Rating: 
Summary: Info on Japan sadly lacking
Review: Although this is a well-researched book it does not have any new or updated info on the Japanese Forces. The author makes the same mistake of most western authors: He repeats old information, and he makes quite a few mistakes. On page 14 he writes that "the cooperation between the 17th Army in Rabaul and the Imperial Combined Fleet in Truk was minimal" And so it should have been! The Imperial Army's 8th Area Army under the command of Gen. Imamura was responsible for that, not the 17th Army! Gen. Imamura met Adm. Yamamoto on several occasions! Then we have the "Japanese soldiers were shorter than their rifles with fixed bayonets". I know quite a few veterans and have hundreds of photos of Japanese soldiers. All of them are taller than their weapons! On page 285: " Expensive weapons such as tanks and heavy artillery were rare in the IJA" What can I say? Tanks were widely used and so was artillery. The Japanese tank forces have been underestimated for a long time and although tanks were built in much lower quantities and quality than say, in Germany, they did build more than the Italians. Japanese tank production was close to 8000, and at the end of the war they came out with the Type 3 tank, a very good weapon with a 75mm gun. Japan could never match Allied superiority in weapons, but they did the best they could with what they had. I wish more authors would read some of the newer books on WW2 published in Japan. The info and documented evidence contained therein would surprise quite a few people!
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: As a narrative I didn't care for this book. But it is highly detailed and richly documented. If you are interested in a detailed account of what battle was like in the steaming jungles of the South Pacific, this book will describe the worst. The author masterfully covers tactics, weapons, and terrain and how the soldiers on both sides had to adapt themselves to the world's most bitter environment. That these men could wage war under such grueling circumstances is amassing in itself. You will be asking yourself as you read, 'Could I have done such things in my youth?' It will surly increase your admiration for the America Marine of WWII.
Rating:
Summary: A very good soldiers history
Review: Eric Bergerud has produced a very good soldier's history of the land war in the South Pacific. For Americans, this is a sadly understudied period, often ignored in favor of the far larger battles on the Central Pacific Islands or the Philippines. However, it was during this period that the outcome of the war in the Pacific was actually in doubt, and therefore where the Japanese were on a relatively equal footing with the Allies. The relative forces involved make the American involvement certainly equal to the parallel operations in North Africa and Sicily, but at that time we were far from being even equal partners with the British. It is a fascinating campaign in an exotic region, and Bergerud treats it as such.Bergerud takes a Keeganesque approach, but balances it with the necessity of his narrative. Those looking for an in-depth strategical analysis should look elsewhere - jungle wars are by necessity not wars of large manuver units. It is, by necessity, a grunt's story. However, Bergerud's narrative does describe the campaign and some of the higher strategic considerations which led to those grunts being sent to wherever they were sent, and why their respective armies sent them out to fight the way that they did. The narrative takes the reader on a fascinating journey through life as a combat solider in the South Pacific: where he fought, how he was wounded, injured or rendered ill (disease being a huge problem in the jungles of the South Pacific), how he was cared for in injury and death, what he ate, how he was armed, why he fought, and all the other elements that you need to really understand what a rifleman's life was like. The author makes good use of veterans' interviews in illustrating his points. Australians will take comfort (and hopefully Americans will learn something) in the attention paid to their contribution in the South Pacific. The MacArthur propaganda legacy does not hold sway over this book. If there is any great failing in this book, it is the lack of material present about the Japanese. At times, coverage of the Japanese is excellent. However, at no time does the author use as much interview material from Japanese veterans as he does from Allied vets. Also, Bergerud gives Japanese morale the short end of the stick. That is a serious flaw, given that by the time one reaches the chapter on morale, a reader should be painfully aware of just how much every Japanese attack in the South Pacific (even the successful ones) resembled massacres. What motivated these men to go and die in droves is a subject worthy of a serious examination, and Bergerud does not give it one. That aside, this is a great book for anyone wanting to bone up on the South Pacific campaign!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Even if you could care less about WWII, military history, or history in general, read this book. Bergerud gives an accurate, if bare-bones, account of the grander strategic scale on which the war in the South Pacific was fought, and then precedes to the real meat of the text: a series of chapters covering the conditions in which the infantry actually fought. The book's greatest strength is the massive amounts of material that the author has gleaned from the actual veterans of the conflict, and surely in the future historians who are trying to reconstruct what actually happened on the ground in WWII will be truly grateful for this kind of research. The stories of the men who actually served in the South Pacific give the war a more human character than it could ever have without these accounts. The war is presented to the reader in all of its splender and horror and even on many occasions its comedy. If you liked the style of Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers, Bergerud does it even better. Indeed, it is a shame that Bergerud's book hasn't achieved the same kind of recognization as has Ambrose's work. He lets these veterans speak for themselves, and it is these accounts that truly make this book great.
Rating: 
Summary: The hows and the whys
Review: I am just getting into WW2 military history, and this was the first serious book I have read on the land war in the South Pacific. I found the book easy to read, informative, and not a little fascinating, right up to the cheaper on weaponry involved. This was the only subject matter the author touched upon on which I was already well informed. The entire section reads as if copied in bits and pieces from a reference book. This gun, or that artillery piece is xx inches long, with a barrel xx inches long, and a weight of xx.x pounds. Trivial and beside the point. Information on how the weapons were employed and why is sparse, mainly coming from verbatim interviews. Where the author throws in an explanation, it is rarely clear - and sometimes entirely false.. For example, the Tommygun was an effective weapon because it [fired a solid lead bullet] "which had a thin zinc coating which dispersed by the time it left the barrel, leaving a lead round in flight." Detachable barrels are desireable for a machinegun because "a worn barrel cost the weapon power and accuracy." Well, yes, but much more importantly (and not mentioned), detachable barrels allow the gunner to swap in a cold barrel and continue firing when the original gets too hot. If many of the details on subjects I know are wrong, I am not confident that the details on subjects I don't know aren't wrong too. If you have already read any serious material on the South Pacific land war, you'll probably find the information shallow. I had no past experience in that field, and found it shallow even so. The unedited bits directly from men who were actually there are fascinating, though. 3.5 / 5.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but many of the details come up short.
Review: I am just getting into WW2 military history, and this was the first serious book I have read on the land war in the South Pacific. I found the book easy to read, informative, and not a little fascinating, right up to the chapter on weaponry involved. This was the only subject matter the author touched upon on which I was already well informed. The entire section reads as if copied in bits and pieces from a reference book. This gun, or that artillery piece is xx inches long, with a barrel xx inches long, and a weight of xx.x pounds. Trivial and beside the point. Information on how the weapons were employed and why is sparse, mainly coming from verbatim interviews. Where the author throws in an explanation, it is rarely clear - and sometimes entirely false. For example, the Tommygun was an effective weapon because it [fired a solid lead bullet] "which had a thin zinc coating which dispersed by the time it left the barrel, leaving a lead round in flight." Detachable barrels are desireable for a machinegun because "a worn barrel cost the weapon power and accuracy." Well, yes, but much more importantly (and not mentioned), detachable barrels allow the gunner to swap in a cold barrel and continue firing when the original gets too hot. If many of the details on subjects I do know are wrong, I am not confident that the details on subjects I don't know aren't wrong too. If you have already read any serious material on the South Pacific land war, you'll probably find the information a bit shallow. I had only basic knowledge of that field, and found it lacking for detail in places even so. The unedited bits directly from men who were actually there are a saving grace and then some, though. 3.5 / 5.
Rating:
Summary: A different way of writing military history
Review: I have read many stories of World War II, but this one treats things differently. Instead of book with a story that starts at the beginning and ends at the end of the campaign, this book condenses the "story" into a single 38-page chapter. The remaining almost 500 pages deal with different aspects of the entire campaign. It includes sections on the terrain (almost all jungle), the armies, the tactics, and many other features of the South Pacific war. There are many reminiscences from those who fought, and occasionally a story of a specific campaign. What this does is give you a far better picture than most books of what it was like to be there. Instead of talking about the "harsh" jungle or the "relentless" Japanese, you get a huge detailed picture of exactly what it was like - the smell of the jungle, and the tactics the Japanese used. Interspersed with this are Bergerud's comments on the effectiveness of how each company waged war, the strengths of the weapons, and how unprepared all sides were for the terrain. I finished this book with a far deeper understanding of these battles, and I'd be interested to see this approach applied to other military history books.
Rating:
Summary: A different way of writing military history
Review: Like many Americans, my view of land combat against Japan was heavily influenced by books and movies that focused on the island hopping campaign highlighted by Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. While aware of Guadalcanal, I was less familiar with the fight for New Guinea and its strategic importance.
This book does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the nightmarish conditions found in New Guinea and of linking the battles there to the ones fought at the same time on Guadalcanal. It does not get bogged down in the military minutia of unit designations. Instead it concentrates on the impressions of individual soldiers while they struggle to achieve "big picture" objectives that were as imperceptible to them as the jungle landscape they were fighting for.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in getting a feel for these under publicized but crucial battles in the South Pacific.
Rating:
Summary: Splendid coverage with a few too many details for many.
Review: Many people reading this review are well read concerning the European theatre and shockingly ignorant about the Pacific. I was also, until now. While Bergerud's style is not nearly as gripping as other recently popular authors on WWII his complete coverage of the savagery and confusion in the Solomons and New Guinea will grab even the hardest East Front grognard. The author gives extensive coverage of the armies, the weapons, and the brutal terrain that defined the war in the South Pacific. My only complaint about the work is its somewhat overly detailed description of the force structures and island geography that may distract the casual reader at times. Bergerud gives the Australian forces much deserved respect and completely immerses the reader in the horror that was Jungle warfare in WWII. His books about Vietnam have given him extra insight into the jungle warfare that is still so foreign to the American military. The book focuses completely on the South Pacific and does not cover the mid-Pacific campaign (Siapan, Guam, Iwo Jima, etc.) and this is also a strong point. I strongly recommend this book as an introduction to the land war in the Pacific in WWII. All European theatre fans should read it.
Rating:
Summary: War in the jungle seen from every angle
Review: The book delivers what it offers, a detailed account of the ground battles of the South Pacific during World War II. What makes this book so special, are the very numerous testimonies of the soldiers that live through such nightmare, without forgetting to tell the reader about the big picture of what was happening in the halls of Washington and Tokyo. I give it four stars because due to reasons only known by the author, the testimonials of the Japanese soldiers are almost non existent, so a very important part of the history (the other half) is excluded an that is absurd in the case of a 600 pages book.
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