The Pacific Campaign

The Pacific Campaign in World War II: From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal (Cass Series: Naval Policy and History) by William Bruce Johnson. London: Routledge, 2005. 414p. ISBN-13: 978-0415701754

William Bruce Johnson is a New York-based attorney and a professional writer specializing in government policy and its consequences in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Here he has produced a scholarly but very readable account of the background to war with Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the long and bloody battle at Guadalcanal. There is a good account of the background to the Japanese attack, the mutual misunderstandings and the intelligence about opposing intentions which the two sides possessed. This is followed by a short but comprehensive account of the opening Japanese attacks and of the American responses. Johnson is particularly strong on the responses of individual leaders and notably of King’s determination to prosecute war in the Pacific even in the face of a Germany first strategy, outmanoeuvring MacArthur’s ambitions to command in the Pacific and ignoring Roosevelt. But the core of the book is an account of the preparations to attack then hold Guadalcanal through the second half of 1942. He provides a good and lucid account of the ludicrously underprepared and under-resourced assault, of American determination to hold the ground gained despite being woefully unprepared logistically and has a strong section on the effects on those involved in the months of close-quarter fighting.

Johnson gives powerful accounts of the importance and role of individuals. He has a dislike of MacArthur but almost hero worships Vandegrift, the Marine commander on the ground. He is generous to the often criticised Crutchley and the Australian role at Savo Island, but is suitably harsh on Fletcher’s withdrawal of the carriers. He can also turn a neat phrase. “While in some men hard drinking produces surliness, in Turner it merely accompanied it”. He has no doubt that the determination of leaders shapes events.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is its understanding and explanation of the role of popular culture in interpreting events and in forming popular support at home. It shows how censorship and patriotism coloured the reporting of the conflict, and how Hollywood films in particular helped form public opinion by portraying the battle and indeed the enemy in particular ways. He clearly articulates how crucial decisions such as that to launch the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, and that to give Douglas MacArthur command of the war effort in Australia, were political and populist rather than strategic, intended to boost morale at home rather than to gain any military advantage on the ground.

Johnson is amazingly well read. His bibliography contains over nine hundred items and he has clearly both read voraciously and also has an eye for slightly irrelevant but interesting detail. For example, he notes that the US ambassador to Japan was married to the granddaughter of Commodore Perry, or that the British plantation manager on Guadalcanal in the 1930’s “wore small gold earrings”. But he also shows great skill in synthesising quite disparate sources. There is a long section on medical conditions and treatments for the marines on Guadalcanal. It effortlessly integrates medical and psychological detail with British survey reports and Jack London novels.

But the author has been poorly served in the book’s editing. There appears to be only one gross error where not only are Swordfish described as outdated biplanes but Illustrious is also described as an outdated carrier. More seriously, the author has what appears to be a quite egregious inclination to pretentious writing which is rarely checked. Perhaps one has to grit ones teeth at the fashionable conversion of nouns to verbs – to “scapegoat”, to “analogize”, to “transition”, or at what seems crass – physicians “retooled” rather than retrained as psychiatrists. But sense is lost when physicians are described as “interned” rather than serving as an intern. In one chapter and without explanation verses from Mathew Arnold, Tennyson and Henley appear as introductions to subsections. It is perhaps formally correct but certainly unusual to talk about the evacuation from Dunkerque. It is plainly wrong to have aircraft “disbursed” rather than dispersed, or orientals [sic] “disprized” rather than despised and to use “insure” for ensure. Shells are “unloaded” when the sense is clearly fired – and so on. And the grammar is regularly shaky “… a task force was comprised of…”, for example. And some phrases are just hopelessly overblown. The Japanese had been “scoping out their envisioned empire”, while the marines at Guadalcanal indulge in “crisp working class badinage”, having “foolishly imbibed untreated river water”, using “a cornucopia of personal weapons” as they face “the proven diurnal threat from the air” and shooting “presumptive Japanese corpses” to ensure they were dead. Messages are “exigent” rather than urgent. The text is full of both neologisms and antiquated usages. The range of Japanese weapons is an armatorium rather than an armoury, while natives are described as “indigenes” and pollsters discovered “a majoritarian commitment” for war. This extended, but very incomplete list of editing issues is set down to demonstrate how a potentially very good book has been spoiled. Attention is diverted from a good tale well told to waiting for the next solecism.