Graveyards of the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Bikini Atoll Review

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(More customer reviews)Whenever I see a revolving globe, I always wait for that brief moment when it appears as though planet Earth is nothing but sea - a momentary illusion created by the vast size of the Pacific Ocean. Not even the mighty Atlantic comes close to creating the same effect. Such a great Ocean will, of course, have more than its fair share of shipwrecks and it would be fair to assume that the majority of these are far too deep for modern scuba diving techniques, even beyond those of the deeper venturing technical diver. It would, therefore, take a team of pioneering oceanographers led by a man of the calibre of Dr. Robert D. Ballard to bring images of many of these long-lost ships to the surface. With him working closely with National Geographic to produce a book about that very subject, the results were never likely to disappoint - and they don't.
Add to the foregoing the greatest naval and carrier force encounters of all time between Allied Forces and the Japanese - though largely between US and Japanese fleets, and not only do many of those newly discovered wrecks have striking and courageous stories to tell, but they form part of an underwater fleet of some of the most exciting ships ever to have been launched - and their like will never be seen again.
The Pacific Ocean and the lost ships of WW2 form the background to this book. As an example of how many ships were lost, on page 133 is a small map measuring some 3 in. x 3 in. on which are depicted 14 symbols for sunken warships within a very small area which came to be known as "Iron Bottom Sound." One of those ships is Australian, three are Japanese and ten are American. Incidentally, their individual stories are more fully recounted in Ballard's "Lost Ships of Guadalcanal." Even before I got to that page, I had already encountered that amazing painting by Ken Marschall of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown - 3 miles down, sitting upright on the seabed, seemingly intact and lost during the battle of Midway. Looking serene and peaceful and out of reach of those who plunder such graves, her story is also more fully recounted in another of this author's works entitled "Return to Midway."
Commencing with the atrocity that was Pearl Harbour - a day which really "does" live forever in infamy, Dr. Ballard and his team take the reader through those magnificent yet bloodiest of sea battles that was the War in the Pacific during WW2. Just as each new battle followed the last, we experience; Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Truk Lagoon and Philippine Sea before we encounter a complete change of mood in time to witness the post-war Atomic Bomb experiments which became synonymous with the remote Pacific coral isle they so easily destroyed - Bikini Atoll.
Over 250 pages in large format and with a well researched and carefully chosen selection of historic and modern photographs, works of art and maps, this is a work the reader can be proud to own - and even more proud to have read! It really is an outstanding work worthy of the names of both the author and the publisher.
NM

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