Showing posts with label Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Army. Show all posts

Friday, March 04, 2022

The Army's War in the Pacific

 Been reading the John McManus  books on the Army's role in the Pacific (so far two volumes,carrying the story through the end of 1944 and the invasion of Leyte in the Philippines).

It's good, not as good as the Toll trilogy on the Navy, with less focus on overall strategy and the home front, but it does do justice to the Army which McManus says has been overshadowed by the Marines.  The first book is critical of MacArthur, the second book not so much.  In the controversies between Marine and Army generals he usually takes the Army side, but seems to be fair in assessing the good and bad of the leaders.

I was struck by the fact that the US had overall commanders--Nimitz and MacArthur, while the Japanese apparently always separated navy and army chains of command. We had friction between Marine and Army forces which apparently didn't exist for Japan.