Abstract
When Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, was ordered to implement the planned attack on Pearl Harbor, he responded, ‘I will run wild for six months, after that I can promise nothing’. Peter Harmsen's book examines how Japan did almost exactly that, running wild from the multi-location attack on 7 December 1941, carrying out its own version of blitzkrieg to conquer a large part of the Asia Pacific region in a matter of a few months. The Empire of Japan seemed unstoppable, but, six months after Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway turned the tide of the war in the Pacific in the Allies’ favour. The American victory at Midway, combined with the increase in war production in the United States, saw the Allies transition from the defensive to the offensive in the Pacific. Following the loss of four aircraft carriers at Midway, Japan never recovered, and further losses at Guadalcanal and Tarawa in the Solomon and Gilbert Islands respectively sealed its fate.
Harmsen's book chronicles the transformation in the fighting of the Pacific War from December 1941 to December 1943, covering Japan's rise to the peak of its power in June 1942, the halting of its assault at Midway, and the first Allied offensives against it. The second book in a trilogy on the Pacific theatre in the Second World War, Harmsen's work is concerned with the shifting strategic initiative, covering both Japanese and Allied intentions, responses and actions. He studies 1942 and 1943 chronologically, each chapter covering around three months. Though the book inevitably looks at major military battles and engagements, it is not, as is the case with many books on the Pacific war, solely concerned with them. Rather than focusing on the vast details of Pacific naval and land battles, Harmsen provides a refreshingly concise, comprehensive overview.
The book is extremely readable, and is ideal for the reader seeking to learn about the Pacific War with little-to-no prior knowledge of it. It is well-researched, drawing upon a mixture of contemporary primary sources and oral history, and Harmsen achieves the difficult balance of providing rich detail while remaining concise. The book is enhanced by its spread of illustrations and the inclusion of personal anecdotes from both Allied and Japanese sources. The diary entries and post-war interrogations of Admiral Matome Ugaki, Captain Taijiro Aoki and Captain Hiroaki Tsuda, for example, emphasise the way in which Midway altered the course and nature of the Pacific War (p. 82). Harmsen's journalistic skills grant him the ability to transport the reader using effective narrative description, and throughout the book the scene is vividly set. The author is successful in providing a comprehensive overview, in that he is not solely concerned with the Japanese-American fight. There were other nations engaged in the Asia Pacific region, including Britain, Australia, India, Korea and the Philippines, and in this book they are given the attention that they do not always receive. China is particularly well examined, likely due to Harmsen's prior work and experience researching and writing on Chinese-speaking societies.
Another impressive feature of this work is its consideration of social issues and the impact of the conflict on the people in the countries featured. The people of Henan Province in central China, for instance, belonged to a ‘society which had been ravaged by an invisible army called starvation’ (p. 117). Fighting and famine are considered together, providing a well-rounded study of the way that war was waged and how it affected those involved. The book ends with the scene ‘set for a bloody 1944’ (p. 162). As Harmsen points out, even though many in the Japanese government and military elite were aware of their country's precarious position at the end of 1943, they continued to fight.