South Pacific Destroyer: The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf

This is a must read for WWII Pacific war buffs. The author served on the U.S.S. Maury during the battles and routine duties and gives a great picture of the life of a destroyer crew during that period. He covers the technical details well, as would be expected. The reference material at the end of the book makes it highly valuable as source material. I really enjoyed the author's style of writing which made the narration a pleasure to read. This book is well worth the price and much easier to enjoy for the more casual reader than the author's "Battle of Tassafaronga".

What's unique about this book is you get the first hand perspective of a junior officer (later XO) on a fighting South Pacific destroyer. The level of detail and the personal insights are very informative. You really get a sense of what it was to "be there." You also get a sense of the hum drum and the routine convoying duties these men faced in addition to the spectacular battles. What is missing, in my opinion, is the other half of the story. For example, the author talks about engagements where, from his knowledge at the time, multiple Japanese vessels were sunk. Yet, we now know that in that particular engagement NO Japanese ships were sunk. Yet he never really talks about that or fills in the post facto details. This makes the book somewhat flawed. The author does a much better job in his great book "the Battle of Tassaforonga" which I highly recommend! Overall it was a unique, but limited, personal memoir of a neglected part of naval history. And it was an enjoyable read.

This was certinly a good book and his description of the islands was accurate. I was not in the Navy. I flew the islandsin the USAF for almost 5 years starting in 1960. I just cant imagine how the guys could livedown there. Where the book makes mention of rain coming in was absolutely true. Some nights we would get 7" of rain. We were not permitted to pick up any weapons or for that matter anything war related. It was still everywhere. We walked into a large cave where the natives that were with us would not go in. We found an entire kitchen area with mess kits with forks still on the trays. This was in 1962 and most of the Army had left the area in 1944. Incredable to see this.We flew from many of the small island landing strips that were 100 to 125 foot wide and about 2 thousand feet long made by the Army engineers. In fact we used the same wells they had drilled. Just a terrible hardship for those guys. For something to do at night we used to tune our Collins radio to a frequency in Viet Nam and listen to what is happening just 12 hours North. if you experenced any of the conflict inSouth East asia this book is for you.The author did a great job of making you a part of the story.

I purchased the book hoping that it was a first person account of a Pacific WWII destroyer officer who was involved in much of the action prior to 1944. About 25% of the book is truly that and was exactly what I had hoped for. I really enjoyed his description of the people and organization and functioning of the USS Maurie. This and the physical descriptions of the power plants and related systems are also unique in my reading experience. The Author,however, also attempts to interleave in the narrative a history of the surface actions in the South Pacicfic theater in 1942-1943. It appears that he liberally summarizes the Morrison hisory "Breaking the Bismark Barrier" without adding much if anything and deleting a lot. The presentation is certainly mechanical. Even the charts are cheap reproductions from the Morrision book. For some reason the author does not describe his experinces with the destroyer from Pearl Harbor through Midway and etc. This to me would be much more interesting than a repeat of a book I have read several times and a lengthy discussion of the fallacies of the US torpedo program that thousands of authors have already covered ad nauseum. The torpedo problem was,though, a hugely important issue. What the author did add was that prior to the battle at Vella Gulf, he insisted that the Maurie's torpedo depth settings be set to mininum to compensate for faulty controls. This truly may have had a significant effect on the outcome of the battle.

I appreciated the clarity of the writing with mix of perspectives from the individual first, second, and third person to much broader issues of tactics and strategy. I found it similar to the absolutely outstanding Thunder Below in these regards. As a manual for LEADERSHIP, however, Thunder Below still takes first place. At any rate, I'd recommend South Pacific Destroyer to anyone interested in the subject. I would have given it five stars had there been more maps and pictures (maps especially). A more thorough discussion of different destroyer types in terms of strengths and weaknesses would also have helped it earn another star.

A good example of life on a destroyer

Exactly as described and in the time frame

good