World War Ii Sea War Vol 8 Guadalcanal Secured

Volume 8 documents the swing of battle from the Axis to the Allies from December 1942 thru February 1943 as naval actions forced the Japanese to begin their retreat and their efforts to forestall the inevitable. Meanwhile, naval actions slowly strangled the Axis nations in Europe and led them to the road of defeat. Specific events include: * The last naval battles for Guadalcanal. * The IJN's secret evacuation of the Japanese Army from Guadalcanal. * The Russian encirclement and destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. * The German counterattacks against the much larger Russian Army in the Ukraine. * The Battle of the North Atlantic between Allied convoy escorts and German U-boats. * The Allies' advance to trap German and Italian troops in Tunisia. * Intense actions in the Arctic Ocean as the German surface fleet tried to destroy the Arctic Convoys. * Increased attacks by USN submarines on Japanese shipping.

World War II Sea War, Volume 23: Additions & Corrections October - December 1942 should be used with VOLUME 7: THE ALLIES STRIKE BACK covering September 1942 through November 1942 VOLUME 8: GUADALCANAL SECURED covering December 1942 through February 1943 As in previous Additions & Corrections volumes, Volume 23 corrects old data entries and adds new data to the months of October, November and December in Volumes 7 and 8. Background information in the corresponding three "General" sections has also been expanded to help form the context of the war, especially how world leaders made decisions. Additional data is provided for the Royal Indian Navy, German U-boats and the Royal New Zealand Navy. The expanded Japanese data provides additional information on Imperial Japanese Navy ship movements as Japan tried to consolidate her newly acquired Pacific empire, In particular, Volume 23 expands the data on the following events: Allied preparations for the Invasion of North Africa in Operation TORCH. The Allied landings in North Africa. Moving supplies to Malta. The Battle of the Barents Sea. Allied planning for an offensive in Burma. The many sea battles around Guadalcanal and New Guinea. USN PT-boat actions off Guadalcanal. US Army replacements arriving on Guadalcanal to relieve the US 1st Marine Division

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.

Major Pacific actions from April through August 1942 include the Japanese attack on Ceylon, the Doolittle Raid on Japan, the battle of the Coral Sea, the battle of Midway Island, the U.S. landing on Guadalcanal, the battle of Savo Island, and the battle of the eastern Solomon Islands. Arctic actions include battle for convoy PQ.17. In Mediterranean, the Royal Navy interdicts Axis supply lines along Libyan and Egyptian coasts. In the Atlantic, the U.S. implements convoys along the East Coast.

Acclaimed historian Eric Hammel presents a vivid examination of the naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, and its crucial impact on America's offensive against Japan in World War II. The combined air and naval action was the only naval battle of the 20th Century where American battleships fought Japanese battleships. When it concluded, it was an American victory that decided the future course of the naval war in the Pacific.

The University of Illinois Press continues its paperback release of Samuel Eliot Morison's panoramic fifteen-volume naval history with three volumes that chronicle the war in the Pacific from May 1942 through May 1944. This new edition will be issued in increments of three volumes per season through Spring 2003.Morison's genius for capturing the flash and fire and the pathos of combat infuses his narrative with an immense vitality and suspense. This is not an official history, in the ordinary sense of that term, but Morison's history, a gripping, face-to-face encounter with the human drama of war.Volume 4: Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942 -- August 1942 details the American victory in the Coral Sea and the U.S. Navy's stunning defeat of a far superior Japanese force at Midway, as well as the events leading up to the six-month struggle at Guadalcanal. This volume also provides a richly detailed look at the first-year exploits of the Silent Service: the fledgling American submarine corps in the Pacific. Morison supplements his firsthand experience of American operations and access to Allied documents with critical information from the Japanese side.

The battle at Guadalcanal marked the first American offensive of World War II and was fought on land, at sea, and in the air. For six months the Americans and the Japanese clashed in brutal warfare that escalated to unimagined levels of sustained violence. 50 photographs; 30 maps.

"Guadalcanal: The First Offensive" is a tactical history of ground operations involved in seizing and holding the heavily jungled island of Guadalcanal in the British Solomon Islands. It covers the campaign from the initial invasion on 7 August 1942 to 21 February 1943 when the area including the Russell Islands was finally secured. In the Pacific subseries this volume follows "The Fall of the Philippines," is concurrent with Victory in Papua, and precedes "CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul."The Guadalcanal Campaign was the first sustained Allied offensive in the Pacific. It began a series of amphibious attacks in the South and Southwest Pacific Areas which pointed toward the reduction of the great Japanese base at Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago. Just as the Japanese hoped to use Rabaul and their forward bases in the Solomons, the Bismarck Archipelago, and New Guinea to sever the U.S.-Australian line of communications, so the Allies planned their offensives to protect that line of communications and indirectly to clear the way for the return of American forces to the Philippines.To seize the initiative from the Japanese, the Americans were initially forced to launch their offensive before they had amassed the preponderance of military strength that characterized the latter phases of the war. Japanese reaction was so violent and the contestants were so evenly matched on the sea and in the air that the campaign developed into a six-month struggle for control of the approaches to Guadalcanal coupled with intense ground fighting for possession of the island itself. While air and naval forces fought six full-scale naval battles and hundreds of smaller engagements, American ground combat troops grappled with Japanese military forces in the tropical rain forests, in the mountains, and on grassy hills. The fight was hard, and the enemy skillful and stubborn. Nevertheless, the final American victory demonstrated that their leadership, determination, tactics, and weapons were as effective in the damp dark of the jungle as in the desert or on the open plains.The measure of the campaign is not to be found in the relatively small numbers of troops engaged. The Americans and Japanese were straining to bring their forces to bear at the end of long and vulnerable lines of communications, so that battalion and regimental actions assumed a much greater degree of importance than they did in, for example, the campaign in Europe during 1944 and 1945."Guadalcanal: The First Offensive" treats operations of U.S. Army ground combat troops in detail. It summarizes the achievements of U.S. Marine Corps, Navy, Air, and Allied units in order to show the contributions of all. Starting at the level of corps and division headquarters, ground combat is explained systematically down to the battalion level. When possible, key actions are carried down to the level of companies, platoons, and even squads, for combat in the thick tropical jungles tended to break up into a series of small-unit fights. Every attempt is made to show the contributions of all supporting arms and services, so that air, artillery, engineer, and signal support are related to infantry action as closely as possible.