Hell's Islands: The Untold Story of Guadalcanal

Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series

by Stanley Coleman Jersey

From August 1942 until February 1943, two armies faced each other amid the malarial jungles and blistering heat of Guadalcanal Island. The Imperial Japanese forces needed to protect and maintain the air base that gave them the ability to interdict enemy supply routes. The Allies were desperate to halt the advance of a foe that so far had inflicted crippling losses on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, then seized the Philippines, Wake Island, the Dutch East Indies, Guam, and other Allied territory. After months of relentless battle, the U.S. troops forced back the determined Japanese, providing what many historians believe was the decisive turning point in the Pacific theater of operations.

Stanley Coleman Jersey, a medical air evacuation specialist in the South Pacific during World War II, has spent countless hours combing Australian, Japanese, and U.S. documents and interviewing more than 200 veterans of the Guadalcanal campaign, both Allied and Japanese.

Beginning with the events that preceded the battle for Guadalcanal during the Australian defense of the southern Solomon Islands in late 1941, Jersey details the military preparations made in response to intelligence describing the creation of an enemy air base within striking distance of American supply lines and recounts the civilian evacuation that followed the Japanese arrival in New Guinea.

With the stage set, he turns to the campaign itself, with particular emphasis on the combat during the critical period of August to December 1942. While Guadalcanal is his primary focus, Jersey also covers the roles played by forces occupying the other Solomon Islands, including the plight of construction laborers, air crews, and ground units.

This book, chock-full of gripping battlefield accounts and harrowing first-person narratives, draws together for the first time Allied and Japanese perspectives on the bloody contest. It is certain to become an indispensable asset to historians of World War II.

Genres: History, World War II

536 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Bob Grove · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an in-depth account of the land combat on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu, Tanamboho, Florida, and Malaita during World War II. It describes the combat actions and living conditions from the perspective of the US Marine Corps, the US Army, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) unit members. The accounts from the Japanese side are based on interviews with survivors, prisoner of war (POW) interrogations, and diaries of IJA and IJN combatants.

The book is structured chronologically and covers the events starting with the evacuation of the British Solomon Islands, followed by the Japanese invasion of Tulagi, the construction of the airfield on Guadalcanal, all of the land battles, and concludes with the Japanese evacuation of the island

The only drawback of this book is the lack of maps, which could have helped the readers visualize the locations of the various battlefields and understand the military strategies employed by both sides.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

A extremely detailed look at the Guadalcanal campaign. As a warning, this book is extremely dry. Do not expect gripping narratives and thrilling action. This book is purely a Birds Eye view of the campaign with combatant quotes and experiences sprinkled in. The author spends a ton of time on unit composition and individual unit actions during the campaign. The book is well done and very detailed, including things about the campaign I didn’t know about (like Japanese tanks on the island and army involvement). But it is almost boring to read and will be unreadable by anyone other than history junkies like myself. I enjoyed it but not because it was fun to read, I enjoyed it because I learned a lot.

[Dave Beeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes the long view of the history of the Solomon Islands from prior to the start of WWII through the battle for Guadalcanal. Uses U.S., Japanese, and Australian sources. In depth coverage of the battle from both sides of the firing line. Well worth the read.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

A in depth history of the campaign starting with history of the island before the war. One nice detail is includes some Japanese sources and unit names and not just US Ones.