Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 1942

Rating:
Summary: Richly detailed
Review: CARRIER CLASH is the first of a two book set detailing the campaign in the Solomons from Aug-Oct 1942. The reader is familiarized with aircraft carrier doctrine, operations, and the aircraft types used by both combatants. The book takes the reader through the opening operation (the initial landings on Guadalcanal)right through to the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in late August. As in the second volume CARRIER STRIKE, this book follows an almost minute-by-minute account of the tension and confusion of aerial combat.The reader is thrust into the midst of the action. I was hardly able to put the book down.

Rating:
Summary: Long on detail, short on analysis
Review: The man has definitely done his research - this is the most detailed account I've ever read of any Pacific theatre battle.

However, although the book describes Guadalcanal and the battle of the Eastern Solomons, Savo Island is all but ignored. There is no discussion of the significance of the battle, nor even of who won it! Essentially, the book stops when the fighting did, which is a bit odd.

If you like blood-and-thunder dogfight anecdotes you'll like this book, but some more of the big picture would have been nice.

Rating:
Summary: Historically accurate! Entertaining! Engrossing!
Review: This book details a small section of history from World War 2. It describes the equipment, the men and the battles, but it does it in such a way that you are unable to put the book down. By the time you've finished you have a feeling of some of what it must have been like to be involved in the struggle for that 'terrible' island. You also begin to believe that you know the men who fought there. This book is unmissable.