Mark Stille

Another example of squeezing a good analysis in 96 pages, mutilating a potentially comprehensive story. Besides this silly restriction, the narrative is really good with clear illustrations, maps and colourful art work on key battle scenes.

Overall the Allied defense was doomed from the start, if only on account of limited numbers of largely obsolescent aircraft (e.g. Brewster Buffalo fighters and biplane Vildebeest torpedo bombers). The Japanese Navy and Army Air Forces produced an show more overwhelming majority of war planes (over 800 Japanese against the Allied 158 RAF and 230 Dutch aircraft at the start of the campaign) combined with an aggressiveness which kept the smug Allied forces on their back toes from the word go. The campaign lasted less than 4 months in all and was characterised not only by differences in quality and quantity, but equally by superior tactics and combat skills of the Japanese.

The strategy applied was one of achieving air superiority before landing army forces, destroying most of the ill-warned allied air force on the ground or else on taking off or landing; hopping from conquered air field to the next, benefitting from left fuel depots and resources; and the successful use of both seaplane and normal aircraft carrier forces in a pincher movement with long-range army air forces. Japanese torpedo bombers were very successful in neutralizing naval resistance (ordinary bombers less so), whereas allied bombing of Japanese invading navy vessels was dismally ineffective (especially the high level bombing practised by USAAF B17s, despite the fact that B17s could often defend themselves successfully against Japanese fighters). Japanese losses were minimal (the Navy air force losing only 38 planes in the entire campaign – 14 bombers, 6 recon aircraft, 16 fighters and 2 flying boats – with many losses due to operational causes, not enemy action).

Allied pilots were often inexperienced, lacked early warning systems, and repair services lacked appropriate spare parts and or uncoordinated services (the Dutch did not manage to get some 20-25 Hurricanes operational in the last month of the campaign). In contrast Japanese pilots were experienced (having fought in China for a long time), possessed agile fighters that did well in dog fights (the Zero, Ki-27 Nate and Ki-43 Hayabusa were all extremely manoeuvrable) and often enjoyed a numerical advantage. show less

Mark Stille is one of those people from Osprey's stable of writers that I come to appreciate more and more with time, in as much as he has the background (service as a USN intelligence officer and a continuing career as an analyst) to rise about the obvious and offer some original insights. As for this booklet, Stille has two main points. One, the Japanese effort to take Port Moresby in New Guinea was where their efforts to conquer an imperial exclusion zone in the Pacific began to fall show more apart, as the available resources began to dwindle. Two, in retrospect, the chances that Ernest King and Chester Nimitz were prepared to take with those resources available to them were highly risky in the extreme. Built on the best available studies at the time, you could do a lot worse if your looking for an incisive examination of this battle. show less

The most intriguing aspect of this book is that the author challenges the view held by many others that this was a set of near-miss losses by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The author takes the view that the battle was doomed from the start, even if the Japanese Navy could have (and did) score some tactical victories. A key point, one I haven't seen elsewhere, is that by the time the fleets got to the area off Leyte, the landings had long since occurred.

File under: Workmanlike. I wound up with this number in the "Campaign" series when it came with a grab bag of other Osprey publications that I wanted more, though I figured that it would be interesting to get an American take on said campaign. The problem is that this is such a complicated event that one begrudges even necessary side-trips away from the land action, such as Stille's cursory examination of the destruction of "Force Z." That said, Stille does cover more of the basics, and does show more provide a good bibliography (which contains more than simply other works by Osprey). One is left with the impression of how bereft the British Empire was in regards to operational and strategic matters by this point in World War II. show less