Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944

Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize winner McManus (history, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology) continues his history of the U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War, which he began in 2019 with Fire and Fortitude. In this evenly written and insightful work, McManus details how the U.S. Army matured into a professional force capable of sophisticated tactical and logistical maneuvers, able to drive Japanese forces over thousands of miles back toward Japanese home islands. Chronological chapters cover early successful operations at Kwajalein and the Admiralty Islands, through to the bloody and costly fights in the Marshall Islands, Leyte Gulf, and elsewhere. The horrific treatment of Japan’s American prisoners and the rearguard guerilla warfare of American units in Burma are treated as well. Importantly, McManus gives much-needed attention to the experiences of Black soldiers and the logistics of keeping the mammoth war machine supplied. Command decisions and vivid descriptions of frontline combat are expertly interwoven to paint a fuller and more complex picture; maps throughout the book give spatial context to various U.S. Army campaigns.