Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island

December 1, 2023

The best-selling author of Indestructible tells the story of the Marines at Guadalcanal in the disastrous early days of the war. Bruning focuses on three pilots: Major John L. Smith, Captain Marion Carl, and Major Richard Mangrum, who held off the Imperial army until the Allied forces regrouped. Prepub Alert.

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March 25, 2024
A small contingent of U.S. marine aviation corps pilots and support staff desperately hold the Pacific island of Guadalcanal against the Japanese in this exhilarating account from bestseller Bruning (Indestructible). Portraying the unit as an undertrained and unprepared force propelled to victory by sheer daring and tenacity, Bruning relays the story largely through the eyes of three officers who helped capture the Japanese base at Guadalcanal in 1942 and then led the fight to keep it during a surprise Japanese counterattack and grueling siege. They are “Ace of Aces” Maj. John L. Smith, who oversaw the battle in the air as 15 American fighters shot down a staggering 83 Japanese planes in less than two months; Maj. Richard Mangrum, the dive-bomber commander who spearheaded relentless attacks on the circling Japanese fleet with 11 inexperienced bomber crews; and Maj. Marion Carl, who trekked a treacherous 25 miles through Japanese-held jungle after being shot down. Adding depth to the white-knuckle heroics is Bruning’s detailed depiction of the aftermath for these three officers, who, relieved of their posts after 53 days of touch and go fighting, were conflicted about being paraded around the U.S. as a morale-raising publicity stunt. WWII history buffs will be engrossed.

April 1, 2024
A highly detailed account of the Guadalcanal air campaign. The fighting at Guadalcanal has produced a steady stream of books, but this expert history of the unit that fended off Japanese air and naval attacks during the first critical months examines a heroic element that has received less attention. Veteran combat correspondent Bruning, author of Indestructible and Race of Aces, begins in June 1942 following the Battle of Midway, a triumph of American carrier aircraft but a disaster for squadrons on Midway Island, who were devastated during attacks by more experienced Japanese pilots and their superior fighter, the Zero. Over the following months, survivors assembled in Hawaii under several charismatic officers as the Marine high command worked to reconstitute its air strategy. After barely a month of training, the units were shipped to the South Pacific and dropped on Guadalcanal on August 20. Japanese naval attacks had persuaded the not-very-aggressive American admiral to withdraw his transports before they had completed unloading, leaving the Marines critically short of supplies. This was still the case when 12 dive bombers and 19 fighters flew in. The author follows with a day-by-day account of two months during which they wreaked such havoc that only a dribble of supplies reached Japanese soldiers. It was the Japanese, not the Americans, who called Guadalcanal "Starvation Island." As Bruning notes, "the mission proved one other thing: the fighter pilots might get all the headlines, but the bomber crews made the history." This a lucidly written and probably definitive account of the Guadalcanal air campaign, but the author seems to belong to the history-is-boring school, so he converts his material into a somewhat-novelistic narrative featuring detailed conversations and thoughts of a score of historical characters. Nonetheless, it's undoubtedly entertaining. Heroism was abundant at Guadalcanal, but these fliers stand out, and Bruning captures the action well.

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