If WWII interests you, Eric Bergerud shines a light into the dark corners of of the Pacific theater and illuminates actions and activities forgotten and neglected for years.

Ever wonder why vain, proud Douglas MacArthur was left in a position commanding a major front and leading the defense of Australia in the Pacific war? Can't figure out why he lead the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on the deck of the USS Missouri, and not Nimitz or King?

Wonder how Japanese air power was destroyed after Midway? If you read Shattered Sword you understand despite the propaganda provided by both Japanese and US sources, Japanese Naval air power wasn't all sunk at Midway - that was a couple of hundred planes at most. And what about the Japanese Army's Air force? How did they disappear? How did Japanese Air Power get from Midway in 1942 - capable of sinking the US fleet - to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot in 1944 - utterly prostrate and immediately afterward turning to Kamikaze attacks - hopeless of striking US forces and surviving.

Eric Bergerud explains all this and much more.

This'll keep you off amazon for a week or so if you're a slow reader [like me] i often mark up a book for errors or questionable statements, this one has only a few exclamation marks. combining personal accounts of US Army and Marine/Navy to Aussie and Japanese make for a better view than i've seen before. He certainly brings out how hard it is to understand what was actually going on, certainly no one participating could have known. My only suggestion for another edition would be better/more maps and pictures but that's only a quibble. damn fine book

The author writes a mult-dimension book about an unusual war where an entire theater of operations was depend on capturing, and defending an airfield and then the next military objective was another airfield. I agreed that author failed to talk about the K-84 Hayate (Frank), but he forgot that the Japanese also produce the Shiden N1K2 (George) Navy fighter plane. The author also seems to forget that American pilots had to fly for 8 to 14 hours from England and Italy to escort the bombers and then fight the Luftwaffe pilots just like the Japanese pilots had to do from Rabual. The only differences was that we had more fighter planes and pilots than the Japanese, and our planes could absorb much damage from enemy fire and bring our pilots back home.

The author seems to forget that much of the American population was also unskilled labor when it came to maintaining planes that were designed by Americans who were college graduates. We had no nationwide apprenticeship program system like they have in Europe when it comes to producing a skill technical labor force. Nowadays, we have been getting rid of such a technical skilled labor force for the last 27 years. The Japanese at least gave their enlisted soldiers and sailors a chance to become pilots since 1928 and continue it until the end of World War II. On the other hand, the US Navy, Marines and Army did not try to expand their enlisted pilots during the war.

I did not realizes how easy it was to be hit by the variety of diseases and illness in the tropics. Amazing how the tropics can be so beautiful in the photographs of the tourist industries' bochures and at the same time be so deadly. Of course, those people who fought in Burma from 1941-1945 could emphasize those who were expose to the diseases in the South Pacific and dealing with the jungle.

The way they said that it rain so much in the South Pacific, you wonder how both the Allies and the Japanses ever manage to fight such a war in a place like that. If it rain so much, there would have been no war at all because all sea and air operations could not operate in an environment at all.

The author should also have talk to members of the U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 5 and 17 since they fought in that area. Furthermore, he should also have talk to members of the U. S. Army fighter groups that operate from Guadalcanel.

I hope the author writes two books about the air war over the Philippines in 1944. The first book would be from October 1944 to December 1944 with regards to Leyte Island. The second book should be about air war over the Philippines from January 1945 to the end of Japanese air resistance.

Overall, an excellent book given the complexity blending in so many subject matters and how each one play a part in the overall campaign.

The author writes a mult-dimension book about an unusual war where an entire theater of operations was depend on capturing, and defending an airfield and then the next military objective was another airfield. I agreed that author failed to talk about the K-84 Hayate (Frank), but he forgot that the Japanese also produce the Shiden N1K2 (George) Navy fighter plane. The author also seems to forget that American pilots had to fly for 8 to 14 hours from England and Italy to escort the bombers and then fight the Luftwaffe pilots just like the Japanese pilots had to do from Rabual. The only differences was that we had more fighter planes and pilots than the Japanese, and our planes could absorb much damage from enemy fire and bring our pilots back home.

The author seems to forget that much of the American population was also unskilled labor when it came to maintaining planes that were designed by Americans who were college graduates. We had no nationwide apprenticeship program system like they have in Europe when it comes to producing a skill technical labor force. Nowadays, we have been getting rid of such a technical skilled labor force for the last 27 years. The Japanese at least gave their enlisted soldiers and sailors a chance to become pilots since 1928 and continue it until the end of World War II. On the other hand, the US Navy, Marines and Army did not try to expand their enlisted pilots during the war.

I did not realizes how easy it was to be hit by the variety of diseases and illness in the tropics. Amazing how the tropics can be so beautiful in the photographs of the tourist industries' bochures and at the same time be so deadly. Of course, those people who fought in Burma from 1941-1945 could emphasize those who were expose to the diseases in the South Pacific and dealing with the jungle.

The way they said that it rain so much in the South Pacific, you wonder how both the Allies and the Japanses ever manage to fight such a war in a place like that. If it rain so much, there would have been no war at all because all sea and air operations could not operate in an environment at all.

The author should also have talk to members of the U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 5 and 17 since they fought in that area. Furthermore, he should also have talk to members of the U. S. Army fighter groups that operate from Guadalcanel.

I hope the author writes two books about the air war over the Philippines in 1944. The first book would be from October 1944 to December 1944 with regards to Leyte Island. The second book should be about air war over the Philippines from January 1945 to the end of Japanese air resistance.

Overall, an excellent book given the complexity blending in so many subject matters and how each one play a part in the overall campaign.

The author writes a mult-dimension book about an unusual war where an entire theater of operations was depend on capturing, and defending an airfield and then the next military objective was another airfield. I agreed that author failed to talk about the K-84 Hayate (Frank), but he forgot that the Japanese also produce the Shiden N1K2 (George) Navy fighter plane. The author also seems to forget that American pilots had to fly for 8 to 14 hours from England and Italy to escort the bombers and then fight the Luftwaffe pilots just like the Japanese pilots had to do from Rabual. The only differences was that we had more fighter planes and pilots than the Japanese, and our planes could absorb much damage from enemy fire and bring our pilots back home.

The author seems to forget that much of the American population was also unskilled labor when it came to maintaining planes that were designed by Americans who were college graduates. We had no nationwide apprenticeship program system like they have in Europe when it comes to producing a skill technical labor force. Nowadays, we have been getting rid of such a technical skilled labor force for the last 27 years.

I did not realizes how easy it was to be hit by the variety of diseases and illness in the tropics. Amazing how the tropics can be so beautiful in the photographs of the tourist industries' bochures and at the same time be so deadly. Of course, those people who fought in Burma from 1941-1945 could emphasize those who were expose to the diseases in the South Pacific and dealing with the jungle.

The way they said that it rain so much in the South Pacific, you wonder how both the Allies and the Japanses ever manage to fight such a war in a place like that. If it rain so much, there would have been no war at all because all sea and air operations could not operate in an environment at all.

The author should also have talk to members of the U. S. Fighter Squadron 5 and 17 since they fought in that area. Furthermore, he should also have talk to members of the U. S. Army fighter groups that operate from Guadalcanel.

I hope the author writes two books about the air war over the Philippines in 1944. The first book would be from October 1944 to December 1944 with regards to Leyte Island. The second book should be about air war over the Philippines from January 1945 to the end of Japanese air resistance.

Overall, an excellent book given the complexity blending in so many subject matters and how each one play a part in the overall campaign.

The strengths of the book have been mentioned in other reviews, so I will focus on certain weaknesses not emphasized by others.

The first main weakness is luck of technical understanding of several terms by the author. He seems to confuse the terms, power loading, and wing loading. He failed to recognize that the Japanese fighters' lower wing loading was actually a more significant benefit in terms of maneuverability at higher altitudes where the air density is lower (he supports the opposite, which is not technically reasonable). He also makes the statement many times that the maneuverability advantage of the Japanese fighters at the expense of heavy armor proved not to be the winning advantage. The statement needs to be corrected however, in my opinion. When a very skilful pilot is manning the more maneuverable fighter, the compromise for maneuverability can actually pay off. Early in the war, the Japanese had probably the best pilots in the world, which justifies their choice in the maneuverability/speed/armor compromise. This is well illustrated when Japanese ace pilots, even late in the war, often engaged large numbers of allied fighters sinle-handed, and not only usually survived by using the maneuverability of their "obsolete" fighters, but also gained victories over their multiple opponents. However, as the author properly states, late in the war, the lack of speed and armor was indeed a serious drawback when the majority of the Japanese pilots could not be properly trained, due to the lack of aviation fuel.

The second main weakness is that the book is heavily biased to the American side. It fails to emphasize the important role of serendipity that allowed the Americans to gain significant advantages (i.e., the victory in the Midway battle which was very much determined by luck, or the early discovery of a flyable A6M2 by the allies which allowed the early development of the proper tactics to deal with the Zero). Another example of bias is as follows: In the section where a P-40 pilot (justifiably biased) declared that his side had the speed advantage and therefore could dictate when and where to fight, the author (who should intervene in a more unbiased position) failed to mention that the Zero had almost twice the rate of climb of the P-40, and therefore a far stronger advantage to dictate the terms of the air battle. Finally, and possibly the most significant example of bias is the Author's failure to even mention the Japanese Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) in the Japanese warplane section. The Hayate had completely outclassed the US fighters in almost every respect, and its impact in the air war was reduced only by the relatively small numbers and the lack of experienced pilots and mechanics. However, an experienced pilot in a Hayate was a very serious threat to any allied fighter, even if outnumbered.

Finally, the superior fighting spirit of the Japanese was only barely touched by this book. Even though it is not fair to compare aircrew individually due to the different cultures, the Japanese had a considerable advantage in this respect. At the end, quantity overwhelmed quality, as far as the fighting spirit was concerned. In my opinion, this is a serious deficiency of a historical book, that by definition should at least try to be unbiased. A more in depth understanding of the unusual Japanese culture would have helped the author develop a better picture of the cultural disconnect, and how the allied leadership took advantage of the cultural difference to motivate the aircrews, and minimize potential ethical doubts when the latter were employed in the extermination of tens of thousands of Japanese troops (and later hundreds of thousands of civilians). The author states that racism had little part in the war ethics, but that is a serious historical error. In my opinion, we have to say history as it was, in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

This was the first book of Mr. Bergerud's I've read, and I must say I was impressed. The way he broke down the course of the war into the several aspects he felt to be contributing factors in its outcome I found to be thoughtful and well supported. He supplied frequent first hand accounts that not only backed up the point being made, but were startling in their vividness.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an in-depth study of the air war in the south Pacific. Don't let the size of the book scare you; he does a fine job of covering the subject and supporting his statements. I'd compare his style to the great Barbara Tuchman's: it may take you a while to get through it all, but when you're finished your understanding of the subject will be absolute.

Most of the reviews here are more concerned with how Professor Bergerud tells his story than what he says.

The what, however, is the reason to spend many hours with this volume.

This is the first history to pull together in one place all the aspects of the air campaign in the Southwest Pacific. Other writers, including some very good ones, have analyzed tactics or equipment. Fewer have paid much attention to logistics, which was even more difficult than usual in the terrible conditions of Melanesia. Fewer still have written much about the difficulties of maintaining health and morale of aircrew and ground personnel in such conditions.

Bergerud pulls all this together, along with thoughtful analysis of the differing approaches of the two foes to the campaign. Also, he explores the social differences between the antagonists, and those effects upon the battlefield.

Nothing is left out.

All this is deftly melded with many personal reminiscences of the warriors, making it an easy read for those whose interest in military matters is limited to the chatter of machine guns. I have never read a better popular battle history.

The Japanese side is underdescribed, inevitably. Not many Japanese pilots survived to reflect on their experiences.

I bought this book, and the companion book, Fire in the Sky by the same author. I bought them becasue my father spent from May 1942 until near the end of the war in the South Pacific. These books are NOT cronological history books, but rather an IN DEPTH discussion of why the US won and why the Japanese lost. Most of the book is taken up with quotes from the veterans who fought the war. Fire in the Sky had a few pages of quote from one of my Dad's friends from the 17th Weather Squadron.

I just re-read this entire volume after purchasing it when it was first released. A thorough examination of the South Pacific campaign, specifically the Solomon Islands airwar. Excellent first-hand accounts from both sides of the conflict. As one reads the narrative, one can feel the momentum shift as the U.S. begins it's technological and numerical ascendency of aircraft types over the Japanese. Yet, pilot skill was still ultimately paramount as well as combat technique and even culture. Very highly recommended.

"Fire in the Sky" is an extraordinarily detailed yet highly readable account of the air war in the South Pacific. While lengthier than its predecessor--"Touched With Fire," a chronicle of the land war in that godforsaken portion of the Pacific theatre of operations--Dr. Bergerud's book is an excellent companion volume and is a must-read for anyone who has read "Touched With Fire" or who is a student either of the South Pacific battles of World War II or of airpower. The impact of both Allied and Japanese airpower--bombers, fighters, and the all-important but unsung transport services--are analyzed in keen detail, along with the effects of radar and antiaircraft units. Interspersed throughout, as in Dr. Bergerud's prior works, are compelling and captivating first-person interviews and vignettes with veterans. The book also provides full justice to the other "half" of the Allied airpower team whose story is somewhat less well known in the U.S., the Royal Australian and Royal New Zealand Air Forces, but whose contributions were most impressive and served as another critical tool for Allied victories over Japan in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It is hard for this reader to imagine any future book that would be the last word on this topic or excel over Dr. Bergerud's well-written (and incredibly well-researched) text.

This book puts a lot of the pieces that make up the madly confused and crucial struggle for air superiority in the South pacific into a single highly readable volume. It details the many mistakes made by both combatants and demonstrates the truth of the old adage that he who makes the fewest mistakes wins. One thing that shows through the entire book is the Japanese inability to work as a team or to make any realistic plans for war. Unlike the Allies the Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces did not work together at all well. This cost them dearly. The Japanese decieved themselves by their easy victories in China and before Guadacanal had really never faced anyone who could fight back. A really good look at why Shakespeare said "Beastly, Contumelious, Mad Brained War"

My only criticism of this fine work is that it could have benifited from some editing to make it a bit shorter.

Try ""Fire in the Sky"" by Eric Bergerud. This is a big thick book that traps you the moment you start page one. I've recommended it to some of the Chapter members and they agree that once you start it it kind of takes over your life.

"Fire in the Sky" tells of the air campaigns in the South Pacific. The main action takes place over the islands of Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Truk and all the little hell holes in between.

Want to know how tough the territory was? The atmosphere was brilliantly clear. Air crew gazing down into the waters near New Guinea could see hungry sharks swimming about in great numbers looking for their next meal. Suppose your plane was in trouble. New Guinea was nearby. You are going to have to bail out over New Guinea or ditch. You chose ditching. You have a far better chance of surviving the sharks than you do the Guinean jungle .One more thing! B-17 crews loved to be accompanied on missions by B-24s. Seems that the Japanese much preferred to fight Liberators and attacked them first.

Bergerud has a second book on the South Pacific. It is "Touched by Fire. The Land War in the South Pacific." This is probably the best history I've read about fighting in that area. I cannot recommend either of Bergerud's books too highly. Interesting note. Bergerud says of General MacArthur that he was a "flawed personality but a magnificent general." Bergerud writes that he was always very careful with the lives of his men. MacArthur fought the U.S. Navy and powers in Washington who wanted to go slam -bang into every Jap base in the South Pacific and hang the cost in American lives.
MacArthur preferred to go right by them whenever possible and leave them marooned. When the war ended over 250,000 Japanese troops were sitting looking at the sky and ocean, armed to the teeth but with no one to fight. It is important to remember that much of the criticism of MacArthur came from those who told us Mao was an "agrarian reformer" and were also hopeful a defeated Japan would fall behind the Iron Curtain. MacArthur prevented that.
David L.Robbins thrilling "The War of the Rats" tells of the battle for Stalingrad through the eyes of expert snipers whose task it is to pick off Nazi officers at distances where the officers think they are safe. It's a morale buster for the Germans! The Nazis bring in their expert sniper to try and pick off the Russian marksman. There's a movie "The Enemy at the Gates" recently filmed in what was East Germany about the snipers at Stalingrad. Skip it. The book is better and you get it from the library for free.

Robbins's other recent book, " The End of War, a Novel of the Race for Berlin" follows three people through the last few months of WW2. There is a Life photographer, possibly with a death wish, who must be up front whenever possible. There is a Russian who has found himself abruptly stripped of his officer rank and flung into a penal battalion. You know what a Red penal battalion was like? You had the Nazis dug in smack in front of you. You had the NKVD (secret police) behind you ready to shoot you if you faltered. Mine field ahead? Forward march. But I don't have a weapon! Pick one up from a corpse! The third character is a young woman cellist with the Berlin Philharmonic which continues to give concerts until the Reds are in the front room,as the saying goes.

Robbins gives a fine picture of what life was like on the receiving end of the air raids.

Read it It's fiction whereas the books reviewed above are histories. They both are so exciting and fascinating to read that you could say, "The history reads like fiction and the fiction reads like history." We liked the scenes in crumbling Berlin the best.

This is a must for anyone who studies the Pacific War. I loved the way this book was written. It flows with history and he has the Airman who were there tell their story.

Given the other reviews regarding the present book, I think it's important to begin my review of Fire in the Sky by explaining what Eric Bergerud does, and what he doesn't do. This will also serve to explain what this book is, and what it isn't.

1. Eric Bergerud doesn't write narrative histories of battles or campaigns. The previous book of his that I read (Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning) was not a narrative history, neither is this, and apparently his other two books aren't either. Saying they're poor narrative histories (several reviewers, notably fellow historian Eric Hammel, do this or imply it) is like saying a Ferrari is bad for carrying lumber to a construction site. It's intended for picking up girls; you buy a pickup to haul lumber. Bergerud's books are all thematic rather than narrative in content; comparable books would include Bell I. Wiley's The Life of Billy Yank and The Life of Johnny Reb, and John J. Elting's Swords around a Throne.

2. Bergerud doesn't do oral histories, either. His books, because of their thematic nature, are attempting to make points rather than just provide a you-are-there realism. The first person accounts that he uses are therefore not sorted chronologically or by battle, but to illustrate points the author is making in the text. If you try and figure out what sort of chronological order the author was using to sort the accounts he recounts, you'll be lost.

3. This leads us to what this book *is*. It's a thematic account of the Air War in the South Pacific during the period from the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1944. This is the crucial period where the Japanese Air Forces started with a seemingly overwhelming advantage, and ended with a catastrophic defeat. How and why this occurred is the meat of this book.

Since the author is freed from a narrative form for the bulk of the book, the structure is different from what you would normally encounter when opening such a volume. Instead of getting an account of the individual maneuvers, battles, and campaigns of the conflict, you instead get chapters on the terrain, the weather, the airplanes of the combatants, and the nature of combat over the course of the period covered by the book. Such mundane things as airfield contruction, airplane maintenance, squadron morale, operational accidents, and supply aircraft, normally relegated to a footnote or not mentioned at all in other books, get a fair treatment here. The result is a wonderful book that includes so much information that's not in other works that it would be futile to try and list it all. Suffice to say that the book is one of the best on any campaign ever written in my view. I disagree strongly with most of the criticisms on this site.

I will concur in one minor criticism. While I disagree that the book needed an editor in the sense of shortening the text, I will agree that a *copy*editor was needed, perhaps a better proofreader. There are several spots where the text uses "sunk" and clearly should say "sank," and on one occasion uses "cryptographer" when it should say "cartographer." Most of these occur in the last 200 pages of the book: you get the idea that the production staff was in a hurry or got tired.

Other than this minor flaw, this is a near-perfect book on the South Pacific Air War, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

This is the best book I have read on the overall air war in the South Pacific. It describes the men and machines that fought the war and the tactics and strategies used to fight. It will give the reader new respect for the men who fought in that terrible theatre.

I concur absolutely with Christopher Farrell's earlier review of this book: Professor Bergerud has again crafted a rich collection of anecdotes and interviews which vividly capture the scale and scope of the Pacific air war in WWII. However, Bergerud's decent work in bringing this conflict vividly to life is almost fatally marred by having been published on the editor's day off.

The book is disorganised, repetitive and contains more than a few howlers that even the most cursory editing would have removed. It reads as if spell-checked only. I purchased the hardback edition and the lack of any discernible editing would disgrace a 5 dollar paperback. it brings to mind the old movie chestnut, 'It was so bad it wasn't released, it escaped!'.

A pity, because the content is worth 4 stars and deserves a better presentation. Bergerud's previous book on the land war (Touched with Fire) contains the same faults, although to a lesser extent, possibly because the topic was more easily organised rather than due to the presence of any discernible editorial input.

Uddate: I've been quite surprised at how many reviewers are prepared to accept or even vigorously defend the appalling presentation of this book: perhaps a mark of how little decent history there is on this topic and a willingness to accept whatever dribbles out? I've come across several other 'specialist' histories which have similar faults to this one, but not to the same extent - even for smallish print runs it is inexcusable with the modern aids available. Are standards really this low?

Just to see if I was being too harsh on FITS, I pulled out Touched with Fire and tried to read it again - I was too kind above: it's actually no better than this one in terms of the faults described above - I ran out of patience a third of the way through this time.

An historian, if he/she wants to be more than a researcher, must be able to write well and/or have the services of a sympathetic and competent editor at hand - please take the hint, Professor and do justice to your content.

Fire in the Sky is one of the best military history books I have read.

The amount of detail and research that went into it was unbelievable. The author did an amazing job of combining all the elements from the climate, logistics, base design, construction, design of the aircraft, the mental make of the pilots, pilot training, weapons, tactics, strategy and so on to explain how a little side show like the 1942-1944 battles in New Guinea/Solomons became the most crucial campaign in the Pacific.

Unlike most aviation books, it did not get wrapped up in the minutae of each and every dogfight or bombing mission. The author did a skillful job of using just enough details of certain dogfights/bomb missions to explain his points and give us a taste of what it was like to fight against/with men like Saboru Sakai and Richard Bong without being boring.

The other thing I enjoyed the most about this book was that he tried not to pull his punches about the mistakes/vices/war "crimes" of the Japanese or the Allies. This is the best kind of history book--an in depth warts and all. He tried to show how things were, not how we wanted them to be or to justify the mistakes of the power that be.

This one of those rare books that I can not say anything critical about. The author did a great job with this book. I look forward to reading the rest of his books.

Deftly weaving the macroscopic view and the microscopic view, and relying on the words of the people who were there, Eric Bergerud tells a good story about the theater of war that was never predicted to be a theater of war.

In addition to the dangers of air warfare everywhere the Pacific had its own special dangers and risks. In addition the entire area and its relentless climate took a toll on pilots and equipment.

Often thought of as a carrier war, Bergerud reminds us this is not so. After battering each other in 1942 both sides withdrew their carriers for two years before they squared off again. The Pacific air war was primarily a battle between land based planes.

It was a weird theater where enough square feet to put a runway was the limit of control of an island otherwise useless with impenetrable jungle and malarial swamps. The ferocity of the fight for these fringe patches, such as Guadalcanal, was horrific.

Bergerud adds depth and detail to his account, dwelling on each important aspect of the war, and showing how the Allies were more formidable than assumed, fighting at first with obsolete aircraft.

This book is fine addition to any World War II Library and a must for students of the air war.