The Struggle for Guadalcanal: August 1942-February 1943
by Samuel Eliot Morison
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (5)
On This Page
Description
History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II.Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
The Struggle for Guadalcanal by Samuel Eliot Morison is the third of a 15 volume account of the US Navy in WWII. Appointed as the official naval historian of the war, Morison was given permission to go anywhere and see all the official records of the war. For this volume, he visted Guadalcanal soon after its secure by the Americans, talked with its commanders, walked the battlefields, interrogated Japanese leaders after the war and read offical battle reports and diaries from both sides of the conflict. Despite its official nature, the book is surprisingly readable. There is naturally a heavy emphasis on details and maps of the great naval and accompanying air battles surrounding the capture of Guadalcanal, with a lighter touch upon the show more land battles to make a coherent whole. show less
A basic building block for the serious student or the war gamer. His OBs are very good, and the maps reliable. the prose is clear and workmanlike.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
121+ Works 10,863 Members
Samuel Eliot Morison was born in Boston in 1887. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1912 and began teaching history there in 1915, becoming full professor in 1925 and Jonathan Trumbull professor of American history in 1941. He served as the university's official historian and wrote a three-volume history of the institution, the Tercentennial show more History of Harvard College and University, which was completed in 1936. Between 1922 and 1925 he was Harmsworth professor of American history at Oxford. He also was an accomplished sailor who retired from the navy in 1951 as a rear admiral. In preparing for his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies of Christopher Columbus and John Paul Jones, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1941) and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1952) he took himself out of the study and onto the high seas, where he traced the voyages of his subjects and "lived" their stories insofar as possible. When it came time for the U.S. Navy to select an author to write a history of its operations in World War II, Morison was the natural choice for the task. In 1942, Morison was commissioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to write a history of U.S. naval operations in World War II and given the rank of lieutenant commander. The 15 volumes of his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II appeared between 1947 and 1962. Although he retired from Harvard in 1955, Morison continued his research and writing. A product of the Brahmin tradition, Morison wrote about Bostonians and other New Englanders and about life in early Massachusetts. He was an "American historian" in the fullest sense of the term. He also had a keen appreciation for the larger history of the nation and world, provincial is the last word one would use to describe Morison's writing. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Struggle for Guadalcanal: August 1942-February 1943
- Original publication date
- 1949
- Important places
- Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands; Pacific Ocean; Solomon Islands
- Important events
- World War II (1939 | 1945); World War II, Pacific Theater (1941-12-07 | 1945-09-02); Guadalcanal Campaign (1942-08-07 | 1943-02-09)
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 231
- Popularity
- 140,472
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.37)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 10
