Ian W. TollBesprekingen

Well-written, deeply researched, and fast-moving, Toll tells the story of the earliest days of the US Navy. Beginning with Congressional debates (politics never changes), through the proving fire of the War of 1812, the story of the six frigates and their crews is also the story of America’s entry onto the world stage as a naval power.

Very clear, readable history. Gives a good account of the people, places, and events.

A great conclusion to the Pacific War Trilogy, this book covers just a year of time but is the longest of the books- Toll explains in his Forward that he wanted to get in material he had left out of the previous books, focused on things like the home front, politics in the US and Japan, the submarine actions of the war, etc.

Toll is a great writer, with the perfect blend of flowery prose and precise explication for a popular work of non-fiction. I rate this book a half star below the other two just because this volume seems a bit bloated- it seems like every time the battleships bombard an island prior to an amphibious invasion, he hauls out a slightly different version of the same observation, that "it's hard to imagine how anyone could survive such an awesome display of power". And there's time spent on unnecessary detail- I don't think we need to know where everyone stood for the signing ceremony ending the war.

But overall it's great, and a fast read in spite of it's length. Highly recommended (but read the first two books first)

Read this book every morning during the summer of 2023 during our epic move in the camper. Part 2 of 3 of the trilogy following Pacific Crucible. Excellent account and thoroughly enjoyable read about America's conquest across the Pacific. Detailed individual accounts on the ground and on ship mixed in with thorough details of strategy in Washington and Pearl Harbor and in Tokyo. Thorough research was conducted on both sides to show how the US's advance in the Pacific demoralized the Japanese forces and the civilians at home on the main land. Does a great job explaining the crucial role of logistics and its obvious impact on the ultimate outcome of the wary. Highly recommend this trilogy to anyone interested in the Pacific theater of WWII.

Book 2 of the Pacific War Trilogy- just as great as book 1. This covers the period from Guadalcanal to the Battle of the Philippine Sea. At the start, the US has already had its great victory at Midway, but has yet to start taking back any territory captured by Japan in the first weeks of the war.
Guadalcanal is in the Solomon Islands, and the key airfield there was taken by the US rather easily, but the ensuing months were a lengthy battle to hold it against Japanese air strikes, naval barrages, and troops from elsewhere on the island. The US troops were inadequately supplied and the outcome was very much in doubt.

That was mid to late 1942. By 1944, though, the US war machine is at full throttle and the die is fully cast- Japan can't keep up and its position is more and more hopeless with each passing month.

Toll does a great job explaining the details. I wouldn't have minded more maps though. Looking forward to book 3 next.½

Outstanding read. The author presents the historical events from both the American and Japanese prospective.

Outstanding read. The author works through the events from both the American's prospective and the Japanese.

The last volume in Toll's great history of the war in the Pacific. He covers McArthur and Halsey's peculiarities, the invasion of the Philippines, the battle of Leyte Gulf, the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Kamikazies, preparations for the invasion of Japan (an amphibious assault that would have been larger than the D-Day invasion), the atom bombs, and a detailed account of the Japanese government and military's "decision" to surrender. There are also discussions of US submarine warfare and the B-29. I highly recommend the whole three-volume history.

A great history, the first volume of a trilogy, that covers the war from Pearl Harbor to Midway. American, British, and Japanese sources and points of view are included. Toll does an excellent job of describing the principal personalities involved and of choosing the amount of detail to present in his account. The Kindle version has figures at the back that don't look too bad on the E-Ink screen.

Volume 2 continues this excellent history of the Pacific theatre in WWII. As the author explains in his concluding note to the text, his work emphasizes the importance of the naval component of the campaign and proposes that the island-hopping that others have emphasized was secondary, all using an episodic instead of a chronological textbook technique with the several strengths mentioned in my review of volume 1. I recommend it highly.

After reading some great stuff about the WW II European theater, I've been meaning to find an equivalent history of the Pacific theater. I finally found and read this, and it's fantastic. The first book of Toll's trilogy takes us on a deep dive into the period from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway in June 1942. It doesn't skimp at all on details, with granular descriptions of the attack on Hawaii, the swift Japanese advance south toward Australia, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and of course Midway, which was the turning point of the war. In spite of the heavy detail, the book is surprisingly readable- Toll is a great writer, with the perfect mix of technical terms and a touch of flowery prose. Though I'm not much of a military expert, I was able to follow the descriptions well, and learned a tremendous amount.

Interesting takeaways that I didn't really understand at all: naval strategies were based on the writings of a 19th century theorist named Mahan, positing that the keys to victory were concentration of forces around great battleships. But the aviation age made those theories totally obsolete, and military planners hadn't really grasped this at the start of the war, that aircraft carriers were by far the most important ship. Of course the carrier's peculiar aspect was that it was offensively devastating, but at the same time very vulnerable itself when attacked; one bomb on the ship started lighting up all the gasoline in the planes and the fueling stations, so a relatively minor strike could take it to the bottom. The Battle of Midway was a great US victory mainly thanks to the work of the analysts in Hawaii who successfully broke the Japanese codes and allowed the US to know their plans; but then the key officer in Hawaii was drummed out of the job by his superiors in Washington because he had been proved right and they had been proven to be idiots. The Midway battle still swung on some strokes of good fortune, and could easily have gone the other way if Japanese scouts had spotted the US fleet a little earlier.

The book is long, so not for the faint of heart. But great- can't wait for the next one.½

If you are looking for an easy to read, interesting history of war in the pacific, this is the series for you. It is factual without being boring. I sat on the edge of my seat though the first book. I can't wait to start the second.

This book reminded me why I love history so much.

... history encompasses the heart of the Pacific War—the period between mid-1942 and mid-1944—when parallel Allied counteroffensives north and south of the equator washed over Japan's far-flung island empire like a "conquering tide," concluding with Japan's irreversible strategic defeat in the Marianas. It was the largest, bloodiest, most costly, most technically innovative and logistically complicated amphibious war in history, and it fostered bitter interservice rivalries, leaving wounds that even victory could not heal.

Often overlooked, these are the years and fights that decided the Pacific War. Ian W. Toll's battle scenes—in the air, at sea, and in the jungles—are simply riveting. He also takes the reader into the wartime councils in Washington and Tokyo where politics and strategy often collided, and into the struggle to mobilize wartime production, which was the secret of Allied victory. Brilliantly researched, the narrative is propelled and colored by firsthand accounts—letters, diaries, debriefings, and memoirs—that are the raw material of the telling details, shrewd judgment, and penetrating insight of this magisterial history.

Mr Toll has producedan excellent Capstone to his pacific Trilogy, and it has won a place on my shelves. His admittedly cinematic pacing and moving focus points tell the story of the closing days of the Pacific War very well. It does not spend space n the efforts of the Allies, but that ws not a stated aim at the beginning, and, as it stands, this is a fit companion to Rick Atkinson's Trilogy about the War in Europe.
This third volume contains some material on little visited in other histories of the war, such as the publicity machinery of MacArthur, and a chapter on the occupation of Japan, as well as discussion of the occupation arrangements and the difficulties of the repatriation of the American forces, with some notice of the unrulyness of the American public at the war's end. There is a discussion of course on the use of the Atomic bombs, which seems pretty evenminded, given the information and attitudes available at the time.
The title seems particularly apposite as several actions, like the establishment of a Japanese constitutional government were quite far reaching.

Pacific Crucible - completed 1/23 - wonderful narrative history of an otherwise well-trod tale. Fresh details and character sketches of the main players set up the events we know are coming.

The Conquering Tide - 5/23 - Ended with invasion of Saipan & Marianas Turkey Shoot, and the destruction of any offensive efforts of the Japanese military. Not really looking forward to volume 3, as it is already so bleak with only further death & destruction in store for 1945.

Twilight of the Gods - 9/10 - Rushed through to the end, can't imagine a better 3-volume treatment of the war wil be possible. Magnificent.

The third and final volume of the author's War in the Pacific is well worth the extra pages he crams into this last book. It is not quite the same as the first two volumes. For starters, especially at the beginning, he digs into a lot of "lose ends" that are worth knowing but were passed over in the first two volumes. In at least one case, he goes back and covers an armaments subject for which he must have dug up even more insight since he first approached the subject. At first reading, it seemed redundant, but a closer look revealed more data than earlier. The bulk of the rest of the book is in keeping with the author's past flair for placing the reader as fully into the various battles as can be had without reverting to just a series of memoirs. Speaking of which, this books notes show a huge list of first-hand accounts from which he derived a comprehensive impression of each and every major conflict on which he reports. The reporting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa are especially emotionally taxing, which comes from the many separate tellings by numerous participants. After finishing this book, I went back and rewatched Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" film. It now seems a distortion of what took place, while still capturing a limited part of the emotional struggles. Finally, the book's Epilogue is both a very suitable conclusion to the three part set, as well as a masterful summary of many often overlooked but essential issues about the Pacific War, Japan, and reveals differences from the much more often documented European Theater of World War II. Even if, as a reader, one would not want to dig through the various war engagements, I would still recommend general history readers to read through the final chapter. It's that good, in my mind. Overall, I highly recommend the entire series.

On google books, the first book that I used lots of 'notes' on (highlighted interesting sections of text).

A really great read that strikes a fine balance between the political milieu of the founding fathers (particularly Adams, Jefferson, and Madison), bloody frigate fights, and even some of the War of 1812 that took place off the water (the burning of D.C, Battle of New Orleans, etc.) The Barbary pirates (Tripoli, Algiers) is an interesting section. Blackmail from half way around the world. Toll is good at zooming in for details and then zooming out for narrative, keeping things moving, interesting and relevant. A lot of his 'zoom-ins' (like the Battle of New Orleans and the Battle of Lake Erie) spark interest in further reading on those subjects. Also VERY interesting (having read Aubrey / Maturin) in the analysis of British sailing, gunnery, and naval architecture as compared to the upstart Americans. A real David vs. Goliath story. Balls of steel, those early sea captains.

Great, detailed study of (mostly) American victory in the naval war in the pacific.

Very well written. Took interesting paths to arrive at various points of the campaigns. Highly recommended .

A must read for any Navy buff. It details wonderfully how our fledgling Navy forged out onto the high seas without getting so deep into the weeds that the reader runs aground. Well researched, well written, highly educational, and most enjoyable. I will likely read this again sometime in the future.

Excellent work. Well laid out and eminently readable. Highly recommended.

Read during Nov/Dec of 2021. Was on the 1st MLG reading list. Awesome book that provides the most detailed account of the beginning of the Pacific War that I have read (Pearl Harbor to Midway). Very detailed from both the American and Japanese sides, focused on their navies. I had not previously read a lot about Midway, and this was a page turner that kept me interested as I learned the critical facts surrounding the incredible victory for the US that began with intelligence breakthroughs and ended with the sinking of 4 aircraft carriers during that battle. This book also provided a lot of details around events in Washington to include a significant amount of information on FDR and Churchill's relationship.

Finished Ian Toll’s Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy.

An interesting work on the foundation of the United States Navy originally during the American Revolution just to have all the ships scrapped after the war. The true founding occurred during John Adams Administration to aid U.S. merchants during the Barbary Wars and later during the Quasi War with France.

Later the original six frigates laid down were used by the Jefferson Presidency in the Tripolitania Wars and by the Madison administration during the War of 1812 and it is these conflicts that the bulk of the book addresses and goes into a fair amount of detail.

The epic fights between the Federalists who supported the development of the navy versus the Republicans who were against it. The Republicans who after every conflict decommissioned all or most of the fleet or invested in largely useless gunboats.

A worthy read on the forging of a fledgling navy.

5763. Twilight of the Gods War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945, by Ian W. Toll (read 12 Nov 2021) This is the final book in the author's trilogy on the war against Japan. Like the first two books, which I read with much admiration, this book is superbly written, though I thought some of the account and the conclusion could have been done better. The book recounts all of the action in the war in the Pacific from mid-1944 to the end in August 1945 and covers the occupation of Japan by American troops. American battle deaths in the war against Japan were calculated to be 111,606. I was glad my brother was in combat as short a time as he was and remembered well the joy with which he was welcomed home on 30 September 1945 and one's heart must go out to the many homes which did not have such a joyous event. And while there were many Japanese homes which were bereft there would have been even more if the fanatics who resisted the decision to surrender had had their way. This is indeed an awesomely excellent treatment of its subject.½