Books Highlight Pacific War Prep,
U.S. Coast Guard, Early U.S. Subs
By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor
RACING THE SUNRISE:
Reinforcing America’s Pacific
Outposts, 1941-1942
By Glen Williford. Annapolis, Md.: Naval
Institute Press, 2010. 428 pp. $37.95
ISBN: 978-1-59114-956-9
In the six months prior to the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, particularly after the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, the
United States made efforts to build up and reinforce its
military facilities in the Far East and the Pacific, especially in Hawaii and the Philippines. The limited resources
that included additional aircraft and ground forces were
transported by convoys and staged far forward to influence and deter further Japanese expansion. Most of these
forces were lost as the Japanese seized the Philippines,
the Dutch East Indies and islands closer to Hawaii, an
advance finally stopped by carrier task forces in the Coral
Sea and at Midway after the United States entered World
War II. Development of air ferry routes, sea lines of communication, and the diversion of air and ground forces
en route when the war began enabled the United States
and Australia to gain the offensive. The author fills a
long-standing gap in the history of World War II in the
Pacific with this highly detailed book.
THE U.S. COAST GUARD’S
WAR ON HUMAN SMUGGLING
By Dennis L. Noble. Annapolis, Md.:
Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of
Florida, 2011. 320 pp. $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-8130-3606-9
The Coast Guard’s efforts to stem the
flow of illegal drugs into the United
States are well known, but its patrols
that intercept boatloads of people seeking illegal entry into
the country also offer much drama and challenging situations for the cutter crews. Covering the period from 1959
to 2008, the author, a Coast Guard veteran, documents the
occasional floods of refugees, primarily from Cuba and
Haiti but also increasingly from China, the service has to
contend with. He covers operations, tactics and policies,
but pays particular attention to the human elements of
migrant interdiction, which routinely present dilemmas to
the cutter crews, often with heart-wrenching results, and
require devotion to duty in executing the laws of the
nation while trying to prevent death and disaster at sea.
PROTECTING OUR PORTS:
Domestic and International
Politics of Containerized
Freight Security
By Suzette R. Grillot and Rebecca J.
Cruise, with Valerie J. D’Ernman.
Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010. 185
pp. $99.95
ISBN: 978-0-754677-89-5
This academic work addresses a
subject of increasing concern, especially in the decade
since 9/11, for the officials charged with homeland security and the ports and shipping companies that handle
the containers delivering most of the international trade
worldwide. The threat of terrorism, including the
prospect of weapons of mass destruction, has created
serious challenges in protecting ports without creating
unacceptable drag on the flow of seaborne commerce.
The authors analyze the political, economic and security
issues regarding containerized freight, and the programs
implemented by government agencies and commercial
entities to protect trade while ensuring the safety of the
transportation modes. The authors conclude that more
work is needed to address the security of the cargo
entering U.S. ports.
US SUBMARINES 1900– 35
By Jim Christly. Oxford, U.K.: Osprey
Publishing, 2011. 48 pp. $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-84908-185-6
This well-illustrated monograph
describes the development of the
submarine as a warship in the U.S.
Navy from its beginnings with USS
Holland to the emergence of boats
that could wage war in all of the oceans. The author
describes the technology that greatly expanded the submarine’s capabilities, and then describes the U.S. Navy’s
little-known submarine operations in World War I,
including encounters with German U-boats. ■
