Blazing Star, Setting Sun Quotes

“When the Japanese first attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, MacArthur “demonstrated his unique leadership style: when he was good, he was very, very good[;] when he was bad, he was horrid.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“At a time when the US Navy was finally jettisoning the prewar bureaucrats in the officer corps, allowing the wartime performers to rise to the top, the Imperial Japanese Navy was facing the opposite problem – it was running out of its talented, veteran officers.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“Vila‑Stanmore was the first engagement in which the US Navy had fought with only warships launched after the US had entered the war.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“With air power you can attack, you can defend, and you can deny, but you cannot take.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“Part of it was undoubtedly because American torpedoes at that time simply didn’t work, which brings up the question of whether American torpedoes didn’t work because that animosity prevented sufficient effort and development being put into them.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“Of the some 28,000 Japanese troops of the 17th Army on Guadalcanal, only about 4,200 were estimated to be in any shape to fight.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“Captain Foss returned to the fight in a different way. Right in front of the Hiei’s blackened bridge tower, Foss brilliantly executed a right pylon turn in spectacular fashion, while his arm was extended toward the Japanese spectators with his middle finger raised.”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

“he chose Rear Admiral Callaghan. Daniel Judson Callaghan had been Admiral Ghormley’s chief of staff, “a task in which he had escaped distinction,”
― Jeffrey R. Cox, Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943