During the war in the Pacific, there were two thoughts on the best way to conduct the war against Japan. MacArther wanted to get there by going through the southwest route from Guadalcanal and New Guinea up through the Philippines. On the other hand, Nimitz felt that was not the best way to do things and put forth a campaign where various islands would be taken from the Japanese along with an aggressive submarine campaign. Nimitz' plan was later modified into an island hopping campaign which basically cut off some major garrisons and bases such as Truk, which later provided what amounted to practice targets for units headed into more robust areas. In the end, both methods were used by the US with cooperation between the two a key to success.

Among the islands that had to be conquered were Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. This was as much to provide bases for the new extra long range B-29s as anything. The capture of these was imperative to bring the war directly to the Japanese home islands as based in China were not close enough to reach the major industrial centers.  Saipan and Tinian were mandated to Japan from Germany at the end of WWI while Guam had been a US possession that was invaded and taken in the early days of the war. While all three islands had an indigenous population, those on Guam were more ruthlessly treated.

Of the three, Guam was probably the most difficult to recapture due to its more mountainous topography. It is also the one that is the least well written about of the three. That is what makes this book all the more interesting, especially to me. I did two partial tours of duty there in the 1970s based at the naval air station and am fairly familiar with the places mentioned in this book. The author has compiled a superb collection of photographs for this one and goes through the various events of the campaign. In all, it makes an excellent history of this important campaign and is a book that I very much enjoyed.

September 2026

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