utilization as an in depth historical analysis. However, some of the material presented early in the book on the subject of intelligence and its role in the conflict was very original and is worthy of attention from even scholars. The discussion of the actual battles is well written and entertaining. There is no better way to begin understanding the war than to utilize a book like this, and Van der Vat certainly provides a worthy opportunity here.