Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific

Fire in the Sky: The Air Var in the South Pacific. By Eric M. Bergerud. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8133-2985-X. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. vii, 723. $35.00.

Eric Bergerud has already written two books on the war in Vietnam. Fire in the Sky is the second of a projected three volumes on the Second World War in the South Pacific. The first, Touched by Fire (1996), was on the land war; the third is to be on the sea war. Bergerud's thesis is that no theater of the war was so dependent on a combination of the three dimensions and that "one of the greatest victories of modern military history" (p. 663) was achieved by the Allies in the South Pacific. In seven chapters, each of about a hundred pages, Bergerud contends that the air dimension was central, each strategic...