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Nathan Trachta's Reviews > Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943
Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943
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I’d enjoyed reading Mr. Cox’s previous books and was excited for Blazing Star, Setting Sun; after all, it was opening with my favorite battle off Guadalcanal, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. There’s so much that happens in this battle and I was anticipating how Mr. Cox would present this one. Have to say I wasn’t disappointed.
I’ll open by saying I enjoy Mr. Cox’s writing style and presentation. I know others have complained his research not being original but what love is he brings a more complete presentation of the campaign and battles than most writers I’ve read the different battles of the Pacific. Something that adds to this is his references include some obscure piece that many have missed. Two I loved that he used were Lex MacAulay’s The Battle of the Bismarck Sea (a very good job pulling the details from Mr. MacAulay’s book) and Lt. Col. Murphy’s Skip Bombing (more a little later). These are examples of pulling little pieces out of other people’s work, polishing them, and using to complete a story.
While I loved the book as a whole, there are some nits... the most basic is that Osprey honestly failed to provide sufficient maps for the battles. This is a huge nit at times. There are some maps, they’re a little finer than I like (sorry, Gold Standard has been my copy of The Two Ocean War). My other nit was Mr. Cox failed to properly present the introduction of skip bombing in the Pacific. Lt. Col. Murphy’s book Skip Bombing presented how B-17 we’re initially doing this prior the Battle of the Bismarck Sea though the attacks were done at night and by solo bombers. This is key because it removes much of the “guess work” that the B-25s had to do. I’ll also nit a little that Mr. Cox undersold the 5th Air Forces contribution in attrition of the Japanese air power at Rabaul though he did mention it in a passing way prior to the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
While these nits could have lowered it to 4.5 stars I’m rounding up because of the completeness. This is a land, sea, an air piece that finishes the tale for Guadalcanal and sets the stage for the Battle for Rabaul.
I’ll open by saying I enjoy Mr. Cox’s writing style and presentation. I know others have complained his research not being original but what love is he brings a more complete presentation of the campaign and battles than most writers I’ve read the different battles of the Pacific. Something that adds to this is his references include some obscure piece that many have missed. Two I loved that he used were Lex MacAulay’s The Battle of the Bismarck Sea (a very good job pulling the details from Mr. MacAulay’s book) and Lt. Col. Murphy’s Skip Bombing (more a little later). These are examples of pulling little pieces out of other people’s work, polishing them, and using to complete a story.
While I loved the book as a whole, there are some nits... the most basic is that Osprey honestly failed to provide sufficient maps for the battles. This is a huge nit at times. There are some maps, they’re a little finer than I like (sorry, Gold Standard has been my copy of The Two Ocean War). My other nit was Mr. Cox failed to properly present the introduction of skip bombing in the Pacific. Lt. Col. Murphy’s book Skip Bombing presented how B-17 we’re initially doing this prior the Battle of the Bismarck Sea though the attacks were done at night and by solo bombers. This is key because it removes much of the “guess work” that the B-25s had to do. I’ll also nit a little that Mr. Cox undersold the 5th Air Forces contribution in attrition of the Japanese air power at Rabaul though he did mention it in a passing way prior to the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
While these nits could have lowered it to 4.5 stars I’m rounding up because of the completeness. This is a land, sea, an air piece that finishes the tale for Guadalcanal and sets the stage for the Battle for Rabaul.
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