The Pacific

March 15, 2010
A project conceived by the late historian Stephen Ambrose and carried through by his son, this work tracks several marines and a navy pilot through WWII in the Pacific Ocean. If extant combat memoirs render several names in this group recognizable to serious WWII readers (and form the foundation of Ambroses chronicle), a new HBO combat dramaadvertised on Super Bowl XLIV no lessthat debuts in tandem with the book will accord even wider renown to the warriors. Inhabiting the same volume, the main characters, nevertheless, enact separate narratives that cross intermittently in battles such as the harrowing amphibious landings on Peleliu and Iwo Jima and the ghastly campaigns on Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The account of the pilot is even more autonomous, because it is framed by aircraft-carrier warfare at Midway and elsewhere. Although structurally this work collects more than unifies the biographies, its authors original research, which textures the five individuals, should rekindle interest in Ambroses sourcesclassics in war literature such as Robert Leckies Helmet for My Pillow (1957) or Eugene Sledges With the Old Breed (1981).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)