Macarthur's Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign (Modern War Studies)

Rating:
Summary: A seminal book about a little-known WWII campaign
Review: A seminal book about a WWII campaign that achieved nothing of strategic significance except to boost Gen. MacArthur's personal standing as well as diverting US military forces from a direct thrust at Japan. Oddly enough, only military operations from after Operation Cartwheel, which included the bloody Buna campaign, is covered. Interested readers on the related Australian operations including the Kokoda trail, as well as follow-on operations in the Philippines will have to look elsewhere. A clear prerequisite for reading and enjoying this book is to have read "American Caesar" by William Manchester which gives the background to the complex relationships between all the personalities involved. The almost deadly duel between MacArthur and Admiral King over overall strategy and logistics is highlighted, with Admiral Nimitz being pushed into the background. The race between MacArthur's and Nimitz's rival thrusts towards the Japanese Empire being one of the main themes here. The book constantly harps on MacArthur's obsession with getting back to the Philippines. Thus, in his race to beat the US Navy to the China-Luzon-Formosa area, MacArthur is criticised for moving too fast up the northern coast of PNG before securing his bases for staging the next amphibious landings. He doesn't appear to have endeared himself to the men doing the fighting but achieved his objectives in record time and with remarkably low casualty rates for the whole campaign. As MacArthur did not know about the Manhattan Project, he cannot be faulted for his strategic planning based largely on the then known technology as well as current US military capability. As it was, the atomic bombs were the strategic weapons that decisively ended the Pacific War. This remarkable book goes somewhere towards setting the record straight and giving due credit to the many forgotten servicemen who performed gallantly or gave their lives in this little-known campaign. The maps are clear, concise and relate well to the text.