Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima

by Christopher Kyle Hemler, Christopher Kyle Hemler

Existing literature maintains that the U.S. Marine Corps’ operational success in the Pacific War rested upon two dominant committed theoretical preparation and courageous battlefield action. Put simply, the Marines wrestled with the conceptual challenges of the amphibious assault in the 1920s and 1930s and developed the tools and methods necessary to seize a hostile beach. When Japanese forces attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Corps sent its brave and spirited infantrymen to advance across the enemy-held islands of the South and Central Pacific. But the full story runs much deeper. Though this conventional narrative captures essential elements of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' triumph, it fails to account for substantial interwar deficiencies in fire control and coordination, as well as the critical wartime development of those capabilities between 1942 and 1945.
 
Delivering Destruction is the first detailed study of American triphibious (land, sea, and air) firepower coordination in the Pacific War. In describing the Amphibious Corps' development of fire coordination teams and tactics in the Central Pacific, Hemler underlines the importance of wartime adaptation, battlefield coordination, and the primacy of the human element in naval combat. He reveals the untold story of American fire control and coordination teams in the Central Pacific. Through “bottom-up” adaptation and innovation, American troops and officers worked out practical solutions in the field, learning to effectively apply and integrate air and naval support during a contested amphibious assault. The Americans' ability to mount tremendous, synchronized firepower at the beachhead–a capability established through three years of grueling wartime adaptation–allowed the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to seize any fortified Japanese island of its choice by 1945. ·Despite advancing technology and expanding “domains” of warfare, combat remains a deeply interactive, human endeavor.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2023

Reviews

[Nick]

This is a must read for any interested in the development of modern amphibious warfare, and combined arms warfare. I would go so far as to say this history documents the development of combined aviation, naval and ground fires control during the pivotal time and place of WW2 PTO, and describes the establishment of the American way of war - the coordinated use of overwhelming firepower and combined arms to achieve victory. In less than 200 pages Dr. Hemler introduces the reader to the concepts of supporting arms control from the US amphibious infancy during the interwar period to its peak at the end of WW2 in the Pacific, stepping us sequentially through each island campaign demonstrating the lessons learned and the actions taken. Along the way he describes how the battles in the Pacific are forerunners of the joint force today and the precursor to the concepts behind multi-domain warfare.

[Marshall Snyder]

A solid scholarly book on the development and evolution of fire support coordination by the Marine Corps in World War II. I wish he had also included a study of fire support for Roy Grover’s III Amphibious Corps at Peleliu and Okinawa and if and how the two Corps’ capitalized on the others lessons learned.

[Paul]

B: Interesting study of innovation in warfare, its sources, strengths and weaknesses.