This week, we turn from the drive up the Solomons on Rabaul to the origins of the mighty Pacific Fleet that would ultimately take the war to Japan itself. Morison's coverage of the conflict between MacArthur and Nimitz whether the latter would have any real role in the Pacific is mercifully brief, although unfortunately, so is the rest of the chapter. With the exception of the raid on Truk (and the first appearance of Iowa), this is a chapter about amphibious warfare, and for whatever reason, the amphibious operations feel like they've been cut back more than other portions of the 14-volume series. Maybe it's just a matter of space, as operations like Tarawa were extremely complex and I think he's trying to be more focused specifically on the Navy in Two-Ocean War than he is in the full series.
Beyond that, I don't have a ton to say. The Central Pacific generally gets more attention than the southwest Pacific campaign, so I suspect most of you didn't get as much out of this one, and Morison's normal rhetoric only shows up in a few places, making me wonder if this was a chapter that had to be written hastily in the process of getting the book done. But next week, we'll get the last great carrier battle of the war, as well as one of the great and overlooked campaigns of the war. I promise I'll be a lot more verbose then.
Oh, and as a final note, the 8" guns at Tarawa were not from Singapore. They were instead from a batch bought by Japan in 1905 for use during their war with Russia.
Comments
"8 inch guns from singapore" Mistake by the author, or in the sources available?
I got that from the USNI intro to the full volume. It was apparently a significantly later discovery, when people went and compared serial numbers.
So, limit of the sources available, then.
I have always been particularly interested in Tarawa. Its extensive fortifications were due, at least in part, to the Makin Island raid of 1942. It has always fascinated me that the Japanese learned so much from that particular raid, and so little from so many other operations and statistics throughout the entire war.
Hence, I was very pleased to remember the detail that Morrison went into about Tarawa.
I am uncertain if the home front moral boost from the Makin Island raid was worth the lessons the US Navy had to learn from Tarawa. I suspect the Navy (and the Marines) would eventually have to have learned the lessons anyway. At least at Tarawa, they were relatively uninterrupted by air, surface, or underwater forces, allowing them to learn the lessons one at a time.