"Neptune's Inferno" - new Book on Guadalcanal

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Edward
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"Neptune's Inferno" - new Book on Guadalcanal

Post by Edward »

James Hornfischer brings his considerable story telling talents to the naval battles that raged off Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942. Highly recommended

Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
James D. Hornfischer
Random House 2011

"Hornfischer’s third outstanding book on the U.S. Navy’s surface forces in WWII will have a ready-made audience because its subject is the naval side of the Guadalcanal campaign of 1942. The campaign began when marines landed on that deservedly unfrequented island to halt the creation of a Japanese airbase that might threaten U.S. communications with Australia. The Japanese riposte inflicted a disaster on the U.S. Navy second only to Pearl Harbor, called the Battle of Savo Island. Over the next few months, the two navies went at each other hammer and tongs in what was probably the most intense naval campaign of the war. The Japanese had an ace up their sleeve in the Long Lance torpedo, the best in the world. The U.S. eventually counterbalanced the Japanese by learning (all too slowly) to use radar-directed gunfire to take back the night seas. The author offers balanced assessments of the leaders on both sides, but the real heroes are the American bluejackets, who too often paid with suffering and death for those leaders’ slowness to learn. And as in his first two books, the author’s narrative gifts and excellent choice of detail give an almost Homeric quality to the men who met on the sea in steel titans." --Roland Green - Booklist

Andy in West Oz
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Re: "Neptune's Inferno" - new Book on Guadalcanal

Post by Andy in West Oz »

Looking forward to this as Last Stand Of The Tin Can Sailors is a brilliant read. I am hoping his Ship Of Ghosts is of similar quality. Am going to wait for the paperback of Neptune's Inferno as my other two Hornfischer titles are in that format. I did, however, take the opportunity to flick through NI while in Hawaii recently. Looks like an excellent read with a lot of emphasis on the men in the little ships - a subject very much a favourite of mine.
Andy Wright
Aircrew Book Review
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library - Jorge Luis Borges

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