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Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific
Between 1942 and 1944 the Allied forces and the Imperial Japanese Army struggled over the uncharted and inhospitable islands of the South Pacific. In what quickly became a war of annihilation, the Allies fought to defend their air and sea bases against an enemy that neither asked for nor showed any mercy. The fate of Australia and the eventual outcome of the war in the Pacific hung in the balance until the combined efforts of Allied air and sea support finally shattered the myth of Japanese invincibility.
Touched with Fire is a revelatory portrayal of the lives of the regular infantrymen who struggled to contain the Japanese advance. Eric Bergerud has spent hundreds of hours interviewing the last surviving veterans of this remarkable campaign and he presents the dynamics of the war through their eyes. Rather than review the decisions made by the commanders, he has depicted the flow of battle in all its terrifying immediacy and occasional beauty.
Touched with Fire is a revelatory portrayal of the lives of the regular infantrymen who struggled to contain the Japanese advance. Eric Bergerud has spent hundreds of hours interviewing the last surviving veterans of this remarkable campaign and he presents the dynamics of the war through their eyes. Rather than review the decisions made by the commanders, he has depicted the flow of battle in all its terrifying immediacy and occasional beauty.
566 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
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January 16, 2025
Military history with analysis of the ground war in the WWII South Pacific (New Guinea, New Britain & Solomon Islands) Campaign beginning in March 1942-44.
Australian soldiers in New Guinea’s Finisterre Range enroute to the front line.
My dead tree copy was a 566 pages. It had a US 1996 copyright. This book includes: a Glossary, Notes, Maps, Photographs, Bibliography and an Index.
Eric M. Bergerud is an author and professor of military and American history. He is the author of four books on primarily WWII history. This is the second book I’ve read by the author. The first being Fire in the Sky (my review).
This was an advanced-level military history on the ground war of only the South Pacific Campaign of WWII in the Pacific Theater of Operations. A solid knowledge of the Pacific Theater and working knowledge of WWII is needed to read this book. In particular, a reader needs to be familiar with mid-20th Century: diplomatic, military history and technology.
TL;DR
The South Pacific campaign of World War II was a theater of conflict of the Pacific War. It began when the Allies rallied from their initial defeats and began an organized, effective resistance in defense of Australia and then to counterattack in the Pacific. It was a: short (2-year), climactic, unforeseen, and unwanted campaign in an unpopulated region with an inhospitable climate.
In the beginning, the Australians, Americans, and Imperial Japanese were in rough parity with their forces. For the first year, the battles of the theater were hard fought. Combat took place in a densely jungled very large and many smaller islands spread across a huge area, with tenuous logistics and without heavy weaponry. More casualties were taken to disease than enemy action. Its end was dependent on which side could stay in the field and in combat the longest. In the end, the Australian Army, and American Marines and Army attrited the Imperial Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces and Army in combat, whilst interdicting their supply and greatly improving their own.
Bergerund opens his book with the American counter-invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands , and the Australian defense of Port Moresby, New Guinea ; both necessary to defend Australia. These both developed into: separate, simultaneous, parallel campaigns. The Bougainville and Battle of New Britain campaigns came after their completion.
This book concentrates on the ground war in-theater. Although, it ties the ground war into the air and naval warfighting to provide context. It discusses the effect on the theater’s land war coming from: geography and climate; combatant’s war-fighting technology; combatant’s military doctrine; US General Douglas MacArthur’s and Imperial Japanese: strategy; battalion, company, platoon and section/squad operations and tactics; and the organizational behavior of the Allied and Imperial Japanese armies and navies. In addition, he includes interviews with American and Australian combatants to support the narrative.
Bergerund’s historiography was not chronological, like most histories. It was anchored in the historical, conflict’s events, but heavily leveraged those events to describe the principles affecting the ground war and their evolution during the campaigns. For example, the development of aerial supply: air cargo for resupply; air supply drops to remote, isolated, units; air reinforcement; and air evacuation of the wounded.
Combat in the theater was rarely conducted at higher than the battalion-level. There was very little discussion of the combatant’s high command. It was not a book about: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, US Admiral "Bull" Halsey, Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) General Hisaichi Terauchi and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
This book is more a description of how and why the campaigns were fought than who, when and where.
The Review
I put this book in my TBR immediately after reading Bergerund’s Fire in the Sky. That was his second book of a trilogy on the theater meant to cover the ground, air and naval aspects of the campaigns. Fire covered the air war. I really wanted to read his Oil On the Water, the last book on the naval war, but that book is impossible to get.
This book exclusively on the ground war covers much the same ground as Fire in the Sky. The air and ground crews in the theater shared much of the same experiences as the soldiers and marines on or supporting the front line. That is, I was already familiar with his thesis and points on the theater.
Interestingly, Fire was in some ways a better book. Bergerund polished and expanded on his talking points from this earlier one. However, I know more about Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) infantry divisions in the Pacific, by reading this book than I did before.
Bergerund’s prose was good. However, it was not well groomed. I found a larger number than expected of spelling errors and several instances of repetition. I did note that his prose was less purple in this book than the following one.
I also noted that there were fewer Allied participant interviews used in this book. These anecdotes successfully described “how we lived and felt” through it all. They added a lot of context. This was welcome, but there could have been still fewer of them. Not all of these anecdotes were necessary. The larger number of these anecdotes were American. This was closely followed by Australian. Unfortunately, there were no Japanese anecdotes. I note that there were a few Japanese anecdotes in Fire. The result as a very Western perspective of the theater.
Like in Fire, the Glossary contained a strange combination of military terms, acronyms and place names. Why would “Knee Mortar” (Japanese light mortar) share space with LST (Landing Ship Tank), whilst frequently referenced: AIF (Australian Imperial Force), IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) were excluded?
Notes were good, albeit brief.
Maps adequate. They were self-rendered, with what looked like Powerpoint™. I would have liked more, more detailed maps, using standard military symbols vs. Powerpoint silhouettes. I would have liked the maps to have appeared embedded to support the narrative vs. all found at the book’s beginning. Using modern, satellite maps was harder than expected and unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, after 80-years, the early century place names have changed through “localization”, and the jungle and development have (re)claimed a lot of the war’s topography.
Photographs were good. There was 6-pages of them. They were generously annotated too.
The Bibliography was complete. The “Secondary Sources” listed, were a remarkably good collection of military histories, although its 30-years old.
The Index appeared accurate.
Theater Map
Bergerund, provided a particularly good physical description of the theater. Its located is on the equator. At the time, its terrain was: undeveloped, disease and pestilence ridden, equatorial jungled, islands with mountainous interiors of volcanic origin, separated by narrow shallow seas. It’s not much different now. Note that New Guinea is a very large island. Initially, the only maps were 50-year old sea charts. There are few landmarks in the jungled interiors and long stretches of empty sea between islands. All navigation was problematic. Ground movement was slow and by foot. Coordinated maneuver of large units was nigh impossible. Temperature and humidity at sea level were very high. Torrential rains were commonplace. In the mountainous interior of New Guinea, some engagements took place at high altitudes (4,000 m or 13,000 ft) above the jungle. That climate was: dry, cold and temperate. It was the worst place in the world to fight a war.
In ground war, “Fire Kills” was a WWI maxim. Basically, that means apply heavy weapons in engagements, instead of more men. In the South Pacific, the heavily jungled, mountainous, roadless, islands prohibited the deployment of heavy artillery and vehicles any distance from the beach. Close air and naval gunfire support in the highly-contested air and seas of the first year was spotty. As such, most island taking involved light infantry slugging it out in the jungle over airfields. Most of the ground combat was heavy and prolonged. It was close-combat, 24-hour, jungle engagements between small units. Man-packable crew served weapons like mortars and machine guns were the heaviest weapons usable once off the beach or away from an airfield or seaport.
Almost all ground engagements were fought over airfields: building them, defending them or capturing them. An uncontested airfield meant at least local air superiority, which could extend to sea control. When those occurred, supplies and reinforcements could pour in. Fully supplied and reinforced bases could be operated, defended and any invaders could be cut-off from supply and reinforcement. Then they could be mopped-up, whilst they starved, and were out of ammunition. Airfields were typically located on coastlines. Most capture attacks of airfields involved a hazardous amphibious landing. Early in the theater, when both sides were at near parity, more troops were lost at sea before they reached the beach, then in combat. Having at least local air-superiority was necessary for a successful landing. Landing close to the airfield where defender response was fast and heavy was the most hazardous. Landing further away was safer, but required debilitating movement through roadless jungle and likely resistance from the defenders sortieing from the airfield. As the Allies gained first local, then overall theater air superiority, and finally air supremacy over the Japanese, they could land anywhere with impunity. This eventually collapsed the Japanese defense in the South Pacific. In addition, specialized Allied amphibious assault equipment like LSTs, Landing Ship Infantry (LSIs) and Amphibious Vehicle, Tracked (LVT) "amtraks" also expedited their landings.
The technology of ground combat in 1942 had not changed greatly since the end of WWI. It had just been refined. The terrain of the South Pacific also produced a different style of war than fought in the European theater. Euro-mechanized warfare was completely absent in the South Pacific. A single platoon of light or medium tanks at most accounted for all the armor available to either side for most island engagements. And, they were not effective beyond the coast in the jungle, mountains and swampy terrain. Heavy artillery and their ammunition likewise could also not be moved much beyond the coast. Light infantry and light infantry tactics dominated. Doctrine-wise this put the Japanese Army at an advantage over both the Australian and American army ‘built’ for European or desert warfare. (Both Japanese and American Marines were ‘classic’ Light Infantry.) Once outside the parameter of coastally-built airfields: light artillery, heavy and light mortars, heavy and light machineguns, rifles with bayonet, pistols and grenades where the weapons used by company-sized units maneuvering in the jungle. Although radio communications for both was poor, occasionally close air support “flying artillery” could be called-in. .
Bergerund delves deeply into the technology describing the weapons and their usage for both sides. He does a comprehensive compare and contrast between the: design, operation and manufacturing of the Imperial Japanese infantry weapons vs. the Allied weapons for jungle warfare. For example, why the Thompson submachine gun was the preferred Australian and American Light Machine Gun (LMG) for jungle fighting early in the theater, before it was superseded by the British Bren LMG with the Aussies and the M1918A2 BAR LMG with the Americans. (The Aussies favored British kit.) The Japanese Type 89 grenade discharger AKA “Knee Mortar” was a superlative weapon for jungle warfare by light infantry.
He also ties in how the manufacturing country’s industrial base, and wealth affected weapon design and production. The ability to produce and rate of production being very important factor in getting heavy and technologically sophisticated weapons to the war front.
At the beginning of the South Pacific campaign there was rough parity in the air and naval capabilities of the combatants. This gave the Japanese an advantage in the ground war. This was to change over the course of the campaign. Armies have voracious appetites for men and supplies. In an island theater these can only be moved in the needed quantities by sea. (In Europe they were moved by rail and truck.) As the Allies gained air superiority, owing to having more operational airbases and qualitatively superior operational aircraft, they gained sea control. That led to the severing of the Japanese armies supply lines across the huge theater of operations. A military unit, out of supply for an extended period, on an island or isolated shore withers and dies. Many Japanese island redoubts ended-up being large, unattended, POW camps until the war ended, with the soldiers in a subsistence agrarian existence.
Japan entered the war with a qualitatively better and larger army than the Allies. This was a legacy of their long war in China. Their troops were battle-hardened, and their weapons were proven. The Australians had a few battle hardened divisions, most experienced in desert warfare. The Aussie politics left a few AIF divisions as the point of the spear and the Militia, prohibited from fighting abroad, hamstrung the nation’s mobilization. The Americans had a several available divisions, and the beginnings of a large, “green” army that had not seen combat since WWI. Note that the American army’s doctrine was oriented toward a European-style mechanized war. However, Japanese military, doctrine, processes and procedures were developed while fighting their China war. The Allied armies were not Chinese peasant armies. As a result, Japanese infantry units were too lightly armed, provisioned with too little ammunition and supplies, and had an underdeveloped logistics tail to be fighting a war of attrition with the Allies. Important Japanese weapon systems were ill fit for a western opponent. For example, durable, reliable, radio and radar systems usage were either absent or rare in Japanese air, naval, and ground units. Also, the Japanese supply chain for men and machines pipeline from China and the Home Islands was skinnier and longer than the Allies' to Australia and not as “fat” as the one to the further away States. Conversely, the terrain of the South Pacific, at least initially, prohibited the Allied armies from deploying their advantage of overwhelming firepower of mechanized warfare being used in Europe.
At length, Bergerud laments the flawed, Bushidō military ethic of the IJA inherited from the medieval samurai. Built into the modern IJA’s doctrine, it resulted in enormous loss of Japanese lives over its death over surrender ethos. It also added to a “take no prisoners” operational procedure by both sides that resulted in desperate, brutally savage, fighting in the depths of the jungle.
Bergerud also does not put heavy emphasis on the US cryptographic advantage over the Japanese that dominates many military histories of the Pacific war. However, he does cite all the important uses and cases. For example, the complete awareness of Japanese preparation and movements in the Battle of Bougainville.
Summary
This book with the right background describes a lot about the WWII ground war in the South Pacific and in detail that early phase of The Pacific War.
The South Pacific campaign’s ground war showed the Allies that the Japanese Army was not invincible, after they dealt them crushing defeats in Burma, Singapore and the Philippines. It decisively tilted the war from the Japanese to the Allies for the first time. It drained IJA armies based in China, and the Home Islands isolating large formations from: supply, reinforcement or retreat in a: remote, hostile jungle, or island jungle environment. There, these forces were “out of the war”.
In places this book goes into excruciating detail. However, I found a lot of it to be hugely interesting. Other parts of it, less so.
I learned more about WWII infantry weaponry and warfare than I knew to look for. Bergerud analysis of strategy and operations was solid. I particularly liked how the narrative was developed from low on the chain-of-command, with very few generals in-the-focus.
I also thought the Australian ally received more recognition than any other American-authored, WWII military history I’ve read.
However, despite an effort, this was still a very American history. The veteran’s anecdotes were an important part of this book. There were no Japanese veteran anecdotes. That left the book unbalanced.
Finally, Bergerud’s thesis on The Pacific War was a very mainstream historiography. However, it did embroider it well. If you’re a serious WWII armchair general this is worth reading.
Australian soldiers in New Guinea’s Finisterre Range enroute to the front line.
My dead tree copy was a 566 pages. It had a US 1996 copyright. This book includes: a Glossary, Notes, Maps, Photographs, Bibliography and an Index.
Eric M. Bergerud is an author and professor of military and American history. He is the author of four books on primarily WWII history. This is the second book I’ve read by the author. The first being Fire in the Sky (my review).
This was an advanced-level military history on the ground war of only the South Pacific Campaign of WWII in the Pacific Theater of Operations. A solid knowledge of the Pacific Theater and working knowledge of WWII is needed to read this book. In particular, a reader needs to be familiar with mid-20th Century: diplomatic, military history and technology.
TL;DR
The South Pacific campaign of World War II was a theater of conflict of the Pacific War. It began when the Allies rallied from their initial defeats and began an organized, effective resistance in defense of Australia and then to counterattack in the Pacific. It was a: short (2-year), climactic, unforeseen, and unwanted campaign in an unpopulated region with an inhospitable climate.
In the beginning, the Australians, Americans, and Imperial Japanese were in rough parity with their forces. For the first year, the battles of the theater were hard fought. Combat took place in a densely jungled very large and many smaller islands spread across a huge area, with tenuous logistics and without heavy weaponry. More casualties were taken to disease than enemy action. Its end was dependent on which side could stay in the field and in combat the longest. In the end, the Australian Army, and American Marines and Army attrited the Imperial Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces and Army in combat, whilst interdicting their supply and greatly improving their own.
Bergerund opens his book with the American counter-invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands , and the Australian defense of Port Moresby, New Guinea ; both necessary to defend Australia. These both developed into: separate, simultaneous, parallel campaigns. The Bougainville and Battle of New Britain campaigns came after their completion.
This book concentrates on the ground war in-theater. Although, it ties the ground war into the air and naval warfighting to provide context. It discusses the effect on the theater’s land war coming from: geography and climate; combatant’s war-fighting technology; combatant’s military doctrine; US General Douglas MacArthur’s and Imperial Japanese: strategy; battalion, company, platoon and section/squad operations and tactics; and the organizational behavior of the Allied and Imperial Japanese armies and navies. In addition, he includes interviews with American and Australian combatants to support the narrative.
Bergerund’s historiography was not chronological, like most histories. It was anchored in the historical, conflict’s events, but heavily leveraged those events to describe the principles affecting the ground war and their evolution during the campaigns. For example, the development of aerial supply: air cargo for resupply; air supply drops to remote, isolated, units; air reinforcement; and air evacuation of the wounded.
Combat in the theater was rarely conducted at higher than the battalion-level. There was very little discussion of the combatant’s high command. It was not a book about: U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, US Admiral "Bull" Halsey, Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) General Hisaichi Terauchi and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
This book is more a description of how and why the campaigns were fought than who, when and where.
The Review
I put this book in my TBR immediately after reading Bergerund’s Fire in the Sky. That was his second book of a trilogy on the theater meant to cover the ground, air and naval aspects of the campaigns. Fire covered the air war. I really wanted to read his Oil On the Water, the last book on the naval war, but that book is impossible to get.
This book exclusively on the ground war covers much the same ground as Fire in the Sky. The air and ground crews in the theater shared much of the same experiences as the soldiers and marines on or supporting the front line. That is, I was already familiar with his thesis and points on the theater.
Interestingly, Fire was in some ways a better book. Bergerund polished and expanded on his talking points from this earlier one. However, I know more about Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) infantry divisions in the Pacific, by reading this book than I did before.
Bergerund’s prose was good. However, it was not well groomed. I found a larger number than expected of spelling errors and several instances of repetition. I did note that his prose was less purple in this book than the following one.
I also noted that there were fewer Allied participant interviews used in this book. These anecdotes successfully described “how we lived and felt” through it all. They added a lot of context. This was welcome, but there could have been still fewer of them. Not all of these anecdotes were necessary. The larger number of these anecdotes were American. This was closely followed by Australian. Unfortunately, there were no Japanese anecdotes. I note that there were a few Japanese anecdotes in Fire. The result as a very Western perspective of the theater.
Like in Fire, the Glossary contained a strange combination of military terms, acronyms and place names. Why would “Knee Mortar” (Japanese light mortar) share space with LST (Landing Ship Tank), whilst frequently referenced: AIF (Australian Imperial Force), IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) were excluded?
Notes were good, albeit brief.
Maps adequate. They were self-rendered, with what looked like Powerpoint™. I would have liked more, more detailed maps, using standard military symbols vs. Powerpoint silhouettes. I would have liked the maps to have appeared embedded to support the narrative vs. all found at the book’s beginning. Using modern, satellite maps was harder than expected and unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, after 80-years, the early century place names have changed through “localization”, and the jungle and development have (re)claimed a lot of the war’s topography.
Photographs were good. There was 6-pages of them. They were generously annotated too.
The Bibliography was complete. The “Secondary Sources” listed, were a remarkably good collection of military histories, although its 30-years old.
The Index appeared accurate.
Theater Map
Bergerund, provided a particularly good physical description of the theater. Its located is on the equator. At the time, its terrain was: undeveloped, disease and pestilence ridden, equatorial jungled, islands with mountainous interiors of volcanic origin, separated by narrow shallow seas. It’s not much different now. Note that New Guinea is a very large island. Initially, the only maps were 50-year old sea charts. There are few landmarks in the jungled interiors and long stretches of empty sea between islands. All navigation was problematic. Ground movement was slow and by foot. Coordinated maneuver of large units was nigh impossible. Temperature and humidity at sea level were very high. Torrential rains were commonplace. In the mountainous interior of New Guinea, some engagements took place at high altitudes (4,000 m or 13,000 ft) above the jungle. That climate was: dry, cold and temperate. It was the worst place in the world to fight a war.
In ground war, “Fire Kills” was a WWI maxim. Basically, that means apply heavy weapons in engagements, instead of more men. In the South Pacific, the heavily jungled, mountainous, roadless, islands prohibited the deployment of heavy artillery and vehicles any distance from the beach. Close air and naval gunfire support in the highly-contested air and seas of the first year was spotty. As such, most island taking involved light infantry slugging it out in the jungle over airfields. Most of the ground combat was heavy and prolonged. It was close-combat, 24-hour, jungle engagements between small units. Man-packable crew served weapons like mortars and machine guns were the heaviest weapons usable once off the beach or away from an airfield or seaport.
Almost all ground engagements were fought over airfields: building them, defending them or capturing them. An uncontested airfield meant at least local air superiority, which could extend to sea control. When those occurred, supplies and reinforcements could pour in. Fully supplied and reinforced bases could be operated, defended and any invaders could be cut-off from supply and reinforcement. Then they could be mopped-up, whilst they starved, and were out of ammunition. Airfields were typically located on coastlines. Most capture attacks of airfields involved a hazardous amphibious landing. Early in the theater, when both sides were at near parity, more troops were lost at sea before they reached the beach, then in combat. Having at least local air-superiority was necessary for a successful landing. Landing close to the airfield where defender response was fast and heavy was the most hazardous. Landing further away was safer, but required debilitating movement through roadless jungle and likely resistance from the defenders sortieing from the airfield. As the Allies gained first local, then overall theater air superiority, and finally air supremacy over the Japanese, they could land anywhere with impunity. This eventually collapsed the Japanese defense in the South Pacific. In addition, specialized Allied amphibious assault equipment like LSTs, Landing Ship Infantry (LSIs) and Amphibious Vehicle, Tracked (LVT) "amtraks" also expedited their landings.
The technology of ground combat in 1942 had not changed greatly since the end of WWI. It had just been refined. The terrain of the South Pacific also produced a different style of war than fought in the European theater. Euro-mechanized warfare was completely absent in the South Pacific. A single platoon of light or medium tanks at most accounted for all the armor available to either side for most island engagements. And, they were not effective beyond the coast in the jungle, mountains and swampy terrain. Heavy artillery and their ammunition likewise could also not be moved much beyond the coast. Light infantry and light infantry tactics dominated. Doctrine-wise this put the Japanese Army at an advantage over both the Australian and American army ‘built’ for European or desert warfare. (Both Japanese and American Marines were ‘classic’ Light Infantry.) Once outside the parameter of coastally-built airfields: light artillery, heavy and light mortars, heavy and light machineguns, rifles with bayonet, pistols and grenades where the weapons used by company-sized units maneuvering in the jungle. Although radio communications for both was poor, occasionally close air support “flying artillery” could be called-in. .
Bergerund delves deeply into the technology describing the weapons and their usage for both sides. He does a comprehensive compare and contrast between the: design, operation and manufacturing of the Imperial Japanese infantry weapons vs. the Allied weapons for jungle warfare. For example, why the Thompson submachine gun was the preferred Australian and American Light Machine Gun (LMG) for jungle fighting early in the theater, before it was superseded by the British Bren LMG with the Aussies and the M1918A2 BAR LMG with the Americans. (The Aussies favored British kit.) The Japanese Type 89 grenade discharger AKA “Knee Mortar” was a superlative weapon for jungle warfare by light infantry.
He also ties in how the manufacturing country’s industrial base, and wealth affected weapon design and production. The ability to produce and rate of production being very important factor in getting heavy and technologically sophisticated weapons to the war front.
At the beginning of the South Pacific campaign there was rough parity in the air and naval capabilities of the combatants. This gave the Japanese an advantage in the ground war. This was to change over the course of the campaign. Armies have voracious appetites for men and supplies. In an island theater these can only be moved in the needed quantities by sea. (In Europe they were moved by rail and truck.) As the Allies gained air superiority, owing to having more operational airbases and qualitatively superior operational aircraft, they gained sea control. That led to the severing of the Japanese armies supply lines across the huge theater of operations. A military unit, out of supply for an extended period, on an island or isolated shore withers and dies. Many Japanese island redoubts ended-up being large, unattended, POW camps until the war ended, with the soldiers in a subsistence agrarian existence.
Japan entered the war with a qualitatively better and larger army than the Allies. This was a legacy of their long war in China. Their troops were battle-hardened, and their weapons were proven. The Australians had a few battle hardened divisions, most experienced in desert warfare. The Aussie politics left a few AIF divisions as the point of the spear and the Militia, prohibited from fighting abroad, hamstrung the nation’s mobilization. The Americans had a several available divisions, and the beginnings of a large, “green” army that had not seen combat since WWI. Note that the American army’s doctrine was oriented toward a European-style mechanized war. However, Japanese military, doctrine, processes and procedures were developed while fighting their China war. The Allied armies were not Chinese peasant armies. As a result, Japanese infantry units were too lightly armed, provisioned with too little ammunition and supplies, and had an underdeveloped logistics tail to be fighting a war of attrition with the Allies. Important Japanese weapon systems were ill fit for a western opponent. For example, durable, reliable, radio and radar systems usage were either absent or rare in Japanese air, naval, and ground units. Also, the Japanese supply chain for men and machines pipeline from China and the Home Islands was skinnier and longer than the Allies' to Australia and not as “fat” as the one to the further away States. Conversely, the terrain of the South Pacific, at least initially, prohibited the Allied armies from deploying their advantage of overwhelming firepower of mechanized warfare being used in Europe.
At length, Bergerud laments the flawed, Bushidō military ethic of the IJA inherited from the medieval samurai. Built into the modern IJA’s doctrine, it resulted in enormous loss of Japanese lives over its death over surrender ethos. It also added to a “take no prisoners” operational procedure by both sides that resulted in desperate, brutally savage, fighting in the depths of the jungle.
Bergerud also does not put heavy emphasis on the US cryptographic advantage over the Japanese that dominates many military histories of the Pacific war. However, he does cite all the important uses and cases. For example, the complete awareness of Japanese preparation and movements in the Battle of Bougainville.
Summary
This book with the right background describes a lot about the WWII ground war in the South Pacific and in detail that early phase of The Pacific War.
The South Pacific campaign’s ground war showed the Allies that the Japanese Army was not invincible, after they dealt them crushing defeats in Burma, Singapore and the Philippines. It decisively tilted the war from the Japanese to the Allies for the first time. It drained IJA armies based in China, and the Home Islands isolating large formations from: supply, reinforcement or retreat in a: remote, hostile jungle, or island jungle environment. There, these forces were “out of the war”.
In places this book goes into excruciating detail. However, I found a lot of it to be hugely interesting. Other parts of it, less so.
I learned more about WWII infantry weaponry and warfare than I knew to look for. Bergerud analysis of strategy and operations was solid. I particularly liked how the narrative was developed from low on the chain-of-command, with very few generals in-the-focus.
I also thought the Australian ally received more recognition than any other American-authored, WWII military history I’ve read.
However, despite an effort, this was still a very American history. The veteran’s anecdotes were an important part of this book. There were no Japanese veteran anecdotes. That left the book unbalanced.
Finally, Bergerud’s thesis on The Pacific War was a very mainstream historiography. However, it did embroider it well. If you’re a serious WWII armchair general this is worth reading.
April 23, 2025
The gold standard for a comprehensive account of the early years of the Allied war in the Pacific Theater of WWII. Bergerud, an American, goes to great lengths to recognize and honor the lesser-known units and armies from Australia and the other allied powers responsible for staving off the Japanese scourge.
Too many military histories are focused X’s and O’s and troop movements rather than the perception of the war through the eyes of the grunt. This book covers weapon systems, tactics, military cultures, and ground combat in-depth. This book is a triumph and should be mandatory for anyone who claims to be a historian of WWII, or an enthusiast who is interested in WWII history.
Too many military histories are focused X’s and O’s and troop movements rather than the perception of the war through the eyes of the grunt. This book covers weapon systems, tactics, military cultures, and ground combat in-depth. This book is a triumph and should be mandatory for anyone who claims to be a historian of WWII, or an enthusiast who is interested in WWII history.
August 19, 2024
I was born in the wrong generation 😔 I yearn for the jungle
December 3, 2020
Outstanding and original look at the experience of front line soldiers in the South Pacific (New Guinea and Guadalcanal, mostly) in WWII. Includes a narrative of what happens, but really concentrates on the how and why of warfare.
September 28, 2010
Outstanding account of the Australian / US war effort in the South Pacific. A surprisingly astute reading of the Australian military by a foreign author. The analysis resonates with the accounts I heard from family members who served in the AIF / RAAF during WWII
June 30, 2012
Not a chronology but rather a portrait of how the Americans and Australians (don't forget the Aussies!) fought in the war's worst theater.
August 14, 2015
This is a fine overview of what was arguably the most miserable theater of World War II, with fighting that was as vicious as anything on the Eastern Front.
April 13, 2024
Touched With Fire by Eric Bergerud is a thorough look at the land war in the South Pacific, which might have been the most brutal campaign in the war due to the weather, environment, and remoteness. It's not a standard history in that there is no narrative and it is not told chronologically. Basically Bererud looks at different aspects of the war in the South Pacific and analyzes how it effected or how it was dealt with by the American, Australian, and Japanese forces. For example in Chapter 1, he looks at the environment and weather and effects such as disease. Then he discusses the strengths and weakness of the three fighting forces in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is a discussion of the weapons used by each country. Chapter 4 looks at the the way the different countries fought the war strategically and in actuality. Chapter 5 discusses the morale of the three different forces. Chapter 6 is a discussion of how the war ended and the implications that were drawn from the Allies victory and the wasteful last stands and suicidal desperate charges of the Japanese. In the Epilogue there is a look at the legacy of the soldiers who survived the war and how they tried to reintegrate into society. Throughout the book Bergerud supports his ideas with first person accounts from soldiers from all three fighting forces. It is a pretty impressive overall picture of a brutal war that extracted so much form the participants.
September 9, 2020
An engrossing, brutal and all-encompassing look at the ground war in the South Pacific during World War Two. There has never been a battlefield since that has come close to the chaos, brutality and sheer force of nature that was New Guinea and the Solomons.
Bergerud does a great job of detailing the successes and struggles of each of the main players: America, Australia and Japan. It is made very clear that following the end of combat in the SW Pacific in the spring of 1944, the reasoning for continued fighting by the Japanese was pointless.
The detail is astounding in the book. While it can drag at moments, the firsthand accounts provide a human face to a very inhuman war. For those seeking a deep dive into fighting in the Pacific, you could do a lot worse than this work. Can not recommend enough.
Bergerud does a great job of detailing the successes and struggles of each of the main players: America, Australia and Japan. It is made very clear that following the end of combat in the SW Pacific in the spring of 1944, the reasoning for continued fighting by the Japanese was pointless.
The detail is astounding in the book. While it can drag at moments, the firsthand accounts provide a human face to a very inhuman war. For those seeking a deep dive into fighting in the Pacific, you could do a lot worse than this work. Can not recommend enough.
August 11, 2024
This is a companion book to his Fire In The Sky, about the air war in the south pacific in 1942-43. This is an old book--it goes back to 1996--but it is indispensable for anyone who thinks deeply about that phase of the war. Like Fire in the Sky, it is not a narrative; rather, it explains and analyses what went on in New Guinea and the Solomons. He fully explores the Australian contribution to victory, something that is often neglected in American sources. Mainly, he offers startling new insights about the war. I have been reading about the war for sixty years and I was forced to reassess my conclusions every ten pages. The book is not perfect. His style is clunky, and his sentences throw your eye off the page like a buking bronco does a rider. But if you get back on and puzzle out his meaning, you will be rewarded.
July 10, 2021
Outstanding! This is a book about the people at the spear tip. Although grand strategy is discussed, this work focuses on the experiences of the fighting men from the U.S., Australia, and Japan. It is comprehensive and thorough. I highly recommend it.
June 27, 2022
Interesting book. But I was disappointed with how much of it was just about the Allies and not about the Japanese (or the local people). Also I don't quite agree with the author about the reasons for the war, especially not the reasons he cites for the brutality. But all in all, quite a good read.
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May 13, 2024Very thorough explanation of the land war in the South Pacific during WW2. It was kind of a slow mover if you weren't interested in the subject.
File this one under I got too far into it to the book to not finish it.
File this one under I got too far into it to the book to not finish it.
May 22, 2021
Terrific account of the brutal land campaigns in the Southwest Pacific, especially New Guinea. Very descriptive and gritty, well worth the effort.
September 19, 2021
A ground level look at the hellish combat in the South Pacific.
March 28, 2022
An outstanding military history.
September 30, 2024
Excellent history and worth reading, though it needed a good copy editor to clean up a bit.
August 22, 2016
The is a great book. It can be a bit dry at times and it is long but the material it covers is quite unique. It doesn't just cover the ground campaigns fought on New Guinea, New Britain, Guadalcanal and the rest of the Solomon Islands. It has entire sections covering morale, disease, training, medical facilities, terrain, weapons, tactics and logistics.
Amongst these categories it often differentiates between differences between the participants; the American Army, the Marines, Australian militia and regular army, the crack Japanese troops that began the campaign and their lesser replacements. In that regard this book is specialized and probably would not appeal to casual readers of the Pacific War, but to someone who already has a good knowledge of the campaign and is interested in reading a unique perspective on the issues that contributed to the campaign as a whole, the book is invaluable. There are a few minor spelling errors and an insignificant factual error but they do not detract from the superb quality of this book. I did find the epilogue at the end a bit odd and unnecessary.
Nonetheless, this is a wonderful niche book and belongs in the library of every avid historian of this part of the conflict.
Amongst these categories it often differentiates between differences between the participants; the American Army, the Marines, Australian militia and regular army, the crack Japanese troops that began the campaign and their lesser replacements. In that regard this book is specialized and probably would not appeal to casual readers of the Pacific War, but to someone who already has a good knowledge of the campaign and is interested in reading a unique perspective on the issues that contributed to the campaign as a whole, the book is invaluable. There are a few minor spelling errors and an insignificant factual error but they do not detract from the superb quality of this book. I did find the epilogue at the end a bit odd and unnecessary.
Nonetheless, this is a wonderful niche book and belongs in the library of every avid historian of this part of the conflict.
January 13, 2014
Overall Assessment: Keeper
Commentary:
Almost 70 years after the end of WWII, today's focus on the Pacific side of WWII is on the decision to drop the atom bomb. Lost amidst the discussions of war weariness, the desire to play with a new toy, racism, strategic concerns regarding Russia, etc. is an understanding of the experience of 3 years of ground combat in the Pacific.
As author Eric Bergerund vividly describes in his book Touched with Fire The Land War in the South Pacific, that experience was horrific. Not only was the terrain malignant, but worse the Japanese ethos of death over surrender and continued fighting at all costs and for no recognizable gain, inevitably informed Allied decisions on the cost of a invasion of Japan itself.
While not directly addressing the dropping of the atom bomb, in detailing combat conditions and experiences Mr. Bergerund adds important context to the atom bomb decision. Quite simply, any judgement on the dropping of the atom bomb is, in my opinion simplistic, if the combat experience that Mr. Bergerund details is not factored in.
Commentary:
Almost 70 years after the end of WWII, today's focus on the Pacific side of WWII is on the decision to drop the atom bomb. Lost amidst the discussions of war weariness, the desire to play with a new toy, racism, strategic concerns regarding Russia, etc. is an understanding of the experience of 3 years of ground combat in the Pacific.
As author Eric Bergerund vividly describes in his book Touched with Fire The Land War in the South Pacific, that experience was horrific. Not only was the terrain malignant, but worse the Japanese ethos of death over surrender and continued fighting at all costs and for no recognizable gain, inevitably informed Allied decisions on the cost of a invasion of Japan itself.
While not directly addressing the dropping of the atom bomb, in detailing combat conditions and experiences Mr. Bergerund adds important context to the atom bomb decision. Quite simply, any judgement on the dropping of the atom bomb is, in my opinion simplistic, if the combat experience that Mr. Bergerund details is not factored in.
August 14, 2008
a highly readable book that I put down. why?
was I weary of war?
was I weary of the writers style?
I am determined to renew the attack--but it will have to wait... when I weary of the Civil War (American)
was I weary of war?
was I weary of the writers style?
I am determined to renew the attack--but it will have to wait... when I weary of the Civil War (American)
November 21, 2017
I last read this book 6 years ago; my goodness I had forgotten excellent it is. Strongly recommended to everyone interested in the fighting in the Pacific in World War II. The author does excellent job, capturing, so many facets of combat.
Pretty damn rare for me to give anybody five stars.
Pretty damn rare for me to give anybody five stars.
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