Pacific Legacy: Image and Memory from World War II in the Pacific

An unprecedented chronicle of America's bitter war against Japanese imperialism a half-century ago that interweaves poignant first-person memories with unique color photography of the major battle sites paired with evocative archival images.

This fascinating, richly illustrated survey of all aspects of the Pacific war, from Pearl Harbor to Japan's surrender in Tokyo Bay, presents something unique among World War II histories: an extensive color portfolio of dramatic wartime relics surviving decades on most of the Pacific island battlefields. Rusting American landing craft and tanks still can be found on treacherous reefs and beaches where they were tragically stopped by enemy fire so long ago, aircraft of both sides lie hidden in the jungles where they crashed, battle-scarred Japanese pillboxes and artillery emplacements still stand sentinel, and packed-coral landing strips remain as good as new. All such evocative memento mori have been beautifully captured by Jerry Meehl, probably the only photographer to have sought out all these far-flung battle sites, many of them still dangerous underfoot and now off limits to travelers. The authors also searched official archives for pictures that really show the terrors of combat, and often these display the very tanks and amtracs now decomposing on distant invasion beaches. They also found captured prewar photos of Japanese pillboxes and gun emplacements as newly built, and contrast them with their current, war-torn condition.

But this is far from just a "then" and "now" picture book. Each of the more than twenty photo essays of particular battles features a lively narrative that relies heavily on the firsthand accounts of men who were there, archival pictures shot during the actual fighting, and color photographs of the remaining Japanese bunkers and gun emplacements all of which help the reader visualize what hand-to-hand combat in the Pacific war was really like.

Other details: 500 illustrations, 250 in full color