This is not, really, a book review, but some observations
after reading The Last Stand of the Tin
Can Sailors by James D. Hornfischer. My thanks to Amy W for borrowing the
book in my name, it was perfect.
By the end of 1944, the war in the Pacific was pretty much
determined, but the details were not. The battles of Midway and the Coral Sea
had depleted the Japanese Navy and the Marianas Turkey
Shoot virtually eliminated their air power, and that turned out to be what they desperately needed. Maybe that is why we don’t hear much about the Battle off Samar, part of the “Leyte Gulf” operations that freed the Philippines, but subsequent operations (Iwo Jima and Okinawa come to mind) have been reviewed extensively.
Shoot virtually eliminated their air power, and that turned out to be what they desperately needed. Maybe that is why we don’t hear much about the Battle off Samar, part of the “Leyte Gulf” operations that freed the Philippines, but subsequent operations (Iwo Jima and Okinawa come to mind) have been reviewed extensively.
The book reads like a novel, details the lives and exploits
of key players and has the benefit of nearly 60 years of scholarship, memories
and investigation. Still the US Navy’s down play of the battle is probably
traced to its reluctance to skewer a couple of its heroes, Admiral Kinkaid for
one, but in particular Admiral “Bull” Halsey who was trumpeted as a hero in the
home newspapers before and after the battle, despite his arrogant and obsessive
actions that took his powerful fleet out of the battle, far away. If too bright
a light had been shone at the time, his failure would have been clearly seen.
Read the book, feel the horror of the carnage and the heroism
of men who epitomize the “Greatest Generation.” Their eager call to duty is
difficult for me to imagine in today’s climate.
So many of the observations made about the survivors at
reunions tap into my experience—long-term bonds with comrades from long ago and
an image of self and others that is much younger. I recognize people outside
that group as old men and women, but we are forever young.
I should make some sweeping recommendation about “everybody
should recognize the sacrifices” but that would be presumptuous and worthless. For
me it was another reminder of how lucky we are to have had those men, many
stricken down at the start of their lives, who stopped the Nazis and the Japanese.
It would have been a different and lesser world today.
