"Blue Skies Blood", by Edwin P. Hoyt

[ccheese]

Just started this book, another in a series by Edwin P. Hoyt, about the war in the Pacific. This book concentrates mostly on "The Battle of The Coral Sea". Mr Hoyt, as usual, has done his homework by naming units involved, their commanding officers and a little about each one.

In addition to writing about the PTO, Mr. Hoyt has written several books about the German sea "raiders", among them, "The Last Cruise of The Emden".

Charles

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool, Thanks Charles!

 

[Njaco]

I believe I have a few books by Mr. Hoyt. Enjoyed them.

 

[ccheese]

Finished "Blue Skies Blood", by Hoyt, and just started "Guadalcanal", also by Edwin P. Hoyt. Geeze.... VAdm Frank "Jack" Fletcher sure was quite timid. Every time there was a battle to be fought, he had to run to safe waters and re-fuel. Nimitz should have relieved him in the early days of 1942. Losing five allied Cruisers, (Canberra, Chicago, Astoria, Quincy Vincennes) in the Battle of Savo Island, was not an easy pill to swallow, either.

Charles

 

[vikingBerserker]

Fletcher was timid? Wow, I never knew that!

 

[ccheese]

Fletcher was timid? Wow, I never knew that!

Altho Fletcher was pretty much to blame for the losses at Savo, Adm. McCain took the blame. In Sept of '42 Nimitz had enough of Fletcher and relieve him with Halsey. McCain was also sent back to Washington to "fly a desk", as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Adm. Finch took over McCain's command of the South Pacific Air Forces. Adm. Ghormley was another "timid" commander. Nimitz finally ordered Ghormley to "put the fleet at risk, and stop pu$$y-footing and fight".

All this time the Japanese we reinforcing Guadalcanal by destroyer-transports, landing troops by the thousands.

The big problem, in the early part of the war in the Pacific, was most of the admirals had been battleship or cruiser CO's, and thought
big guns were better than aircraft carriers with their puny dive bombers and torpedo planes. Halsey realized the age of the carrier had
come, and the battleships and cruisers were secondary.

The book ends with the Japanese sucessfully evacuating about 12,000 troops from Guadalcanal. Unfortunately they left 24,000
Japanese soldiers and sailors on the island, in graves.

Charles

 

[Reegor]

The book ends with the Japanese sucessfully evacuating about 12,000 troops from Guadalcanal. Unfortunately they left 24,000
Japanese soldiers and sailors on the island, in graves.

Or more precisely, NOT in graves? I've never run into stories that the the Japanese buried their dead at the time, although there are a lot of war dead who were brought back to Japan in the 1950s.

 

[vikingBerserker]

With all the firepower hitting that place, I'm sure a number of them were buried.