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As the final book in Bruce Gamble's esteemed trilogy on the War in the Pacific, Target: Rabaul picks up where Fortress Rabaul, the second installment, leaves off--and sets the stage for the major Allied aerial engagements of 1943-1945, which would result in the defeat of Japan. March 1943, Washington, D.C.: Major General George Kenney, commander of the 5th Air Force, begins to formulate plans for Cartwheel--a 2-year campaign to neutralize Rabaul, Japan's most notorious stronghold, with the use of unescorted daylight bombing raids against the base and the heavily-defended satellite installations nearby. The undertaking would prove to be anything but straightforward, and the story of Rabaul's destruction remains one of the most gripping of World War II's Pacific Theater. In Target: Rabaul, award-winning military historian Bruce Gamble expertly narrates the Allied air raids against the stronghold: the premature celebrations by George Kenney and Gen. Douglas MacArthur; the bequeathing of authority to Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey; the unprecedented number of near-constant air battles that immediately followed; the Japanese retreat to Truk Lagoon in 1944; and their ultimate surrender to Allied forces in August 1945. This amazing story, one that profiles the bravery and resolve of the Allies in the horrific Pacific battleground, is the turbulent conclusion to an acclaimed trilogy from one of today's most talented nonfiction military authors.… (altro)
Target Rabaul is the third and final book of Mr. Gamble’s history of the battle of Rabaul. The duration of the battle was that of the Second World War (1941-1945). The author’s first book (Darkest Hour – reissued as Invasion Rabaul) spanned 1941-1942. The second (Fortress Rabaul) recounted the events of 1942-1943 and this volume covers the period from mid-1943-to the end of the war in 1945.
The battle of Rabaul raged for the entirety of World War II and there were many distinct phases to the battle. In each of his books Mr. Gamble’s approach to recounting this complex history is to repeatedly cycle the narrative from the general to the specific. The result is a series of “sub-histories” within each volume. Each opens with a general, overarching, presentation of the situation at a given point in time, shifts to a discussion of high level decisions concerning strategy and tactics, segues into a description of what those decisions meant to the squadrons/units involved in the attacks and then shifts to descriptions of individual plane/person accounts of the events of a specific engagement. This approach is very effective. It allows the reader to comprehend the battle in all of its complexity.
One small detail which, for me, epitomizes the author’s skill in providing a history that strikes a good balance between the general and the specific is the facts in this third volume which pertain to the photograph on the cover of the second volume - Fortress Rabaul. The picture is that of a B-25 under fire roaring across Simpson Harbor during the 2 November 1943 attack. That picture has been reprinted numerous times and can be found in any number of books about the air war in the Pacific. Fortress Rabaul, if you will, provided the general and Target Rabaul (in the photograph section) provided the details – the pilot was Richard Hastings and he not only outlived the day he outlived the war as well.
Target Rabaul details the initial plans for the proposed invasion of Rabaul and how those plans changed from one of invasion to one of neutralization and bypassing . The various small and large scale attacks and their results are recounted as are the sacrifices of planes and individuals. In this final volume Mr. Gamble also provides the grim details of the fate of the vast majority of the Allied flyers who became Japanese prisoners of war. Appendix A lists the names of 138 Allied flyers known to have been seen alive at Rabaul. Of those 26 were transported to Japan and survived the war- only 8 of the remaining 104 survived at Rabaul – the rest were executed.
I think Target Rabaul is well written and I think it and the other two volumes about the battle for Rabaul will appeal to anyone interested in the history of that World War II Pacific Theater battle. ( )
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To the thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives in the longest battle of World War II. Rest, and be remembered.
Incipit
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Lieutenant General George Churchill Kenney was on a roll.
Citazioni
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Despite all the jinking, hellacious antiaircraft fire, and the heart-pounding effects of fear and adrenalin, Cecil’s first wave of bombers scored several hits or near misses. The mission report described the first attack as follows: “Two 1000 pound [demolition bombs] were dropped at a 7000 to 10,000 ton merchant vessel anchored about 800 yards of the old wharf. This vessel was hit causing it to explode and was left in a sinking condition.” Cecil himself apparently bombed the ship. Manko Maru began sinking by the stern, its stack and aft deckhouse in shambles, even before the trailing elements of the 71st Squadron crossed the harbor. Up close, from minimal altitude, the ship must have seemed monstrous-much larger than it actually was: Manko Maru, a stores ship built in 1923 displaced all of 1500 tons. Another two-plane element led by 1st Lt. James A. Hungerpiller, made a run on a “destroyer” and scored a direct hit. This was almost certainly W-26, a 237 foot-long minesweeper with a destroyer-like outline. The warship was later reported to be “in a sinking condition,” which was true: her crew had to beach the badly damaged vessel north of Sulphur Creek. (In the meantime other B-25s may have contributed to the warship’s overall damage.) Hungerpillar did not make it out of Simpson Harbor. Flack hit the left engine and his B-25 burst into flames. As reported by his squadron mates, Hungerpillar attempted “a final effort to drop his last bomb and make it count” by attacking a heavy cruiser. The bomb fell short, however, and the flaming B-25 passed directly over the warship before plunging into the harbor. Other planes in the squadron fared better, though none scored anything closer than one near miss on a “Fox Tare Charlie,” the recognition code for a standard Type C merchantman with the superstructure amidships. A few planes hugged the eastern shoreline, strafing the floatplane base at Sulphur Creek. One crew did not bomb shipping at all. Perhaps because of mechanical trouble, the bombs were not released until the aircraft was over Raluana Point, seven miles outside Rabaul. It took less than sixty seconds to traverse Simpson Harbor, but for the men inside the bombers, it seemed an eternity. As the squadron’s history noted: “During this time, the entire area was a mass of devastation and murder. One B-25 was seen to go down in flames; many enemy fighters were seen to leave a trail of flame behind them, then splashed with a sickening thud into the water; a parachute with a charred but limp body of a flier was seen to float past one plane as he was making his run.”
Ultime parole
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The discovery about Lucky Strikes, he later wrote, "was only the beginning of so many revelations that lay ahead for eight reborn souls speeding joyously toward the destroyer and a new world, free at last."
As the final book in Bruce Gamble's esteemed trilogy on the War in the Pacific, Target: Rabaul picks up where Fortress Rabaul, the second installment, leaves off--and sets the stage for the major Allied aerial engagements of 1943-1945, which would result in the defeat of Japan. March 1943, Washington, D.C.: Major General George Kenney, commander of the 5th Air Force, begins to formulate plans for Cartwheel--a 2-year campaign to neutralize Rabaul, Japan's most notorious stronghold, with the use of unescorted daylight bombing raids against the base and the heavily-defended satellite installations nearby. The undertaking would prove to be anything but straightforward, and the story of Rabaul's destruction remains one of the most gripping of World War II's Pacific Theater. In Target: Rabaul, award-winning military historian Bruce Gamble expertly narrates the Allied air raids against the stronghold: the premature celebrations by George Kenney and Gen. Douglas MacArthur; the bequeathing of authority to Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey; the unprecedented number of near-constant air battles that immediately followed; the Japanese retreat to Truk Lagoon in 1944; and their ultimate surrender to Allied forces in August 1945. This amazing story, one that profiles the bravery and resolve of the Allies in the horrific Pacific battleground, is the turbulent conclusion to an acclaimed trilogy from one of today's most talented nonfiction military authors.
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The battle of Rabaul raged for the entirety of World War II and there were many distinct phases to the battle. In each of his books Mr. Gamble’s approach to recounting this complex history is to repeatedly cycle the narrative from the general to the specific. The result is a series of “sub-histories” within each volume. Each opens with a general, overarching, presentation of the situation at a given point in time, shifts to a discussion of high level decisions concerning strategy and tactics, segues into a description of what those decisions meant to the squadrons/units involved in the attacks and then shifts to descriptions of individual plane/person accounts of the events of a specific engagement. This approach is very effective. It allows the reader to comprehend the battle in all of its complexity.
One small detail which, for me, epitomizes the author’s skill in providing a history that strikes a good balance between the general and the specific is the facts in this third volume which pertain to the photograph on the cover of the second volume - Fortress Rabaul. The picture is that of a B-25 under fire roaring across Simpson Harbor during the 2 November 1943 attack. That picture has been reprinted numerous times and can be found in any number of books about the air war in the Pacific. Fortress Rabaul, if you will, provided the general and Target Rabaul (in the photograph section) provided the details – the pilot was Richard Hastings and he not only outlived the day he outlived the war as well.
Target Rabaul details the initial plans for the proposed invasion of Rabaul and how those plans changed from one of invasion to one of neutralization and bypassing . The various small and large scale attacks and their results are recounted as are the sacrifices of planes and individuals. In this final volume Mr. Gamble also provides the grim details of the fate of the vast majority of the Allied flyers who became Japanese prisoners of war. Appendix A lists the names of 138 Allied flyers known to have been seen alive at Rabaul. Of those 26 were transported to Japan and survived the war- only 8 of the remaining 104 survived at Rabaul – the rest were executed.
I think Target Rabaul is well written and I think it and the other two volumes about the battle for Rabaul will appeal to anyone interested in the history of that World War II Pacific Theater battle. (