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Guadalcanal: The Carrier Battles
The second in a series of full-length books by the author to focus on the Guadalcanal campaign, specifically the pivotal aircraft carrier battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz.
Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13-15, 1942, a crucial step toward America’s victory over the Japanese during World War II. The three-day air and naval action incorporated America’s most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which American battleships directly confronted and mortally wounded an enemy battleship. This American victory decided the future course of the naval war in the Pacific, indeed of the entire Pacific War.
Hammel has brilliantly blended the detailed historical records with personal accounts of many of the officers and enlisted men involved, creating an engrossing narrative of the strategy and struggle as seen by both sides. He has also included major new insights into crucial details of the battles, including a riveting account of the American forces’ failure to effectively use their radar advantage. This is the concluding volume in Eric Hammel’s series of three independent books focusing on the Guadalcanal campaign and exploring all the elements that made it a turning point of the war in the Pacific.
Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea is a full-blown examination in vivid detail of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13-15, 1942, a crucial step toward America’s victory over the Japanese during World War II. The three-day air and naval action incorporated America’s most decisive surface battle of the war and the only naval battle of this century in which American battleships directly confronted and mortally wounded an enemy battleship. This American victory decided the future course of the naval war in the Pacific, indeed of the entire Pacific War.
Hammel has brilliantly blended the detailed historical records with personal accounts of many of the officers and enlisted men involved, creating an engrossing narrative of the strategy and struggle as seen by both sides. He has also included major new insights into crucial details of the battles, including a riveting account of the American forces’ failure to effectively use their radar advantage. This is the concluding volume in Eric Hammel’s series of three independent books focusing on the Guadalcanal campaign and exploring all the elements that made it a turning point of the war in the Pacific.
505 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
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24 people want to read
About the author
Eric Hammel
96 books50 followersEric Hammel was born in 1946, in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in January 1964 and earned a degree in Journalism from Temple University in 1972. His road to writing military history began at age twelve, when he was stuck in bed for a week with a childhood illness. Eric's father bought him the first paperback book he ever owned, Walter Lord's Day of Infamy. As he devoured the book, Eric realized that he wanted to write books exactly like it, what we now call popular narrative history. Lord had pieced together the book from official records illuminated with the recollections of people who were there. Eric began to write his first military history book when he was fifteen. The book eventually turned out to be Guadalcanal: Starvation Island. Eric completed the first draft before he graduated from high school. During his first year of college, Eric wrote the first draft of Munda Trail, and got started on 76 Hours when he was a college junior. Then Eric got married and went to work, which left him no time to pursue his writing except as a journalism student.
Eric quit school at the end of his junior year and went to work in advertising in 1970. Eric completed his journalism degree in 1972, moved to California in 1975, and finally got back to writing while he operated his own one-man ad agency and started on a family. 76 Hours was published in 1980, and Chosin followed in 1982. At the end of 1983 Eric was offered enough of an advance to write The Root: The Marines in Beirut to take up writing books full time. The rest, as they say, is history.
Eric eventually published under his own imprint, Pacifica Press, which morphed into Pacifica Military History and IPS Books. At some point in the late 1990s, Eric realized he had not written in five years, so he pretty much closed down the publishing operation and pieced together a string of pictorial combat histories for Zenith Press. Eric nominally retired in 2008 and took up writing as a full-time hobby writing two novels, 'Til The Last Bugle Call and Love and Grace. Fast forward to 2018 and Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and on August 25th 2020, Eric passed from this life to the next at the age of 74.
Eric quit school at the end of his junior year and went to work in advertising in 1970. Eric completed his journalism degree in 1972, moved to California in 1975, and finally got back to writing while he operated his own one-man ad agency and started on a family. 76 Hours was published in 1980, and Chosin followed in 1982. At the end of 1983 Eric was offered enough of an advance to write The Root: The Marines in Beirut to take up writing books full time. The rest, as they say, is history.
Eric eventually published under his own imprint, Pacifica Press, which morphed into Pacifica Military History and IPS Books. At some point in the late 1990s, Eric realized he had not written in five years, so he pretty much closed down the publishing operation and pieced together a string of pictorial combat histories for Zenith Press. Eric nominally retired in 2008 and took up writing as a full-time hobby writing two novels, 'Til The Last Bugle Call and Love and Grace. Fast forward to 2018 and Eric was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and on August 25th 2020, Eric passed from this life to the next at the age of 74.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 6, 2023
The second volume in author Eric Hammel's Guadalcanal trilogy covers the two carrier vs carrier naval battles, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, which took place in August 1942 and October 1942, respectively, as well as the majority of the American carrier activity in the Solomons from the opening of the campaign.
Both battles were pivotal moments in the Guadalcanal campaign as the outcome of battle was very much up in the air, with the Japanese trying to wrest control of the airfield on Guadalcanal from stubborn American defenders. In both battles, the Japanese were trying to coordinate the timing of offensive action by both their land-based and naval forces, with mixed results. While their land forces were stopped by determined American defenders, their naval forces were able to inflict significant damage on their American opponents.
Predominantly told from the American side, the book covers both battles in detail with plenty of personal anecdotes and recollections, with some of the most descriptive parts of the book covering the sinkings of the carriers USS Wasp and USS Hornet. There is some recollection from the Japanese side of things, mostly by the destroyer captain Tameichi Hara who wrote of his wartime experiences in the 1960's.
Having read this book right after the first book in the trilogy, there is some repetition of certain events, almost verbatim in many cases. But that shouldn't stop anyone from picking this one up, either as part of the trilogy or on its own. There also are two later books by the author which cover each of the carrier battles in greater detail, so those can be considered if you need more than what is included in this book.
Both battles were pivotal moments in the Guadalcanal campaign as the outcome of battle was very much up in the air, with the Japanese trying to wrest control of the airfield on Guadalcanal from stubborn American defenders. In both battles, the Japanese were trying to coordinate the timing of offensive action by both their land-based and naval forces, with mixed results. While their land forces were stopped by determined American defenders, their naval forces were able to inflict significant damage on their American opponents.
Predominantly told from the American side, the book covers both battles in detail with plenty of personal anecdotes and recollections, with some of the most descriptive parts of the book covering the sinkings of the carriers USS Wasp and USS Hornet. There is some recollection from the Japanese side of things, mostly by the destroyer captain Tameichi Hara who wrote of his wartime experiences in the 1960's.
Having read this book right after the first book in the trilogy, there is some repetition of certain events, almost verbatim in many cases. But that shouldn't stop anyone from picking this one up, either as part of the trilogy or on its own. There also are two later books by the author which cover each of the carrier battles in greater detail, so those can be considered if you need more than what is included in this book.
September 26, 2024
This is a very good history of the Carrier Battles (Eastern Solomon Islands in August, and Santa Cruz in October, 1942) that decided the longer-term direction of the ocean war between the USA and Japan. During these two battles and the period between, the US Navy lost two more of its carriers, Wasp and Hornet, and saw Enterprise badly damaged twice and Saratoga damaged, so that at the end of the Battle of Santa Cruz, the US Navy no longer had any fleet carriers available for combat in the Pacific.
These were extremely hard-fought battles with the US Navy losing precious ships, but in the end the loss to the Imperial Japanese Navy of its best air crews was the more lethal outcome. And, the US Navy was soon able to replace its ships.
I was especially impressed by the work of the crews set to put out the fires and to repair the damage to these ships. The outcome could have been much worse but for their magnificent courage and work.
About the book: I very much appreciated the author describing the anti-aircraft defences of the ships, the repair work, and many of the other things that normally get short shrift in a history. I found that the descriptions of the various air-to-air combats began to be confusing after a while but I suspect the author wanted to include these since he must have spoken to many of the survivors and it would be hard to omit their stories.
I thought the book could have used a better editor. There were a number of errors, most particularly in the captions on the maps but also scattered through the text.
In the Epilogue, I think that the author should have summed up the losses. I think that that would have helped provide a better overview.
So, some very solid pluses and couple of minor minuses - this was a very good book.
These were extremely hard-fought battles with the US Navy losing precious ships, but in the end the loss to the Imperial Japanese Navy of its best air crews was the more lethal outcome. And, the US Navy was soon able to replace its ships.
I was especially impressed by the work of the crews set to put out the fires and to repair the damage to these ships. The outcome could have been much worse but for their magnificent courage and work.
About the book: I very much appreciated the author describing the anti-aircraft defences of the ships, the repair work, and many of the other things that normally get short shrift in a history. I found that the descriptions of the various air-to-air combats began to be confusing after a while but I suspect the author wanted to include these since he must have spoken to many of the survivors and it would be hard to omit their stories.
I thought the book could have used a better editor. There were a number of errors, most particularly in the captions on the maps but also scattered through the text.
In the Epilogue, I think that the author should have summed up the losses. I think that that would have helped provide a better overview.
So, some very solid pluses and couple of minor minuses - this was a very good book.
December 31, 2024
Good read about the naval battles in support of operations on Guadalcanal. It is formatted in a moment by moment telling usually jumping between air firefights and ship board actions. Interesting to see how things worked in the Pacific.
August 28, 2016
This is an interesting book focused on the carrier battles of Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz. It lacks specific details such as the total number of aircraft lost. There are also aquite a few minor factual errors such as repeating saying 500 kilograms bombs when the author meant 550 pound bombs.
As I understand it, this book was superseded by 2 others by the author, Carrier Clash and Carrier Strike which contain additional research. While I haven't read either, I would hope the minor errors were corrected.
As I understand it, this book was superseded by 2 others by the author, Carrier Clash and Carrier Strike which contain additional research. While I haven't read either, I would hope the minor errors were corrected.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews