Both the U.S. and Australian governments commissioned large, detailed, and excellent multivolume official histories of the war. Controversies over the plans made and policies followed by various leaders punctuated the war itself and have become part of its historiography. In particular, I think it is safe to say, anything done by General Douglas MacArthur and his staff has become fair game for historical scrutiny. Because the narrative groundwork has been done, I have not tried to create another account of the war in the South Pacific as viewed by important military commanders. Instead, aided by dozens of original interviews with American and Anzac veterans of the conflict, I have tried to examine and explain the war s texture and tempo.
War has a grim purpose and is extremely complex.
Sophisticated planning and doctrine are present at every level. Yet at the point of fire battle is the essence of chaos and violence. I have tried to find the point where the coherence of war meets the brutal experience that confronts those who fight it. In other words, rather than treating the struggle as a chess match between rival leaders, I have tried to reconstruct and cast light upon the flow of battle. Strategic considerations enter the story at several points, but the core of my book concerns the men who fought the war, the weapons they used, how they viewed events, and the nature of the battlefield where they tended to their forbidding task.