Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943

by Jeffrey R. Cox

A masterful account of a vital four months in the bloody battle for the Pacific, giving fresh insights into the Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign, a key turning point in both the Pacific Theater and the wider Second World War.

From popular Pacific Theater expert Jeffrey R. Cox comes this insightful new history of the critical Guadalcanal and Solomons campaign at the height of World War II. His previous book, Morning Star, Rising Sun, had found the US Navy at its absolute nadir and the fate of the Enterprise, the last operational US aircraft carrier at this point in the war, unknown. This new volume completes the history of this critical campaign, combining detailed research with a novelist's flair for the dramatic to reveal exactly how, despite missteps and misfortunes, the tide of war finally turned. By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay, and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, casting a long shadow over the Rising Sun.

Jeffrey Cox's analysis and attention to detail of even the smallest events are second to none. But what truly sets this book apart is how he combines this microscopic attention to detail, often unearthing new facts along the way, with an engaging style that transports the reader to the heart of the story, bringing the events on the deep blue of the Pacific vividly to life.

Genres: History, World War II, Military History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Naval History, American History

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

In many respects the Solomons campaign embodies the inflection point in the Second World War in the Pacific. With Japan’s offensive momentum disrupted by the battle of Midway, the two sides slugged it out in the southwest Pacific in late 1942 and early 1943 on nearly equal terms. Over time, though, the reversal of the experience gap and the growing impact of American industrial power combined to check Japanese plans in the region and begin the slow push towards their home islands.

Given the number of books that have already been written about this campaign, the question must be asked why another is needed. Jeffery Cox’s contribution possesses a number of merits. Foremost among them is the detailed reconstruction it provides of the oftentimes confused naval battles that took place around the islands. These descriptions inform Cox’s often pointed critiques of the people involved on both sides of the battle. In this respect Cox doesn’t leave the reader in any doubt as to what he thinks of his subjects and their responsibility for events.

Yet these assets don’t suffice to explain why Cox felt that another book was needed. His accounts of the battles draw heavily upon the many other works that have already been written about them. There is no original research and little effort to incorporate anything in the way of primary source records. It’s a classic case of an author who went into a room full of books and exited with one more. If Cox brought to that task an exceptional storytelling gift this might have offset this matter, but instead he often gets in the way of his own narrative with efforts at witty asides which typically fall flat. These detract from rather than add to his narrative efforts.

The result is a book that doesn’t really distinguish itself from the ones that preceded it. For anyone new to the subject it provides a useful survey of the naval clashes in the waters surrounding the Solomon Islands. But for those who have already read some of the other excellent works already available about the campaign (such as Richard Frank's Guadalcanal) Cox’s book contains nothing fresh or revelatory. In this respect it is less an addition to our knowledge than Cox’s explanation and commentary on it, one that does little more than provide a careful summary of the battles that defined the shift in Allied and Japanese fortunes in the war in the Pacific.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have read his previous two books, you can skip the first two chapters. The author has a style all his own, using caustic humor to entertain you while displaying very good narrative powers in describing the battles around Guadalcanal in the the air, on the island and at sea. Highly recommended.

[Dave Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always enjoy Mr. Cox’s nonfiction regarding World War II in the Pacific. He is an entertaining and, if this can be considered appropriate in a combat setting, humorous writer. My only criticism of his earlier works is that they almost read like they were a compilation of articles and not a stand alone work. In his earlier works he would often repeat descriptors which were interesting and amusing the first time but tiresome the third and fourth times; i.e. USA torpedoes. In this book the only substantive criticism I would make is the forward is out of sequence and confusing. It would be more effective if the story of Guadalcanal was presented in a chronological fashion. The author is interesting to me because he is a full time lawyer and yet has the energy to write well sourced military history on the side. I wish I had that energy. I look forward to his next work.

[Wai Zin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quiet enjoyable read.
But it's not on par with Cox's first book about Java sea campaign.

[Marshall Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve now completed two of Cox’s Guadalcanal/Solomons trilogy. No complaints but I thought he should have integrated more of the ground campaign into the books. Richard Frank’s book is still the best book on Guadalcanal, but I appreciate that Cox is treating the Solomons as a single campaign.

[DavidHeckman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good survey of events after the original battle for Henderson field.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here in the third book the author, Mr. Cox goes through with the continuing battle that is taking place on Guadalcanal between the Marines and Japanese forces. The struggles that each side has with terrain, weather, plants, animals, and mostly disease. The disease part took a toll on both sides and was something that neither side was prepared for. Even after all of the deaths and they would still be trouble with this fact.
The author goes into the battle at sea and the loss of our Destroyers and the men who served on them, the lack of communication between them, and also how the Japanese tactics were actually better. You do see that the fight during the day had begun to even out as had the battle in the skies. By the end of this battle which ran from August 42 to February 43, the Japanese were losing more and more experienced flyers and not being able to replace them.
You also find out about a meeting between the powers that took place in Casablanca that when reading about the European conflict it was decided how they were to attack Germany, first Sicily, Italy then a cross channel landing onto France. When I have read about it before it never spoke about the Pacific battle. Here the author gives you what was said and what was fought for by the Navy and the fight and struggle to save Australia, and the other Islands as well as returning to the Philippines.
You are also given an honest look into the command of MacArthur who I have always thought should have been held accountable for his disobeying of direct orders and allowing 35 B-17s, 53 107 P-140s, and three P35s all because he did not follow orders and have the planes spread out. He also left just left men and women in the Philippines and Corregidor. Anyway, he gets far too much credit for doing nothing except criticize weather the Navy, or the men serving under him but will take credit in front of the press.
Sorry back to the book as you get towards the end of the battle and past all of the infighting between everyone you get a story of the B-17s and skip bombing. General Kenney’s finally being able to use it and setting up the Japanese at what would be known as the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Where the success was the loss of 8 transports, 4 destroy sank and 20 fighters along with over 2890 dead for the Japanese. The Allies lost 2 bombers, 4 fighters, and thirteen men. The code breakers were able to set up this attack and the Japanese gave up New Guinea. This turned out to be a huge success for the Allies for even the bombs that did not hit a ship but landed close blew apart beneath it therefore each ship was a total loss. Later a Japanese Officer said that this was a far greater loss than even Guadalcanal for it change a lot of their plans.
What is always great about reading this author’s book is that I feel like I am learning history that was not taught to me. Yes, I knew about the war in the Pacific but I had never heard of skip bombing and the effect it had. Once again a very good book and very much worth the read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[Stian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note at start:
while I appreciate a rehash of some of the preceding timeline (its been a while since I read the preceding book), having two full chapters of it, one from the US perspective and one from the Japanese perspective and with that telling the same facts/events twice...that's just excessive and borderline weird.
Where was the editor?
So deducting 2* for that alone.

[Nathan Trachta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d enjoyed reading Mr. Cox’s previous books and was excited for Blazing Star, Setting Sun; after all, it was opening with my favorite battle off Guadalcanal, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. There’s so much that happens in this battle and I was anticipating how Mr. Cox would present this one. Have to say I wasn’t disappointed.
I’ll open by saying I enjoy Mr. Cox’s writing style and presentation. I know others have complained his research not being original but what love is he brings a more complete presentation of the campaign and battles than most writers I’ve read the different battles of the Pacific. Something that adds to this is his references include some obscure piece that many have missed. Two I loved that he used were Lex MacAulay’s The Battle of the Bismarck Sea (a very good job pulling the details from Mr. MacAulay’s book) and Lt. Col. Murphy’s Skip Bombing (more a little later). These are examples of pulling little pieces out of other people’s work, polishing them, and using to complete a story.
While I loved the book as a whole, there are some nits... the most basic is that Osprey honestly failed to provide sufficient maps for the battles. This is a huge nit at times. There are some maps, they’re a little finer than I like (sorry, Gold Standard has been my copy of The Two Ocean War). My other nit was Mr. Cox failed to properly present the introduction of skip bombing in the Pacific. Lt. Col. Murphy’s book Skip Bombing presented how B-17 we’re initially doing this prior the Battle of the Bismarck Sea though the attacks were done at night and by solo bombers. This is key because it removes much of the “guess work” that the B-25s had to do. I’ll also nit a little that Mr. Cox undersold the 5th Air Forces contribution in attrition of the Japanese air power at Rabaul though he did mention it in a passing way prior to the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
While these nits could have lowered it to 4.5 stars I’m rounding up because of the completeness. This is a land, sea, an air piece that finishes the tale for Guadalcanal and sets the stage for the Battle for Rabaul.

[Don Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and Well-documented

If there were ten stars. I would use that rating, This is an excellently written, extensively researched and detailed book on a critical turning point in the Pacific in WWII. The author covers all aspects of the battle; air, land, and sea. He weaves all three into one mosiac that provides tremendous detail in an informative manner. I have purchased other books from the author as a result of this book, and look forward to reading them.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive

Just a detailed record, told in a witty and somewhat sarcastic way, of one of the titanic struggles of the war. Educational to a high degree and entertaining too - Will recommend

[Peter L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blazing Star Setting Sun reveals Fascinating Account

Of another page burner by Jeremy Cox as he writes about the big naval battles in the opening days of WE2 lots of fascinating new to my eyes information.

[Patrick Pillow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant conclusion to Cox’s in-depth study of the vicious air, land and sea struggle that was Guadalcanal. I have thoroughly enjoyed Cox’s first two books and his writing style is comparable to Hornfischer and Holland.

[Urey Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in all wars, there is a learning curve, and it is perhaps steeper in those countries that do not have established warring ambitions. They must go through a period of learning how to fight, the costs of winning, and the inadequacy of much of the peace-time leadership and bureaucracy that must be weeded out. The Guadalcanal/early Solomons campaigns were exactly that for the US war machine in the Pacific – lessons hard learned at great cost. The same thing happened in the European theater with the North African campaign – a time of learning at huge cost in blood and resources.

The Japanese war machine had run rampant, and this same Guadalcanal/Solomons campaign exposed the fault lines and weaknesses of Japanese military culture, planning and execution that had been largely obscured before this time period. True, Japan had set backs in the Coral Sea, and a disaster at Midway – but neither event drove home the fundamental weaknesses inherent to the Japanese war machine. Guadalcanal did that.

Cox captures this two-sided learning curve brilliantly. On the Japanese side, there is the virtually existential conflict between the Army and the Navy – each an independent institution in its own right answerable to no higher civilian or military authority, only the Emperor and then largely in an advisory capacity. There is the entrenched penchant for complicated offensives, planned with multiple moving parts acting independently of each other, a formulation totally unsuited for the inevitable random events of combat and war. The Japanese never seemed able to act with initiative, adapt and overcome – confronted with unplanned or unexpected set-backs, they withdrew. Rigidity of execution of operations worked well early on, it did not as Japan’s enemies became more adept at war and brought greater resources to bear. Additionally, Japanese indifference to logistics, previously of minor effect, suddenly became an imperative with the onset of the Guadalcanal campaign. They never recovered and it was a fatal factor. Japanese military practices and technology that were overwhelming early in the war began to be surpassed in the Guadalcanal campaign –yet other critical factors they never resolved. Radar, communications, recruitment and training to alleviate combat losses, the Bushido culture, and so much more – Cox covers it beautifully throughout his text. On the other hand, the Japanese were brilliant, tenacious and devastatingly effective on the defense, as opposed to their numerous flaws on the offense. The US learned that very hard lesson the hardest way on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, New Georgia and the lesser islands in between.

The US was not prepared for war, despite the earlier naval successes at Coral Sea and Midway. US tactics were woefully deficient, as born out at Savo Island, Tassafaronga and other battles. But the navy learned. It adjusted. It weeded out incompetent, ineffective leadership. It incorporated new technology and new tactics. The scandalous, and deplorable, story of US torpedo technology in this period a case in point. It was a slow process – slower than it needed to be (see the comment about incompetent or ineffective leadership). But it was inexorable in process. The same learning process occurred in the ground combat of the time.

It was this period – the invasion of Guadalcanal and the subsequent invasions and conquest of the rest of the Solomons, and the concurrent campaign to conquer New Georgia that marked the end of Japanese hegemony in the Pacific. Japan was finally confronted with a military equal – or almost equal – demanding innovation, initiative and adaptability in response, and it was unable to do that. The US, needing to muster those same requisites, did so over the course of this campaign and thereby set the inevitable end result of the war. The book lays it all out, in the accumulative narrative of the campaign. It’s an excellent and perceptive history that reads more like the transcript of an engaging lecture by a practiced speaker, comfortable with his audience and his subject material. And that is meant as a compliment!

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book and as well as the second book in this series, Rising Star, Midnight Sun.
Both of these books detail the story of the first American Counteroffensive of WW2, when the Allies struck at, invaded, and occupied the islands of Gaudalcanal and Tulagi in a grueling, bitter conflict on land, sea, and air that took place between August 42 to February 43. Mr. Cox tells the story in his own distinct, conversational, almost novel like style. If you want a magisterial recitation of facts look elsewhere. Though the sarcasm got old after a while, as did his repetition of certain phrases, I mostly enjoyed his method of telling this story.



What he lacks in high style, IMO he makes up in the copious small details he provides about the lives and deaths of the combatants. He also does an excellent job of providing perspective from both sides and attempts to provide rational explanations for many events that seem to defy such. He is also quite scathing to the way both sides conducted battle. Though he leans pretty hard on the Japanese for their lack of attention to logistics and rational fact based planning as well as their seeming inability to learn from mistakes, he emphasizes just how good they were at the things they did well. Mr. Cox is very critical of the American naval performance early in the campaign and the abject and often tragic failure of the ordinance bureau to develop and test an adequate American torpedo. However, he does give the Americans just praise for their ability to develop and their ingenuity to create solutions to the problems posed by a tenacious often tactically superior enemy.

All in all, if you have any interest in the Pacific Theater of Operations I recommend this book.

Now I just have to obtain the first book in this series, Rising Sun, Falling Skies, about the Japanese triumph in the Java Sea, so I can devour that as well.

[Barry O'Dell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched accounts of the battles , the naval ones being the most interesting . Also the book continued on where most end ( the departure of the Marines ) going as far as the start of the campaign to take Munda Point . Hopefully another book is on the way .

The author gives a good backstory on the personalities involved , especially the Japanese . Also a lot of technical background on the naval units and aircraft . The one thing I found wanting was the constant complaint on the failures of American torpedoes .It would have been helpful to give some
details on why they failed so often and how they fixed the problem . Mr Cox seems to be more than capable enough to have provided that information .

[R Locke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't waste your money...

I feel ripped off. I should have, at least, received a discount on this Jeffrey Cox book. I read "Morning Star, Midnight Sun" where the story ended with the damaged Enterprise at Santa Cruz. I figured this book would be a sequel or " Volume 2" but no - the first three chapters are basically a cut and paste rehash of Morning Star Midnight Sun starting over from the initial Guadalcanal landings in August 1942.
This author doesn't seem to be able to hold a timeline, jumping back in the chronology as he staggers between the Japanese side of the story and the USN side of the story.

[Rick Koloian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Warning as I was unable to finish the book due to the author's cynical & snarky commentary on events & individuals of the period. As a retired National Security analyst & amateur historian, one practice I always followed was to respect the topic I was covering & to leave myself--and particularly my sentiments--out of the story. IMHO the author's disrespect & sentiments are at center stage in Blazing Star, Setting Sun as much as what happened in the Solomon Islands from 1942-43.

[Jose wilhelms Ventura · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book I finished the trilogy written by Jeffrey Cox. Like the first two the book is excellent and gives a very deep vision of the period that encompasses the end of the Guadalcanal campaign. The focus is on the naval part but with a pretty good view of the land part. The book is well researched and with very interesting details. I hope the author will continue writing about other periods of the War of the Pacific. I strongly recommend.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Primarily it focuses on the battle for Guadalcanal, but from the naval and air combat perspective. The author does a very good job of looking at from both sides. The Japanese and the Allies. A very difficult land campaign, but just a difficult in the air and on the sea. I learned a lot reading this book.

[Rolf Kirby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third of Jeffrey R Cox's histories of the Pacific War. This is a thick and detailed account of the Solomons Campaign from Nov 1942 to Mar 1943. I stayed up late on multiple nights reading this book. It was engrossing.

[Michael Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the author’s writing style. His research is top-notch and he knows how to weave a narrative. I have read two of his books and would highly recommend his works. My only complaint is that the print is TOO SMALL!

[Gene Erhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is well researched and written. Chronicling the Allies in a completely disorganized and poorly commanded “bar room brawl” to morphing innovation, great planning and execution in a pivotal stage of WW2 in the pacific. It’s a pleasure to read and ponder.

[Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long, but good. Ended with learning to low level strafe and skip bomb (Pappy Gunn)

[Piotr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great view of history from both sides of the fight and how it all went down. With some good comic relief here and there.

[Jeffrey Sacco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ww2 navel history

Very informative, readable, and funny at times. The is a great book about the real turning point. This is a must read.

[Randy Reigstad · Rating 4 out of 5]

very informative

Very interesting. It informed completely on the first 2 years of WW2. I enjoy reading Jeffrey Cox’s writings.

Randy Reigstad

[David Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent detail and wonderful information. Enjoyable read

[Aaron Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite possibly the most thoroughly researched book I’ve ever read.

[Willow Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took too long to finish