The author is Ian W. Toll and the subtitle is War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942. I loved this book and it should join my list of the very best books of the year. Every page was gripping and instructive. Here is an excerpt on “how to leave the dollar zone”:
The word HAWAII was overprinted on all paper currency — in the event of invasion the U.S. Treasury would declare the bills worthless.
I very much liked this passage:
Holmes added that a cryptanalyst “needs only time, patience, an infinite capacity for work, a mind that can focus on one problem to the exclusion of everything else, a photographic memory, the inability to drop an unsolved problem, and a large volume of traffic.”
I learned that Hawaii never interned its Japanese (with no problems), why the Japanese didn’t go after Australia and why they should have, and why the Japanese failed in the Battle of Midway. I had not known that MacArthur received a payment of $500,000 from the Philippine Treasury in 1942, and the U.S. knew about it and let him keep it.
Highly recommended, even if you don’t care about naval warfare per se. I am now ordering Toll’s other book.
I’m reading “Six Frigates” now because Ian Toll spoke in Norfolk (where I live) a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the lecture, but the book is fantastic. I’m planning to read “Pacific Crucible” next, so I was pleased to read your recommendation.
Six Frigates was great. I got it from the library (so TGS-y!) a couple years ago. I’m pretty sure I sent the author an email complimenting him, which is the only time I’ve ever done that in my life. I’m excited to see he has a new book out.
RE: Internment of Japanese in Hawaii, while most Japanese were not interned I am reasonably certain my great uncle was interned – I believe he was a journalist for the local Honolulu paper, and was interned because of it. I’m not sure if he was rousing rabble or not, but will investigate.
The $500,000 payment was mentioned in Hasting’s Retribution. Just one more thing Hastings hated about MacArthur. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/03/retribution.html.
“Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 1801-1805″ is an interesting naval history read and analysis into either paying hush money or fighting your enemies into the often overlooked Barbary Wars and Muslim Piracy in the Med.
Did that cause a bank run with people trying to swap Hawaii dollars for “real” ones?
Yes, see the disillusionment of the Austro-Hungarian Krone. A niceexample of how not to live a montary union in an orderly way.
It’s not quite true that the Hawaiian Japanese were never interned.
The Japanese population of Hawaii as a whole was not interned, but
many U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were interned. These were
generally people who had strong contacts with Japan, for example
people who had travelled frequently to Japan. Also, the principals
of the Japanese schools in Hawaii. They were temporarily held on
an island in Honolulu Bay, then transferred to the mainland once
transportation could be arranged.
I can’t cite a source other than my mother. One of her best friend’s
parents were interned, and the friend went with them to Tule Lake.
The Japanese didn’t go after Australia? I haven’t read the book so maybe this doesn’t mean what I think it means. The Japanese bombed ports along northern Australia, sent submarines up and down the east coast and made heroic efforts in New Guinea.
Also, http://www.navy.gov.au/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea
I assume what he meant was why the Japanese seemed not have any serious plans for invading Australia which I think is the prevailing consensus among historians. Mind you, there was a lot of on the ground revisions of plans as the Japanese got further and faster than they ever thought, the best example being Singapore, so I’ve little doubt that if they hadn’t been stopped in New Guinea they would have continued south, plans or not.
This whole argument that the Japanese should of taken Australia seems far fetched to me. It’s a bit like saying ‘the Germans should have taken out Egypt’. Well yes they should have and they tried and they failed. The Japanese were seriously stretched logistically at that point in the war. Taking out Australia would have required a large amount of forces they didn’t have.
I’m interested in why the Japanese “should have” gone after Australia. I thought that the consensus was that this was a non-option for them.
Australia is a big place, and the most valuable parts are in the south, over a thousand miles from the Japanese perimeter. And not to denigrate the bravery of the Australian soldiers, but if they take Sydney, so what? How does this affect China, where most of the Japanese army was fighting, or the United States.
The Japanese campaigns in the Pacific war were conducted on a shoestring, and when they did better than even they expected, they simply didn’t have the resources to take advantage of the opportunities that opened up. And frankly they weren’t set up for a long war. The only reason 1941-2 is if the US and UK cut a deal, which is one reason why the Pearl Harbor raid was a strategic blunder.
I don’t understand what strategic advantage would acrue to Japan if it had invaded Australia – it would have multiple army groups and re-supply would have been next to impossible. Unless ‘should have’ is actually from the perspective of the allies? If Japan had committed its armies in to the vastness of Australia they would have shortened the Pacific campaign by two years (in favour of the allies).
In point of fact, the Australians conducted a slow fighting withdrawal across New Guinea and eventually turned back the exausted Japanese. There were a couple of minor bombing raids on the Australian mainland (Darwin), but the raids were primarily symbolic.
An interesting ‘markets in everything’ story is that the Australian’s told the natives that yellow flesh was much tastier than white flesh.
You mean it’s not tastier?
What’s with all the WWII books lately?
Love the book reviews Tyler, keep them up.
Could anyone recommend a single book that outlines WWII? I know that such a book would necessarily be a broad survey, but that is what I am looking for.
This weekend’s WSJ had a list of about a half dozen.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577024492528567130.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_8
Thank you very much, there are at least 2 on that list I will check out thoroughly.
Re: the WSJ list, those are some odd choices, except for Gilbert, whose volume is workmanlike as always but not inspired, and Keegan (ditto).
For just the military side, Murray & Millett, A War to Be Won, is good. Weinberg’s A World at Arms is huge and attends to diplomacy as well as combat. I would recommend either of those over anything the WSJ listed.
…. Re: Pacific Crucible, I haven’t read it, but I did read the section on Midway whilst sitting in the bookstore. It’s okay on a basic level, but anyone already familiar with the Pacific war will find little of interest, I think. Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal looks to be a better read.
Thank you as well for taking the time to reply, I will investigate your suggestions.
Thanks again
I read and very much enjoyed Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno. (And am currently reading Pacific Crucible.) Isolating the surface fights around Guadalcanal (from the carrier battles) was an interesting approach, and the book left me much impressed with the incredible carnage those ships could inflict upon one another in very short periods of time. Also interesting to reflect on the nature of leadership in those battles — an admiral or captain on the bridge of a ship closing with the enemy was putting himself DIRECTLY in the enemy’s crosshairs. I can’t think of another form of WWII combat that required such steady personal courage from high ranking officers. My only knock on Neptune’s Inferno as a story (not on Hornfischer as a writer or researcher), is that there isn’t one ship or person that carries it. It doesn’t have a main character, per se. Largely because ships rotated in and out of the area based on the damage they accrued.
Mark Thorson is correct. Hawaiians of Japanese descent were interned on the mainland. While my family is mostly Hawaiian Chinese, we have distant Japanese relatives and family friends with relatives who were held at Tule Lake.
To affirm some previous postings: many Japanese individuals on Hawaii were interned — arrested, really — beginning right after Pearl Harbor. The same thing happened on the mainland. But on Hawaii there was no mass internment of Japanese Americans, as happened with Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. (On the one hand, Hawaii’s economy would’ve been crippled by the internment of over 1/3 of its population; OTOH it shows the blatant falsehood of the arguments that “security” and “military necessity” required the removal of Japanese Americans from “military zones” such as the entire West Coast — yet it was okay for 140,000 of them to keep living within a few miles of Pearl Harbor?)
And I also liked Weinberg’s “A World at Arms”. Anderson is correct to point out its strong coverage of diplomacy (and grand strategy) as well as combat. E.g. in 1941 Japan and the Soviet Union were natural foes of each other, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor the last thing they wanted to do was have yet another enemy on their western (or eastern) border, so they spent most of the war staying scrupulously neutral towards each other. So I finally understood why the Soviets would routinely intern American fliers who crash-landed in Soviet territory: against Germany, the Americans were allies. But against Japan, the Soviets were neutral and did not want to provoke Japan by aiding Americans who were bombing Japan. Conversely, the Americans could send lend-lease supplies across the North Pacific to the Soviet Union (with ships and planes flying Soviet colors), which the Japanese were quite aware of but did nothing to stop! Germany continually harangued Japan to intercept those shipments, but as a studiously neutral party with the Soviet Union, Japan didn’t want to provoke them. This also makes one view the Alaska Canada Highway in a new light.
Toll’s first book, Six Frigates, is great. terrific info on the Barbary Coast wars and the founding of the Navy.Bought my copy from the author at a function for the US Constitution, at which he spoke. I’m really glad he is meeting with success.
Btw,The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, by Taylor is absolutely fantastic. Much to learn in here about the early US and the development of Canada.
A similar banknote situation exists in Europe. The serial numbers of Euro banknotes indicate the country in which they were printed. A few years ago it was reported that Germans were starting to reject banknotes printed in the Latin countries: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2791587/Support-for-euro-in-doubt-as-Germans-reject-Latin-bloc-notes.html
Pacific Crucible is fantastic. I’ve been waiting for Toll’s next book since reading Six Frigates, which is also a gripping book. Can’t wait for his next one.
Loved Pacific Crucible and unlike many recent history books it is notably free of error or typos, except for a picture caption identifying the carrier Lexington in action “in 1943″. The Lex was of course sunk in May 1942.
If you’ll allow me to recommend another book in the same vein as Pacific Crucible, it’s Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully’s Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Parshall and Tully tell the story from the Japanese point of view, and it’s absolutely fascinating. (Not to mention impeccably researched.) The author’s explode a lot of the “received wisdom” Americans have inherited about the battle. I couldn’t put it down.
Comments on this entry are closed.