Eric Hammel (1946–2020)

In yet another superb, originally conceived offering, noted military historian, Eric Hammel brings us first-person accounts from thirty-nine of the American fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of the Pacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941, until the final air battles over Japan itself in August 1945. Coupled with a clear view of America's far-flung air war against Japan, Hammel's detailed interviews bring out the most thrilling in-the-cockpit experiences of the air show more combat that the Pacific War's best Army, Navy, and Marine pilots have chosen to tell. Meet Frank Holmes, who defied death in an outmoded P-36 while still clad in a seersucker suit he had worn to mass earlier that morning. Fly with Scott McCuskey as, single-handed at Midway, he takes out two waves of Japanese dive-bombers that are attacking his precious aircraft carrier. Sweat out the last precious drops of fuel in a defective Marine Wildcat fighter as Medal of Honor recipient Jeff DeBlanc bores ahead to his target to keep the faith with the bomber crews he has been assigned to protect. Experience the ecstasy of total victory as Ralph Hanks becomes the Navy's first Hellcat ace-in-a-day when he destroys five Japanese fighters over the Gilbert Islands in a single mission. A superb interviewer, Hammel has collected some of the very best air-combat tales from America's war with Japan. Combined with the four other volumes in The American Aces Speak series, this work will stand as an enduring testament to the brave men who fought the first and last air war in which high-performance, piston-engine fighters held sway. These are stories of bravery and survival, of men and machines pitted against one another in heart-stopping, unforgiving high-speed aerial combat. The American Aces Speak is a highly-charged emotional rendering of what men felt in the now-dim days of personal combat at the very edge of our living national history. There was never a war like it, and there never will be again. These are America's eagles, and the stories are their own, in their very own words. Eric Hammel is the author of more than thirty other books, including Pacifica Military History's Ambush Valley, The Root: The Marines in Beirut, Six Days in June, Guadalcanal: Starvation Island and Guadalcanal: Decision At Sea.. show less

Hammel does an excellent job of simply letting the veterans speak, while weaving a cohesive narrative between that tells the reader the greater overall picture without bogging it down. Simply put he lets the veterans words and works shine. I appreciated that the book wasn't just about success, it shared stories of failure, capture, and death as well. Also appreciated was the fact that the 9th and 15th Air Forces were not shorted content wise in favor of the more well known 'Mighty 8th'.

I had been doing some research on the air war in the Solomons during 1942/43 when I saw this volume available on Kindle and decided to pick it up. I have three other Hammel works, one for WW2, one for Korea, and one for Vietnam, which I enjoyed reading. So I thought I would enjoy this book as well.

As I started reading "Cactus Air Force: Air War Over Guadalcanal", it soon became clear that Hammel was not the sole author--Thomas Cleaver is credited as co-author. I have read Cleaver's work as show more well, so I was not worried. Both authors share similar styles, and I still find the topic fascinating. So I proceeded with my read. The book was published by Osprey in 2022 and is credited with 336 pages. There are 20 chapters that seem to flash by at an incredible pace from Operation Watchtower's initiation on 7 August 1942 until tapering off in late November 1942. The pace of the narrative was troubling. By the time the story reaches the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in the fourth week of August, less than three weeks later, the book is in Chapter 10 and the read is more than 60% complete. A more detailed description of the book's contents is not really needed --any student of the Guadalcanal campaign will not encounter any surprises in these pages.

The backstory to this book is the story of the coauthors and the propriety of the project. It is clear from Cleaver's introduction that Eric Hammel became ill shortly after the book project got underway and was incapacitated enough to preclude producing the kind of book his readers were accustomed to reading. Hammel requested help from Cleaver until Hammel's illness became so severe that the project could no longer continue, at least as a collaboration. Hammel passed in 2020, but through the efforts of Hammel family members and Osprey, the "Cactus Air Force" project restarted that same year with Cleaver as the sole author. Cleaver spent the next two years assembling materials Hammel had assembled over the years to complete this volume.

The result is a disappointment to me. Posthumous publishing can work (I look at the Norman Friedman work with the materials of the late John Lambert on the Royal Navy Weapons of World War II series as an example), but it does not work here. In looking at Hammel's body of work on the Solomons campaign, what was missing was a definitive history of the air campaign based out of Guadalcanal itself. Ownership of the real estate to build airfields on the island was the central purpose of the campaign, so a book that covered the air war as fought from Henderson Field, Fighter One, and Fighter Two would have been a worthwhile endeavor. What the reader ends up with this book is some of that intent swallowed by the other events Hammel has covered in more detailed in his four other books on the Guadalcanal campaign. The pace of the book that I mentioned above makes it appear that Hammel had written a good part of the first half of the book: Cleaver then obtained Hammel's notes and materials to assemble the rest of the book. Cleaver ends the book not with anything about the air campaign as it stood in late 1942, but with the naval battle of Tassafaronga--a battle that had no air component to it at all.

I think the publication of this book was a mistake, but that is not Eric Hammel's fault nor is it Tom Cleaver's fault--in this case the blame lies fully with Osprey. Having approved the project with Hammel to begin with, the Osprey management should have seen that this project without Hammel would be problematic. It is a disservice to both Hammel and Cleaver to have allowed the project to go on to present such an ordinary history to appear under the name of a well-regarded historian. show less

A very well researched and written account. Hammel relies heavily on personal accounts of this most confusing set of battles. While the narrative focuses on the naval battles in November 1942, Hammel also supplies additional background information on the weapons and participants providing a rich depth to his fascinating story. The presentation is absolutely gripping. One of the best descriptions of twentieth century naval warfare one is likely to see.