OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (Full Version)

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Chickenboy -> OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 3:53:10 PM)

Been seeing a fair amount of newcomers here in the past few weeks. Welcome all!

This forum is a great place to discuss ideas about the game and Pacific naval history as well. Speaking for myself, I have done a lot of reading on the Pacific War since I started playing the original War in the Pacific some 16 years ago. I think it's helped my game play and my game play has enhanced my appreciation for the real life history.

For those of you who have recently taken the plunge and stepped into this game, what are you reading to flesh out your knowledge of the war?

IMO, there are a few 'must read' books. But I'd like the 'old salts' to chime in and comment on what they think really helped them explore this game more meaningfully.

For you old salts, what is a book that you feel really helped you get a better feel on this game?



Leandros -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 4:24:35 PM)

I'll chip in with one: Glen Williford; Racing the Sunrise. It gave me a whole new idea on how much had been done to prepare for the fight in the Southwest Pacific/Philippines - and what was in the offing when it started. Ships, loads, times, departure points, destinations - where they eventually went and why. And how much of what was originally planned to go - that was NOT sent because of the minor panic that rode the US leadership in the first period. It is quite stunning what was immediately available. It's all in the book!

And all those units are in the game!

Fred



warspite1 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 4:42:40 PM)

I don't think one should be alarmist about this, or suggest too harsh a penalty for non-compliance but let's be honest, if one plays this game and/or is in anyway interested in the Pacific War and one hasn't read the following, well frankly a damn good smack on the bare buttocks with a wet fish is called for:

Nomonhan 1939 (Goldman) - The Russo-Japanese fighting in Mongolia and environs....why include this? Well the failings that blighted the Japanese the entire war - Gekokujo, inflexibility, over confidence, dismissal of the enemy, inability to admit defeat, inability to amend plans so 'face' isn't lost - are all in evidence here...
Shattered Sword (Parshall and Tully) - Midway (but so much more) frankly I melted as soon as I read "The Inland Sea of Japan was still veiled in darkness when the anchorage at Hashirajima began to waken...." Serious book alert.
Guadalcanal (Frank) - The key fighting for the Solomons - air, sea and land - and the most interesting period of the war by far.
The Fast Carriers (Reynolds) - This book truly brings into perspective the enormity of the disaster that Japan brought upon herself
The Forgotten Fleet (Winton) OR The British Pacific Fleet (Hobbs) - The RN's contribution in the Pacific and either one is recommended
Rising Sun (Toland) - A superb overview - and the build up to war is especially interesting
Silent Victory (Blair) - US submarine warfare
Singapore The Pregnable Fortress (Elphick) - Oh dear....
Kaigun (Evans and Peattie) - provides an understanding of the IJN thinking in the build up to war - strategy, tactics and technology.

Reference - so many but:
Conways All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1906-1921
Conways All The Worlds Fighting Ships 1922-1946
Chronology of the War at Sea (Rohwer)

are must haves of the must haves.

Conways gives excellent high level info about every ship type.
Rohwer's work again is excellent at high level to show what happened when.

The other books mentioned provide knowledge on the key events from the build up (Rising Sun) to the end (Fast Carriers).

Likely none of these will help you play the game better, but they sure as hell add to the immersion!!



Anachro -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 4:46:14 PM)

War Plan Orange:The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945

A comprehensive history of the development of US plans for a war with Japan over the length of the Pacific, shedding light on American strategy and its evolution over the course of time leading up to the outbreak of the war. It's a good book for Allied players to read especially as they think out their own plans for taking the fight to Japan. After the war, Nimitz is said to have remarked:

quote:

The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these.


Though from my perspective this contains a little bit of hyperbole.



Anachro -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 4:58:06 PM)

I know this isn't a book, but in addition to Warspite's The Forgotten Fleet, there is a great website on the British carriers:

Armoured Aircraft Carriers in WW2



Canoerebel -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 4:59:16 PM)

I'm proud (in a weirdly masochistic way) to say that I haven't read a single book on Warspite's list. :)



warspite1 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 5:03:24 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm proud (in a weirdly masochistic way) to say that I haven't read a single book on Warspite's list. :)
warspite1

Where's my enormous Bloater.....



warspite1 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 5:13:09 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

....I haven't read a single book on Warspite's list.

warspite1

Assuming that comment is not evidence that you simply want to be spanked [;)], what would you recommend in terms of reading matter for say, for example, the Solomon Islands Campaign?



Canoerebel -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 5:36:21 PM)

I wouldn't know what to recommend. I've read a lot about the Solomons, through the years, but nothing particularly definitive and nothing limited to that specific topic. I've read broader treatments of the naval war (Blue Skies and Blood) and narrower treatments of specific units on Guadalcanal (Do-Or-Die Men), but nothing sufficiently awesome to feel anyone else should be compelled to read them. The only general treatment I've read was Neptune's Inferno, which I found to be awful, in part because it was poorly edited and I can't get past that for personal reasons.



warspite1 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 6:00:18 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I wouldn't know what to recommend. I've read a lot about the Solomons, through the years, but nothing particularly definitive and nothing limited to that specific topic. I've read broader treatments of the naval war (Blue Skies and Blood) and narrower treatments of specific units on Guadalcanal (Do-Or-Die Men), but nothing sufficiently awesome to feel anyone else should be compelled to read them. The only general treatment I've read was Neptune's Inferno, which I found to be awful, in part because it was poorly edited and I can't get past that for personal reasons.
warspite1

Fair enough.... agree with you on the awful Neptune's Inferno though.



Sardaukar -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 6:08:23 PM)

Eric M Bergerud: Fire in the Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific
John B. Lundstrom: The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942
John B. Lundstrom: The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway



crsutton -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 6:18:09 PM)

To be frank, the game has taught me more about the conflict than any book. I have read all the history and will read more but playing a couple of campaigns all they way through has given me a much deeper understanding that no book can. When I read about the war now, I also visualize it in my head. The game did that for me.



Chickenboy -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 6:24:56 PM)

My own 'must read' (a single book, rather than a literary collection, per my OP) would be Shattered Sword. If you're planning on playing this game, you've got to understand the capabilities of the IJN CVs. This book, like no other, conveys their strengths and weaknesses and how the latter compounded (along with errors in judgement) into the calamity that became the Japanese experience at Midway.



Chickenboy -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 6:27:03 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton

To be frank, the game has taught me more about the conflict than any book. I have read all the history and will read more but playing a couple of campaigns all they way through has given me a much deeper understanding that no book can. When I read about the war now, I also visualize it in my head. The game did that for me.


Hear hear. [8D]



John 3rd -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 9:54:10 PM)

Concur with Chickenboy that if ONLY ONE book then read Shattered Sword.

Couple of other good reads: The Fleet the Gods Forgot (the Asiatic Fleet), Rising Sun, Falling Skies (Java Campaign), and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (Battle off Samar).

Am right now almost finished with Scratch One Flattop (Coral Sea) and it is pretty good.



philabos -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/4/2019 10:44:50 PM)

Ian W Toll trilogy starts with Pacific Crucible, final book due out next year.



Chickenboy -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 1:22:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: philabos

Ian W Toll trilogy starts with Pacific Crucible, final book due out next year.


What's Pacific Crucible about?



Kursk1943 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 7:52:25 AM)

https://www.amazon.de/Pacific-Crucible-War-Sea-1941-1942/dp/0393343413/ref=sr_1_2?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3O5MV886TDDXD&keywords=ian+w+toll&qid=1575535803&sprefix=ian+w+toll%2Caps%2C390&sr=8-2



Anachro -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 11:34:45 AM)

Toll's books are more like good overviews of the Pacific War from an American perspective. They cover a broad range of theaters and events from a high-level and thus do not necessarily go into deep detail on any one of them. Nonetheless, they are well-written and fun light reading and I'd recommend them from that perspective.

To echo above, Shattered Sword is an amazing book of immense scholarship. I think CR should definitely read it. If I do remember right, however, Parshall or Tully wrote a more recent article about Midway where they change some of their interpretations on one aspect of the book. If I remember, it might be their assessment of Nagumo? Not sure.



John 3rd -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 1:28:53 PM)

Hey Sean. Do you know what they said? Would like to see what their opinion has evolved into.



dr.hal -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 2:43:52 PM)

Wow some really good spot on recommendations. Now NOT being an "old salt" but a new pepper, I would agree with the Toll trilogy starting with the "Pacific Crucible" and I would certainly add the "Shattered Sword" for an in-depth look at the events leading up to Midway and then the battle. On the start of the war and to get a feel for just how lopsided the whole western part of the Pacific was, I would agree with "The Fleet that the Gods Forgot". Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of books that concentrate on the Japanese in the opening months of the war that would complement the gods forgotten fleet. As a final thought, and certainly one of the reasons I am involved in this game as opposed to countless others, is that it DOES teach a player a lot about the Pacific theater in World War Two. Although I think reading books greatly compliments that experience, I don't think it's a prerequisite.



Chickenboy -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 2:58:46 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: dr.hal
Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of books that concentrate on the Japanese in the opening months of the war that would complement the gods forgotten fleet.


John III, how does Kaigun do in addressing this issue? I recall that you purchased and read that book a few years back.



Anachro -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 3:04:46 PM)

The noted military scholar H.P. Willmott wrote a decent book on Japanese and Allied strategies in the Philippines/DEI from the outbreak of war to April 1942. It was written in '82 though.

Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942

@John Not sure, I'd have to go back and find the article. It was posted on these very forums in some thread here in the General section a while back.



Anachro -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 3:11:20 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
John III, how does Kaigun do in addressing this issue? I recall that you purchased and read that book a few years back.


Kaigun deals less with the war itself and more with the Japanese preparations and naval development, in capabilities, doctrine, and strategy, leading up to the outbreak of war (i.e. from the modernization of the IJN in the 1890s, through the Sino and Russo Wars, up to '41). So it doesn't go into much detail about Japanese efforts in the early war itself.



warspite1 -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 5:11:25 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: dr.hal

Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of books that concentrate on the Japanese in the opening months of the war that would complement the gods forgotten fleet.
warspite1

Well Rising Sun mentioned above is a pretty good place to start (although probably not if you want something strictly comparable to TFTTGF). But for a more high level view from the Japanese side from Manchuria onwards.



rustysi -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 7:20:33 PM)

quote:

Rising Sun, Falling Skies (Java Campaign)


Good book on a largely uncovered aspect of the opening moves.

Also recommend Forgotten Ally.

Covers the 'mess' that is China pretty well. Don't look for battles so much as the intrigues of the theater.



rustysi -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 7:24:06 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: philabos

Ian W Toll trilogy starts with Pacific Crucible, final book due out next year.


Was waiting for the final one to tackle all.



rustysi -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 7:25:32 PM)

quote:

What's Pacific Crucible about?


About 600 pages(?)[sm=innocent0009.gif]



rustysi -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 7:27:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm proud (in a weirdly masochistic way) to say that I haven't read a single book on Warspite's list. :)


What's wrong with his list? I read a few of them.



philabos -> RE: OT: Good book recommendations for newcomers (12/5/2019 10:35:36 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy


quote:

ORIGINAL: philabos

Ian W Toll trilogy starts with Pacific Crucible, final book due out next year.


What's Pacific Crucible about?



The start of the war, 1941-42.
Toll spends some time on the personalities. One tale I found fascinating was the Nimitz appointment to CincPac.
King was anxious to get him from Washington to PH and lined up air transport. Nimitz refused and decided to take the train to the west coast, using the time to get his act together.



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