Hell Is Upon Us: D-Day in the Pacific June-August 1944

by Victor Brooks

Book Overview

June 14, 1944, just nine days after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, another mighty fleet steamed towards its own D-Day landing. A huge U.S. flotilla of 800 ships carrying 162,000 men was about to attempt to smash into the outer defenses of the Japanese Empire. Their target was the Marianas Island group, which included Saipan, home to an important Japanese base and a large population of Japanese civilians, and Guam, the first American territory captured...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306813696
• ISBN13: 9780306813696
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An Eye-Opening Account

"Hell Is upon Us" was written by Victor Brooks, currently a professor of history at my long-ago alma mater, Villanova University. The book is a thorough and detailed account of the retaking by United States marines, soldiers, sailors, and aviators of the Marianas Islands and Guam, the first American territory captured by the Japanese in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor during World War II. The campaign for the Marianas and Guam took place during eight weeks of intense and bloody combat from mid-June to August in 1944, at the same time as allied forces were moving out from Normandy after D-Day in Europe. Brooks takes us behind the scenes into the conference rooms with America's top military planners, Admirals Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, Raymond Spruance and William Halsey and Marine General Holland "Howling Mad" Smith, who pushed their plan for the Central Pacific offensive in preference to General Douglas MacArthur's plan first to retake the Philippines as a prelude to conquering Japan. We also see the planning of Japan's military commanders, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, and General Hideki Tojo, who first targeted the United States as Japan's enemy. For the remainder of the book, the reader slogs ashore with the American invasion forces on Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, or watches as American air and sea power dominate the Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The cost of victory in this campaign was massive with 26,000 American personnel killed, wounded, and missing and 65,000 Imperial troops dead, surrendered, or in hiding after eight weeks of deadly combat. But the capture of these far-flung islands in the Pacific provided the air bases for subsequent raids by American B-29 Super Fortresses on Japan and the ultimate flight of the "Enola Gay" and its crew who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima to bring World War II to its close. Sometimes tiring in reading about the sameness of planning and execution in excruciating detail of the conquering of these vital island bases, still the book has the ring of truth and authenticity, and historian Brooks provides an eye-opening account of these battles for anyone interested in the military history of World War II.

A fantastic read

A welcome addition to the library of any reader of military history. I have been a huge fan of the work of Victor Brooks for about five years. His books bring the face of battle alive and Hell is upon us is no exception. It is a very exciting, readable account of an overlooked campaign. One of the most amazing parts of the book is the massive suicide charge of Japanese troops in Saipan, very relevant to the war-torn era we now live in.

WWII from a Civil War perspective

The author of this worthwhile book clearly has his heart in the history of the American Civil War. He discusses the Marianas campaign, a topic about which relatively little has been written, in a short, well-researched volume. His judgments are fair and balanced and he covers both the land and sea aspects of the battle. However, he constantly draws allusions and comparisons to Civil War battles and leaders. Some of these are interesting, but the author overdoes it by mentioning the Civil War far too many times. Some lessons about the Marianas can be learned by comparisons to Fredricksburg, but the world of warfare changed a great deal since Appomattox. In addition, the work suffers from numerous typos and unusual grammatical constructions, which should have been fixed during the proofreading process. In spite of these criticisms, the author provides a good overview of a Pacific battle of enormous consequence.

Well Done, Much Need Book on the Marianas

D-Day has come to mean one invasion, and one invasion only, the invasion of France on June 6, 1944. Little known is that there were many d-days, and just as many h-hours where American forces assaulted enemy held beaches. On June 14, 1944, barely a week after D-Day in Europe, it was D-Day in the pacafic. This d-day was for the invasion of the Marianas. This group of islands had been chosen as the first of the stepping stones that would take American and Allied forces to Japan. The Marianas also included Guam, a piece of American territory that had been captured by the Japanese soon after Pearl Harbor. The Marianas also included Tinian, the island from which the 'Enola Gay' and 'Bock's Car' would take off to deliver atomic bombs to Japanese cities. The Marianas campaign did not marke the end of fighting in the Pacific war, but as Churchill said about El Alamein, 'it marked the end of the beginning.' After the Marianas, the path to Japan was clear although much hard fighting remained. This is an excellently researched book that clearly covers the invasion of the Marianas, along with the story of the Army and Marines working more or less together. It is a much needed book that covers this little recognized battle.

Outstanding!

I read Dr. Brooks history of the Normandy Campaign and found it informative, readable and full of insights. For over 40 years I have had an interest in the campaign in the Marianas, especially Saipan. When I learned Dr. Brooks was to publish a history of that campaign, I anticipated it. Saipan was the first time in US MIlitary History that the Marine Corps conducted a large scale amphibious assault (by that time, the US Army had successfully conducted large scale landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy(twice) and Europe). It was the first time in History that the Marine Corps conducted a large scale ground operation. It was the first time in History that a Marine Corps General (Holland M. Smith) commanded a large scale ground operation. It was not the first time in History that the plan for a large scale ground operation did not survive first contact with the enemy. It was necessary to commit an Army Division, the 27th Infantry Division, to the ground campaign, something which HM Smith neither anticipated nor planned for. HM Smith scapegoated the 27th ID and its Commanding General, MG Ralph Smith, for what did not go according to plan on Saipan. In the past 60+ years since Saipan, most of what has been written about the Battle has come from either Marines or authors friendly to the Marine Corps. These Marine/Marine-friendly Authors focus their writing on justifying HM Smith's treatment of the 27th ID. Often they distort the history of the battle, sometimes presenting fiction as factual history. In this context, Dr. Brooks has produced a History which is factual, readable, full of insights and thoroughly objective. For these reasons I rate it outstanding. There are some nits to be picked, however. He does not mention Captain Ben Salomon, the third soldier of the 105th Infantry awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for heroism in the gyokusai of 7 July 1944. A Dental Corps Officer acting as a Battalion Surgeon, he died defending his aid station against the Japanese. Because of a picky application of a technicality, his award was initially denied. Then, over 50 years after the event, the award was made. He says that MG George Griner (who succeeded MG Ralph Smith as 27th ID Commander) ordered a body count after 27th ID reduced the Death Valley/Purple Heart Ridge position. General Griner ordered the body count after the Gyokusai, in response to claims by HM Smith's headquarters as to the intensity of the Gyokusai. He does not go into much detail describing the operations against Nafutan Point. His description of the Japanese breakout from Nafutan does not match the description given in Edmond Love's "The 27th Infantry Division in World War II"(pgs. 219-222). He states after Marianas Campaign, the US Army would not allow the placement of Army Divisions under US Marine Corps Command. The capture of Peleliu, Yap, Ulithi, Angaur took place after the Marianas. It was carried out by III Amphibious Corps, commanded by MG Roy Geiger, which had two Divisio