Bookshop: Second World War in the Pacific

Books - Second World War - Pacific - General Works

Darkness before the Dawn, Sgt. J.N. Farrow. This is the wartime diary of Sgt. J.N. Farrow, a prisoner of war in Changi for four years from the fall of Singapore to the end of the war. The book in provides an invaluable insight into the life of a P.O.W. in the Far East. [see more]

World War Two: U.S. Military Plans for the Invasion of Japan, Thomas Fensch (Editor) This is a very useful collection of official American documents relating to Operation Downfall, the plan for the invasion of Japan. The invasion never needed to be carried out, but the plans had reached a very advanced stage by the time the two Atomic bombs ended the war. [see more]

Eagle Against The Sun, Spector, Ronald, Cassell Military, London, 2001.

Sledge, E B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1996 (Reprint).

Iwo Jima and Okinawa , Black, Wallace B. , Prentice Hall, London, 1993

McMillan, George. The Old Breed: A History of the First Marine Division in World War II, Infantry Journal Press, Washington DC, 1949 (Battery Press Reprint available).

The Pacific Campaign , Vat, Dan van der, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991.

Alexander, Joseph H. Storm Landings, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1997. A detailed account of the major amphibious assaults of the Pacific War.

Wheeler, Richard. A Special Valor: The US Marines and the Pacific War, Harper & Row, 1983, New York.

Biographies

The Quiet Admiral, A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Thomas B. Buell. This is widely considered to be the best biography of Spruance, currently available in this reissued edition. Buell nicely contrasts Spruance with Halsey, his co-commander of the combined third and fifth fleets from 1944, as well as looking at his handling of Midway, the battle that made his name.

In Bitter Tempest: The Biography of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, Stephen D. Regan. A much needed biography of one of the most important American admirals in the year after Pearl Harbor. Regan had rare access to Fletcher's papers, as well as to a wide range of interviews given before his death, and has produced a very valuable work on a neglected figure.