Gerald A. Meehl - Böcker

This fascinating, richly illustrated survey of all aspects of the Pacific war, from Pearl Harbor to Japan's surrender in Tokyo Bay, offers something unique among World War II histories: an extensive color portfolio of dramatic wartime relics that have survived decades on most of the Pacific island battlefields. Rusting American landing craft and tanks still can be found on the treacherous reefs and beaches where they were tragically stopped by enemy fire so long ago; aircraft of both sides lie hidden in the jungles where they crashed; battle-scarred Japanese pillboxes and artillery emplacements still stand sentinel; and packed-coral landing strips remain as good as new. Such evocative memento mori have been beautifully captured on film by Jerry Meehl, probably the only photographer to have sought out these far-flung battle sites, many of them still dangerous underfoot and now off-limits to travelers. The authors also searched official archives for pictures that show the real terrors of combat and often found images displaying the very tanks and amtracs now decomposing on distant invasion beaches.They also found captured prewar photos of newly built Japanese pillboxes and gun emplacements, which they contrast with images of their current war-torn condition. But Pacific Legacy is far from just a "then" and "now" picture book. Each of the more than twenty photo essays of particular battles features a lively narrative that relies heavily on the firsthand accounts of men who were there, archival pictures shot during the actual fighting, and color photographs of the remaining Japanese bunkers and gun emplacements, all of which help the reader visualize what hand-to-hand combat in the Pacific war must have been like.

In this new book by the authors of Pacific Legacy: Image and Memory of World War II in the Pacific, the history of the War in the Pacific comes vividly to life in the words of those who witnessed it first-hand. The editors create for the reader, as the veterans themselves recall it, what that war was like - how it looked, felt, smelled, and sounded. The stories collected here are a unique portrayal of the mundane, exotic, boring, terrifying, life-altering events that made up their wartime experiences in World War II in the Pacific, a war fought on countless far-flung islands over an area that constitutes about one-third of the globe. What the veterans saw and lived through has stayed with them their entire lives, and much of it comes to the surface again through their vivid memories. This is an important book for military buffs as well as for the survivors of World War II and their families. The narratives, grouped into 15 thematic, chronologically arranged chapters, are stirring, first-hand accounts, from front-line combat at the epicentre of violence and death to restless, weary boredom on rear area islands thousands of miles from the fighting. While their experiences differed, all were changed by what happened to them in the Pacific. These are not the stories of sweeping strategies or bold moves by generals and admirals. Instead, we hear from men and women on the lower rungs, including ordinary seamen on vessels that encountered Japanese warships and planes and sometimes came out second best, rank-and-file Marines who were in amtracs churning toward bullet-swept tropical beaches and saw their buddies killed beside them, and astounded eyewitnesses to the war's sudden start on December 7, 1941.