It is hard to believe that it was a mere 10 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor when the US started to go on the offensive in a rather large way. The first small offensive strikes by the US in the Pacific were merely pin-prick raids against dug in Japanese island positions. They were enough to cause some concern among the Japanese, but were considered little more than nuisance raids.

It was in August of 1942 that the Japanese had to deal with a major Allied threat and that was with the invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, an event that took the Japanese completely by surprise. Most of us already know how the US dug in and how the Japanese failed to realize the true threat and sent in units piece-meal to try to eradicate US forces from this back-water island chain.

Eric Hammel has a rather extensive background of writing combat history books, many of them on early war and island campaigns. This book concentrates on the major events at sea during August 1942, both of them centering on the Solomon Islands. Though there were land and surface forces battles, this book zeros in on the events that involved carrier aviation.

The first is the actual invasion of  Guadalcanal itself and the actions taken by both US and Japanese Naval air forces. The stories switch between US and Japanese actions with more information on the Japanese side of things that I've read in a long time. The battles were fierce with tired and overworked US pilots combating the more skilled and experienced Japanese Navy airmen. In many ways, it is the lack of proper protective armor in Japanese planes that helped the US than it was anything else.

The book concludes with the events of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, an event that almost saw the destruction of the USS Enterprise, were it not for the heroic efforts of her crew to save their ship.

Throughout the book, the reader is taken into the depths of the combat with Marines from Henderson Field, or pilots from the USS Saratoga, or the crew of the USS Enterprise. Without falling into the trap of just tossing out facts and figures, Eric Hammel tells the story of the men on both sides who made this event so pivotal in the Pacific War.

It is a book that I can highly recommend as both a good history and a good story.

Available in bookstores everywhere, through Classic Motorbooks at (800) 826-6600 or at www.motorbooks.com

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