Book Review: 'Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War'

(C) 2017 Da Capo Press

I was a precocious child when I started reading books about the Second World War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The first published work I remember reading was the condensed version of Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day in the Colombian edition of Reader's Digest. This was around the same time that I saw The Great Escape in a Bogota theater; these two early exposures to the topic via mass media awoke in me an interest in World War II that has never abated.

In many of the books I read in the 1970s, the Battle of Midway was usually heralded as the engagement that turned the tide of the Pacific War against the Japanese Empire and in favor of the United States and her allies in the region. After all, Japan's loss of four of her big fleet carriers, 248 planes, a cruiser (plus a second cruiser badly damaged) in exchange for the carrier USS Yorktown, the destroyer Hammann, and 150 aircraft stopped the Japanese advance to the east. But as decisive as that naval battle was, it was a defensive victory at best.

To defeat Japan, America's wartime leaders knew, would require offensive action, preferably one in which the then-outnumbered Pacific Fleet, its small-but-growing amphibious forces, and the Army could sucker the Japanese into a war of attrition until such time as the industrial might of the U.S. came into play and produced more ships, planes, and other weapons of war faster than the enemy could destroy them.

As Joseph Wheelan points out in his 2017 book Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War, Operation Watchtower, the hastily-planned and executed Marine invasion of Guadalcanal, was not only America's first amphibious operation since the Spanish-American War of 1898, but it triggered a six-month-long campaign fought in the air, land, and sea for control of this inhospitable and disease-ridden tropical island in the South Pacific.

 A sweeping narrative history--the first in over twenty years--of America's first major offensive of World War II, the brutal, no-quarter-given campaign to take Japanese-occupied Guadalcanal

From early August until mid-November of 1942, US Marines, sailors, and pilots struggled for dominance against an implacable enemy: Japanese soldiers, inculcated with the bushido tradition of death before dishonor, avatars of bayonet combat--close-up, personal, and gruesome. The glittering prize was Henderson Airfield. Japanese planners knew that if they neutralized the airfield, the battle was won. So did the Marines who stubbornly defended it.

The outcome of the long slugfest remained in doubt under the pressure of repeated Japanese air, land, and sea operations. And losses were heavy. At sea, in a half-dozen fiery combats, the US Navy fought the Imperial Japanese Navy to a draw, but at a cost of more than 4,500 sailors. More American sailors died in these battles off Guadalcanal than in all previous US wars, and each side lost 24 warships. On land, more than 1,500 soldiers and Marines died, and the air war claimed more than 500 US planes. Japan's losses on the island were equally devastating--starving Japanese soldiers called it "the island of death."

But when the attritional struggle ended, American Marines, sailors, and airmen had halted the Japanese juggernaut that for five years had whirled through Asia and the Pacific. Guadalcanal was America's first major ground victory against Japan and, most importantly, the Pacific War's turning point.

Published on the 75th anniversary of the battle and utilizing vivid accounts written by the combatants at Guadalcanal, along with Marine Corps and Army archives and oral histories, Midnight in the Pacific is both a sweeping narrative and a compelling drama of individual Marines, soldiers, and sailors caught in the crosshairs of history. - Publisher's dust jacket blurb, Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War

My Take

I first became interested in the Guadalcanal campaign when I checked out Jack Coggins' now-out-of-print The Battle for Guadalcanal, a lavishly illustrated coffee table hardcover that featured a well-written account of the August 1942-February 1943 campaign. Coggins was a good writer, but the book's biggest asset was its vast array of drawings and paintings. There were detailed illustrations of the various warships, aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, and other weapons used by the American Marines, their Army counterparts, and their Japanese opponents.  

Since then, I've read Richard Tregaskis' Guadalcanal Diary, Richard B. Frank's Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle, and now, Wheelan's Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War.

Published almost 75 years to the day after the First Marine Division began landing on Guadalcanal, Gavutu, and Tulagi, Wheelan's book explains how U.S. Navy and Marine commanders achieved tactical and strategic surprise against the combined forces of the Japanese army and navy. Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War focuses on the Americans' successful capture of the campaign's main objective - a recently completed air base that the Marines named Henderson Field. 

The book also tells the riveting story of Japan's various attempts to wrest control of Guadalcanal and its prized airfield, starting with the Japanese triumph at the Battle of Savo Island and chronicling the ever-more-desperate attempts to reinforce the island's garrison via what the Americans called the Tokyo Express and annihilate the isolated Marines of Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift's First Marine Division. In its 400 pages, Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War explains how Japan's dysfunctional military culture (based on the Army's belief that Samurai spirit was superior to American firepower) and the fierce rivalry between the Imperial Navy and the Army doomed Tokyo's chances to win at Guadalcanal as much as the courage of the American Marines, sailors, soldiers, and airmen who fought and bled in America's first offensive operation in World War II. 

I enjoyed Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War. The book was well-researched and is based on primary and secondary sources on both the American and the Japanese sides. The writing style is elegantly simple, crisp, and clear, and it reflects Wheelan's intent to tell a riveting and vivid account of one of World War II's most decisive battles.