DDR: The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 by Ian W. Toll

                   

Day 1 (DDRD 1,519) December 29, 2021

Daily Devotional Reading Day 1,520 was Day 23 (aka Final Day) for the first book & Day 1 of the second book in Ian W. Toll's The Pacific Trilogy.

The Conquoring Tide is now the second book that I've DDR-ed that I checked out of the library (as opposed to owned), and the first that I started on Kindle (a necessity as the print book I requested has not yet arrived at my library). 

I finished Volume 1 of The Pacific Trilogy this morning, but since that coup de grâce only took 11 pages, I thought I'd just go ahead and read the first little bit of this book--Volume 2 of TPT.

So I read to page 8-ish (there's not a one-to-one correspondence between Kindle and book)...and then got a notice that the book book had arrived and was being held for me. So I slipped down to the library and picked it up. 

The Conquering Tide riding home with me.

According to the book book, I'd only read six pages. So I figured that I should knock back at least three more (to make for an even 20 for the day). But as I was looking through the book book, I noticed that the AUTHOR'S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS which was at the end of the Kindle was actually at the front of the book book...and was four pages long, so just about perfect. So I read that.

So Day 1 I read to page xxii. I'll see if I can even things out tomorrow.

Day 2 (DDRD 1,521) December 30, 2021

Read to page 10, which was more or less 20 pages. Speaking of number of pages...here's what Wikipedia and Amazon say about that:

PC    640pp    TCT    656pp    TptG    944pp   

Which makes for a grand total of 2,240 pages. The counting of the pages seems a bit equivocal to me, but who am I to argue with Wikipedia and Amazon? Good enough for them, good enough for me. And saves me the trouble of counting roman enumerated pages.

Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Alabama and Podcast? I thought I'd written about them, but am having some location problems now, so just in case:

See https://www.alabamabooksmith.com/signed-copies/pacific-war-trilogy for interview and https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/04/lgm-podcast-ian-toll-on-the-pacific-trilogy for podcast. 

Day 3 (DDRD 1,522) 👶December 31, 2021👶

Read to page 30...and the invasion of Guadalcanal has begun. I don't know anything about this, but I assume it's one of the biggest battles in the Pacific Theater. Forgot to mention that in this volume the notes are actually numbered, which I appreciate immensely. There's still the same kind of notes that were in Volume 1--documentary rather than additional information--but that's alright with me.

Day 4 (DDRD 1,523) 🎉🎉January 1, 2022🎉🎉

How can it possibly be 2022? That's the FUTure, man. A lot of people seem to believe that that's true, though, so I'm going to play along with it.

Read to page 50. The Battle of Guadalcanal continues heating up. I would like to find a good movie based on this battle so that I can properly visualize it. And after a little Googling...well, well, well. One of my favorite War Movies of all time, The Thin Red Line (1998) is centered on "part of the Guadalcanal Campaign." (Wikipedia) So there's a good excuse to re-watch that. But you know, I've never seen the first The Thin Red Line (1964), so maybe I'll have a look at that first. 

Later, after a bit of Googling: Found the 1998 TTRL to stream on Amazon Prime, and I also have a dvd of it somewhere, but the LFPL has a two disc Criterion copy, so I put in a request for that. (Good news on that front: 3 copies in the system, all 3 are available ...including the one at my branch of the library.) But the 1964 was not on any of the platforms I looked at, and the library didn't even have a copy. Enter YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZOrKTGNDWg will do the trick...for now, at least. I imagine this is one of those things that bounces around a bit, given the fact that it has only garnered 6,671 views. So I think I'm going to start with that either tonight or early tomorrow morning...which should make it my first movie of 2022. Woo-hoo. I said, Woo-hoo.

Day 5 (DDRD 1,524) January 2, 2022

Read to page 70. Also watched the 1964 The Thin Red Line last night. It suffered from the usual Older Movie Faults--histrionic acting, screeching sound track, etc.--but it was also very powerful and definitely worth seeing. Funny thing, though, is that you only saw a ship at the very beginning of the movie, as the troops were being brought in, and from that point on the only water you saw ranged from ankle depth to waist deep. (Apparently Guadalcanal was a very moist island.) So this version of events had almost nothing to do with Ian W. Toll's version. Which won't prevent me from watching the 1998 The Thin Red Line, but will explain why "Guadalcanal" always summons up a vision of a land battle for me.

Day 6 (DDRD 1,525) January 3, 2022

Read to page 90. Also going to start reading Moby Dick today...with a li'l group. Been awhile since I spent any serious time with Herman Melville, so I'm looking forward to that, for sure. But the group wants to do it in 2 weeks, and that's a bit of a quick march for me. But hey, I can handle it. Maybe. Time will tell.

Day 7 (DDRD 1,526) January 4, 2022

Read to page 110. I kind of didn't notice that we'd stepped away from the Battle of Guadalcanal for a bit until I thought, "Hey, whatever happened to Guadalcanal?" Ian W. Toll did a pullback to show the situation back on the homefront, some FDR stuff, etcetera. Some of which was familiar to me from reading Churchill's WWII book, which was nice. But then we got back to the OG, so we'll see how that goes.

Day 8 (DDRD 1,527) January 5, 2022

Read to page 130. I'm also on page 80 (of 608) in Moby Dick. And a few minutes ago a friend asked me if I'd like to read a book with her. I am a pretty heavy reader, but I think I'm getting in over my head. Especially given the fact that today, for instance, I left my house at 7:30 and didn't get back until 4:30. But we'll see how it goes. At the very least, I am 100% committed to The Pacific Trilogy.

Day 9 (DDRD 1,528) January 6, 2022

Read to page 150. 

Day 10 (DDRD 1,529) January 7, 2022

Read to page 170.

Day 11 (DDRD 1,530) January 8, 2022

Read to page 190. There was a passage describing the beauty of the Solomon Islands...a vivid contrast to the descriptions of Japanese soldiers who had starved to death or were in the process of doing so...and it reminded me of the opening of The Thin Red Line (1998), which I have from the library but have not yet watched. There was also a reference to the fact that there might be cannibalism amongst the natives there, which made me think of Moby Dick's Queequeg, and made me wonder if maybe by some weird coincidence he hailed from the Solomon Islands. So I looked it up. Turns out he comes from that area, but from a fictional island named Rokovoko. So I looked up Rokovoko, just to see if there was any information about which real island (if any) it was based on, and found a band on /bandcamp which had four songs up...mostly ambient-ish stuff, including a cover of Brian Eno's "By This River." A song I'd forgotten about, and which is quite lovely. And that led me to a beautiful instrumental cover by Trio Fibonacci which is definitely worth your time.

So I didn't learn much about Rokovoko, but it was a nice trip.

                                                    ⬇

Day 12 (DDRD 1,531) January 9, 2022

Read to page 210. This Admiral Halsey seems like a very interesting character. I noticed in the notes that he had co-written a biography (or is that co-written an autobiography? That seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it?) which I wouldn't mind having a look at...but I am already over my head in reading materials, so I'm not even going to look for it at this point. 

 

Day 13 (DDRD 1,532) January 10, 2022

Read to page 230.

Day 14 (DDRD 1,533) January 11, 2022

Read to page 250. There were some stories about the workers in America, specifically shipbuilding workers in California, and more specifically female shipbuilding workers in San Francisco, which looked pretty interesting. I checked the endnote on one of them--Wartime Shipyard : A Study in Social Disunity by Katherine Archibald--sounded particularly interesting. So I had a look around to see if it was available. Not at the public library, alas. But yes, pretty much everywhere else that I looked: Better World Books, Thrift Books, eBay, Amazon, and Walmart. Prices ranged considerably, from a low of $15.95 to a high of $50.00, with the low being Walmart (hello!) and the high being copies of the first edition hardback (1947). I'm going to hold off on procuring a copy since (1) I am awash in reading material right now and for the foreseeable future and (2) I must confess that if I don't buy a thing right away I often find that my interest fades and I just move on to my next compulsion. 

Speaking of compulsions, I was thinking about my picture of me holding the books I'd read during my first 1,000 Daily Devotional Reading Days...

...and kind of looking forward to when I'd be taking my picture of The Second 1,000 (I know, I know, but it is ambition nonetheless), when it occurred to me that by the time I finish The Pacific Trilogy, about two months from now (GW&tCDR) I'll be pretty close (448 pages) to the number of pages I read in the first 1,000, which means that I'd come pretty close to doubling my page read count, and there was no way I'd be able to hold that many books. So I made a book tower of everything I'd read from DDR 1,001 until the end of The Pacific Trilogy, and it was pretty prodigious already:

So, yeah...I won't be holding the books for 1,001 to 2,000, for sure.

Day 15 (DDRD 1,534) January 12, 2022

Read to page 270.

This was truly a day from hell. Oddly enough, pushing myself to read a full twenty pages today was about the only "good" thing going on today. So there's that.

Day 16 (DDRD 1,535) January 13, 2022

Read to page 290. About half of it when I woke up at 3:30 am. Near the end of this section, Mr. Toll made reference to (and quoted from) a book by one Edward C. Raymer entitled Descent Into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941: a Navy Diver's Memoir. It sounded interesting, and when I checked, the LFPL had TWO copies, and I was cheered to see that (1) one of them was checked out and (2) neither of them had been relegated to Remote Shelving. I have way too much on my reading plate right now to even think about taking this on, but maybe once I finish Moby Dick and The Fiery Trial I can remember to get on this. 

Day 17 (DDRD 1,536) January 14, 2022

Read to page 310.

Amongst other topics, there were some details about prostitution in Hawaii during WWII. The details ranged from the amusing--"Missie Fuck-Fuck": $3, 3 minutes--to the horrifying: each prostitute would see between 50 and 100 men in a day. Even at a literal 3 minutes per man (which is stated to be the case: a timer was set, and when it rang, you were done, whether you were done or not) that's 5 hours of fucking. I don't see how that can be anything less than torturous. One serviceman was quoted as saying something along the lines of, You might as well have fucked a dead fish. Which made me wonder. Why would any guy stand in line for hours, spend $3, and endanger his health when he could have just jacked off for free? I really don't get this sex thing sometimes.

Anyway....

Ran across another book which looks interesting: A Shipyard at War: Unseen Photographs from John Brown’s Clydebank, 1914-1918 by Ian Johnston. (I was looking for the book my the woman in the shipyard--mentioned previously--and this title came up.) Saw a very interesting preview courtesy of Google Books, but once again the book is not available via the library. There are many copies Out There, though, and of course once again I am sorely tempted to buy a book that I really don't have time to read. 

Day 18 (DDRD 1,537) January 15, 2022

The real Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. (I've never been a fan of moving commemoration days around to suit the work calendar.) Also the anniversary of my first marriage, which happened before the 15th was MLK,J Day in 1983. So a big wow: this would have been our 39th anniversary. Also a wow in my mind: we've now been divorced longer than we were married--17 / 22. But the good news: we get along really well, talk pretty much every day, and actually like each other and look out for each other. Hell, that's better than some marriages. 

Read to page 330.

Day 19 (DDRD 1,538) January 16, 2022

Read to page 350.

Also finished watching all of the Bonus Disc features of The Thin Red Line (Criterion Collection), which consisted of

The Actors 33:34
Casting 17:57
Editors 27:19
Music 16:29
Outakes 13:30
Kaylie Jones 19:05 interview with James Jones' daughter
Guadalcanal Newsreels 15:18
Melanesian Island Chants 6:47

Which makes for a total of 150 minutes...and I'd have to say that it was worth every minute. I was particularly entranced by the Newsreels, which showed many of the things that Ian W. Toll had written about. And the interview with Kaylie Jones really made me want to read James Jones' original novel. Actually novels, since I just found out that The Thin Red Line is part of a trilogy which includes From Here to Eternity and Whistle. So there's another whole little sub-subject I could and would like to go into. 

Day 20 (DDRD 1,539) January 17, 2022

Read to page 370.

Reading about all of this naval action is making me think about my dad's ship, the U.S.S. Memphis. Asked my sister about it and she sent me this:

So I've been keeping my eye out for any mentions of the Memphis inn the text...but I think that my dad was in the Atlantic, so that's not going to happen, is it?

ADDENDUM: There's actually a full Wikipedia page for the Memphis. I didn't know that until a minute ago. And therein I found two things of particular interest (to me): (1) that the Memphis did do some work in the Pacific, but all before WWII. Once the war started she headed for the Atlantic and stayed there. (2) There was this lovely picture of the Memphis launching a plane (via catapult):

Of course it depends on when this picture was taken, but looking at it I just keep thinking, "My dad is on that ship!"

Meanwhile...

ANOTHER ADDENDUM: I was thinking, Maybe a book focused on the Atlantic Theater of WWII would have a reference to the U.S.S. Memphis. So I went looking for a book. Found a couple: The Battle of the Atlantic by Jonathan Dimbleby and 

Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II by Richard Snow.  Just what I needed: more books. I'm probably going to pick the first of these up next time I go to the library, since it's at my branch, but just to give it a quick look-see. There's no way I can add another book to my reading pile right now.

News at Eleven.

Day 21 (DDRD 1,540) January 18, 2022

Read to page 390.

Ian W. Toll does a good job of alternating between "small" stories of individual heroism, large picture looks at the battle in progress, and larger scale picture of the world at war. I have to confess that it's the "small" stuff that engages me and that I will remember, but it really needs the larger context(s), of course.

Just sayin', sir.

Watched the first hour of The Thin Red Line. It's pretty intense. And I'm thinking that my memory of it as a great movie is completely justified already. Even Woody Harrelson does a great job.

Day 22 (DDRD 1,541) January 19, 2022

Read to page 410. Also finished watching The Thin Red Line (1998). Which is an astounding movie. I remembered it being good, but good doesn't come close. This is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. In fact, I'm just going to catch my breath, then re-watch it with the Commentary track on. And BYW, you can watch it for free on Amazon Prime Video, but if your library has the Criterion version, that's the way to go.

Day 23 (DDRD 1,542) January 20, 2022

Read to page 430.

Forgot to mention that the other day...or possibly the other other day ...Ian W. Toll made a reference to Maj. Greg 'Pappy' Boyington of Black Sheep Squadron fame. Which made me think of the short-lived tv show, Baa Baa Black Sheep (2 seasons, 36 episodes) in which manly man Robert Conrad starred as Boyington. The show aired from September 23, 1976 to April 6, 1978, and since I was in the Army for most of that time (went in October 19, 1976), I doubt that I saw any of it when it aired. But I was aware of it, and it's possible that I caught it later on in syndication (under the much more sensible name Black Sheep Squadron). But once bitten twice compelled, so I looked around to see if it was available for streaming anywhere. Nope. So I went to see if the library had it. Yep. I'm going to try not to watch it...at least not for awhile, since I currently have many things on the borrowed for viewing pile.

Day 24 (DDRD 1,543) January 21, 2022

Read to page 450. Which mens 90 pages to go. Which means 5 days to go. 

Ian W. Toll gave me a couple of words I'd never heard before over the past couple of days' reading.

So there's that.

Day 25 (DDRD 1,544) January 22, 2022

Read to page 470. Also took a stroll through the Bibliography and Index. The Bibliography is amazing. Ian W. Toll had to read hundreds of books, articles, interviews, diaries, official documents, etcetera to write this book. Some of them unpublished, some of them hiding in boxes in various institutions. He also had to do some traveling...from Virginia to New York and a couple of places in-between. It really hits you...and explains why writing this trilogy consumed fifteen years of Mr. Toll's life.

Day 26 (DDRD 1,545) January 23, 2022

Read to page 490.

Forgot to mention that one of the books listed in the Bibliography was Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal by Max Brand. Which surprised me enough to look up Max Brand, and then I had a bigger surprise: he was not only a prolific writer of Westerns, writing hundreds of them, but (1) his real name was Frederick Schiller Faust, (2) he wrote hundreds of other books under 21 different pseudonyms, (3) he created Dr. Kildare and wrote many books based on that character, and (4) he died in the course of his duties as a war correspondent in WWII. Yowza. Found an interesting looking biography entitled Max Brand: Western Giant: The Life and Times of Frederick Schiller Faust by William F. Nolan. Speaking of Mr. Nolan, he was the co-writer of Logan's Run. So there you have it.

Have to admit that while I am enjoying this book quite a bit, I started thinking, "I'm pretty tired of World War II." And while I'll be finished this volume in a few more days, I still have Volume 3, which means another 30 days or so. Am I up for it? I don't know. I find myself wanting to read that big book about Edward de Vere that I bought many years ago, though.... I don't suppose it'd be okay to sheer off from formation at this point?

Day 27 (DDRD 1,546) January 24, 2022

Read to page 510. Which means that tomorrow might be it for Volume II of The Pacific War Trilogy. 

Pretty intense reading today with Marines slaughtering Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians killing themselves to avoid being captured by the "savage Americans"--since they'd been told that they would be mercilessly tortured if captured. Awful stuff, and not for the faint of heart. P.S. I am faint of heart.

There were some less intense moments, too, thankfully. First, yet another new word for me:

discrepant: being at variance; disagreeing

as in

"The discrepant piece of advance created a shallow u-shape in the American lines...." (498)

And a bit of humor that I'm guessing many non-military people wouldn't get. A soldier known for calling in strikes very close to his own position (because he was so far forward in the battle lines) sent this message back after a particularly close barrage: "That was a little close, friends. Back off a blond one." *

P.S. Read another ten pages...to 520...and finished off the rest of the Notes. 

* For the military language impaired, "a blond one" is a polite reference to that pervasive military unit of measurement, "a cunt hair." 

Day 28 (DDRD 1,547) January 25, 2022

Read to The End. The Epilogue was a sobering account of how repressive the Japanese government became as defeat began to swallow the nation. Newspapers were completely co-opted by the government, and those who resisted were beaten, tortured, imprisoned, or sent to the military front to die. Sobering stuff.

I am a bit weary of World War II at this point. Ian W. Toll is a fine writer, though, so I'm going to go ahead and push myself through the final volume of The Pacific Trilogy before I find another field to graze.

I think.

 

 

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages

Sub-Total: 6,970 pages...more than 1/2 of my first 1,000 DDR days' total (13,449 pages), btw.

(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages

Sub-Total: 10,985 pages...over 81% of the first 1,000 DDR days' total.

(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

Sub-Total: 13,001 pages...only 448 pages to match the total of the first 1,000 DDR days.

Also, I was just thinking about how much of The Second 1,000 Days' Reading has been absorbed by World War II (now appearing in green letters): 7,537 when I finish the second volume of The Pacific Trilogy, and another volume of that to go. After that...who knows? Could be more WWII...I've certainly become interested in several side-issues along the way. Details as they happen. (1/14/22)

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods __ days, 944 pages 47 day projection: 3/13/22

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods __ days, 944 pages

Pacific War Trilogy: 23 + __ + __ days, 2,240 pages