Clayton Chun

Clayton Chun is nothing if not workmanlike as an author and, for all practical purposes, seeing as he's on the faculty of the U.S. Army War College, this constitutes official history. This means one has a very "lines on the map" kind of narrative, as Chun examines the operational trade-offs the American and Japanese chains of command made, what with the United States looking for the most efficient way to get to grips with the Japanese home islands, and the Japanese desperately looking for show more their "decisive" battle that would stop the United States in their tracks. This opens up a whole range of political and cultural questions that a library of books have been written about.

What is striking to me, and this work is far from the first time that I've studied this topic, is that for all the epic and horrifying events that occurred during this campaign, is how little has really been written about it. To a large degree Chun depends on the old U.S. Army "Green Books" in relating this story; I'd been hoping that there was some more contemporary operational sources he could refer to. It's as though Douglas MacArthur's insistence on making this campaign about "him" sucked all the energy out of the room, not helped by Walter Krueger (the main operational architect of this campaign), being uninterested in leaving a memoir. Still, if you want to get the distilled content of the official history, this is a useful work. If there is a particular plus, the contributions of the large Filipino resistance force are integrated into this study. show less

On the grounds that this is basically the most modern treatment of this campaign available, I figured that I had to give this booklet four stars. Considering that the author was on the faculty of the U.S. Army War College at the time of publication, there is the flavor of official history here, meaning that it is very detailed, at the same time as being rather dry. So why read this as opposed to the old official history of the battle? Having personally read the "Green Book" account I would show more say that is because Chun gives you a better sense of what the Japanese land forces were trying to do to contest the American invasion, while at the same time making clear the impact that weather and terrain had on the contest. show less

A workmanlike account of the campaign which does not sugar-coat the mistakes that Douglas MacArthur committed in his defense of the archipeligo. Where I mark down the book is that some of sources given are kind of weak or even obsolete by the standards of the 2012 date of publication; there is no mention of William Bartsch's books on the Army Air Force's role in the campaign, no mention of John Whitman's "Bataan" (still about the best account of the ground war), no mention of H.P. Willmott's show more strategic overview of the campaign and no mention of D. Clayton James' biography of MacArthur. show less

This seems like a reasonably well-done description of the Doolittle raid, within the obvious limitations of the Osprey format. The most obvious limitations of that format are length (96 pages) and the absence of notes. There are several good maps in the book; the full-color paintings, specially commissioned for the work, are more questionable. Author Chun does seem to have done some original research, if the bibliography is any indication.