Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific

by Eric M. Bergerud
ISBN 0670861588
Viking Adult (1996)

Easily the most remarkable book I have read on combat. It is about the campaign in the Solomons & New Guinea from mid ’42 to early ’44. The author points out that nobody planed to fight here before the war.

In this, it was like Gettysburg, the biggest battle of the US Civil War, touched off when a Confederate raiding party heard rumors there was a large supply of shoes in that town.

Like the Confederate raiding party, the Japanese building an airfield on Guadalcanal would have no idea there were about to trigger a major battle.

The campaign in these jungles was almost exclusively an infantry war. In fact, the US division fighting at Buna, New Guinea was the only American division in WWII to fight without artillery support.

Not only infantry, but specifically rifled infantry regained its historic role as the arm of decision. In the vast majority of 20th century combat, rifled infantry did most of the dying, but most of the killing was done by MGs and artillery.

However, the brutal terrain of these campaigns, virtually non-existent roads, and painfully short shipping meant armies had very little firepower. In no other 20th century battlefield was so much combat at pointblank range.

The book covered the Aussie, Japanese, and US armies, and the US marines, the main ground fighting forces in that time and place. Interestingly, the US and Aussie armies cooperated much better than the US marines and army. (The Aussies & US marines didn’t fight on the same battlefield in this theater)

A section covered the weapons used by these forces. The author says the main Japanese rifle was a poor weapon, but in the prevailing freakish conditions, it had many advantages. It gave off very little smoke or flame; and the noise it made was very hard to pinpoint. In those low visibility battlefields, this made it very hard to locate the enemy.

The thick jungle cover caused an appalling number of “friendly fire” casualties. One of the minor mysteries of WWII is that the Aussies & US Army in New Guinea carried copious amounts of Tommy Guns. In contrast the US Army and Marines in the Solomons thought it sounded too much like an enemy LMG, so they did not use that weapon.

The book covered what I consider one of the most intriguing battles ever – the battle for Wau. Wau was in the interior of New Guinea, base of the irregular Aussie unit “Kanga Force”. This unit raided the north coast during the Japanese drive on Port Morseby & the Allied counteroffensive.

Finally, the Japanese struck back in Jan. ’43. A German expat lead their force down a previously unknown trail. The Aussies only discovered this strong enemy force very late.

Wau’s only connection to the outside world was an airstrip with a 12% grade. Bad weather broke just as the Japanese were closing on the airfield. C-47s flying reinforcements & supplies would sometimes have to circle so Aussies could clear the runway edge.

I could go on & on with what I learned in this book, but don’t want to run on forever …