Mac McCormick III > Recent Status Updates

"The South Pacific had become a meat grinder for Japanese airpower."

Chapter 1 immediately delves into interservice rivalry; not a bad topic to begin a book about the WW2 Pacific Theater with.

Rohde has described an episode in history in which there were no winners, only losers in painful, objective detail. He admits to bias when there is the potential and the book is well documented with notes. This book has made me rage, it has made me cry tears of sorrow, and it has made me ashamed of my country's part in the tragedy.

This continues to be a very, very hard book to read. Once again, not because it is poorly written - because it isn't - it is because the subject matter is frequently horrifying. Not only that, it is clear that the "good guys" are impotent and that there is no happy ending to the story.

So far, this book deals with doctrinal, logistical, and command structure issues. Many readers may find this dull, but understanding the three are key to understanding how such an operation works.

Easily the most difficult book I've read in a long time, not because it is poorly written but because of the subject matter.

Even accounting for "the fog of war," the performance of the UN Command is infuriating.

Unfortunately, the author allows his politics to override his objectivity in one of the closing chapters. Informative, but no maps to help visualize fleet/task force movements.

It's pretty cool that a group of folks who would today be considered geeks or nerds played a considerable role in the US victory at Midway. An excellent read!

Toll makes a very strong argument against the conventional wisdom that the Battle of Coral Sea was a tactical victory for the Japanese. He also concentrates on the hubris and contempt of the enemy by both the Japanese and Americans while showing how the Americans learned from defeat and shed that hubris and contempt while the Japanese didn't.

You rarely get excited about a book's Prologue, but this one truly gets you eager to read the book.

You rarely get excited about a book's Prologue, but this one truly gets you eager to read the book.