Touched with Fire: 8the Land War in the South Pacific

Turning his attention from the Vietnam War (Red Thunder, Tropical Lightning; The Dynamics of Defeat), Bergerud, who teaches military and American history at San Francisco's Lincoln University, focuses on ground combat in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands from mid-1942 until early 1944-a time when the South Pacific was the focal point of the land war between Japan and U.S. By synthesizing dozens of interviews with American and Australian participants into a strong analytical framework, he provides a definitive presentation of the dynamics of jungle war. Tactics, weapons, morale, medical services, human relationships in squads, platoons and companies-all are covered. The author's sources provide a vivid sense of what it was like to lead a patrol, to survive a firefight and to bury the dead. Bergerud is at his best discussing the strengths and weaknesses of American National Guard divisions that formed the backbone of the U.S. contribution to the South Pacific theater. At times, he seems too ready to take the Australians at their own, high evaluation of themselves-but he is hardly the first military historian to be seduced by the myths surrounding the Australian Imperial Forces. And if his discussion of the Japanese side doesn't match his treatment of the Allied forces, Meirion and Susie Harries's Soldiers of the Sun can be consulted for balance. Bergerud makes a major contribution here to our understanding not only of a specific campaign but of the nature of war itself. Maps. (July)