Pacific Legacy

Pacific Legacy

Author: Gerald A. Meehi

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0789213338

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The classic photo book about the battlegrounds of the Pacific Theater then and now—updated with new information about the preservation and accessibility of these historic sites. Pacific Legacy offers an unprecedented record of the relics of World War II that have survived on the islands of the Pacific: American landing craft rusting on the reefs where they were stopped by enemy fire; shell-pocked Japanese fortifications; fallen aircraft overgrown by jungle; packed-coral landing strips still as good as new. These evocative color images are paired with archival photographs that show the same tropical battlegrounds as they appeared in wartime. The text covers the entire war in the Pacific, from the attack on Pearl Harbor to Japan’s surrender in Tokyo Bay. The principal battles are recounted hour-by-hour, drawing heavily on firsthand accounts. This vivid narrative helps the reader visualize what it was really like to be at war in the Pacific, doggedly island-hopping to victory.


Pacific Legacy

Pacific Legacy

Author: Rex Alan Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13:

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This fascinating, richly illustrated survey of all aspects of the Pacific war, from Pearl Harbor to Japan's surrender in Tokyo Bay, offers something unique among World War II histories: an extensive color portfolio of dramatic wartime relics that have survived decades on most of the Pacific island battlefields. Rusting American landing craft and tanks still can be found on the 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. Such evocative memento mori have been beautifully captured on film by Jerry Meehl, probably the only photographer to have sought out 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 show the real terrors of combat and often found images displaying the very tanks and amtracs now decomposing on distant invasion beaches. They also found captured prewar photos of newly built Japanese pillboxes and gun emplacements, which they contrast with images of their current war-torn condition. But Pacific Legacy 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 must have been like.


Refighting the Pacific War

Refighting the Pacific War

Author: James C Bresnahan

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2011-09-15

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 161251068X

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Refighting the Pacific War looks at how World War II in the Pacific might have unfolded differently, giving historians, authors and veterans the opportunity to discuss what happened and what might have happened. Contributors to this alternative history include noted military historians William Bartsch, John Burton, Donald Goldstein, John Lundstrom, Robert Mrazek, Jon Parshall, Douglas Smith, Peter Smith, Barrett Tillman, Anthony Tully, and H. P. Willmott. In all more than thirty Pacific War experts will provide commentary, employing a roundtable panel discussion format. The reader will hear from the experts on how history could and could not have been altered during the course of the war in the Pacific. With multiple opinions, the reader will be provided with an interesting collection of divergent views about the outcome of the war. Refighting the Pacific War focuses largely on naval battles and campaigns, including Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. While the main concentration is on the major naval actions, the book also delves into key island battles, like Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, as well as pre-war and post-war political issues The panelists debate questions like whether the Japanese could have inflicted even greater damage on the U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and how Yamamoto might have won at Midway and how such a victory might have impacted the direction of the war. The book extensively studies the opening year of the war when the Japanese war machine seemed unstoppable. Also explored is whether the Pacific War was inevitable and whether the conflict could have ended without the use of the atomic bomb.Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (Ret.), provides the book's Introduction.


Poisoning the Pacific

Poisoning the Pacific

Author: Jon Mitchell

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-10-12

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1538130343

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In this devastating exposé, investigative journalist Jon Mitchell reveals the shocking toxic contamination of the Pacific Ocean and millions of victims by the US military. For decades, US military operations have been contaminating the Pacific region with toxic substances, including plutonium, dioxin, and VX nerve agent. Hundreds of thousands of service members, their families, and residents have been exposed—but the United States has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. After World War II, the United States granted immunity to Japanese military scientists in exchange for their data on biological weapons tests conducted in China; in the following years, nuclear detonations in the Pacific obliterated entire islands and exposed Americans, Marshallese, Chamorros, and Japanese fishing crews to radioactive fallout. At the same time, the United States experimented with biological weapons on Okinawa and stockpiled the island with nuclear and chemical munitions, causing numerous accidents. Meanwhile, the CIA orchestrated a campaign to introduce nuclear power to Japan—the folly of which became horrifyingly clear in the 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture. Caught in a geopolitical grey zone, US territories have been among the worst affected by military contamination, including Guam, Saipan, and Johnston Island, the final disposal site of apocalyptic volumes of chemical weapons and Agent Orange. Accompanying this damage, US authorities have waged a campaign of cover-ups, lies, and attacks on the media, which the author has experienced firsthand in the form of military surveillance and attempts by the State Department to impede his work. Now, for the first time, this explosive book reveals the horrific extent of contamination in the Pacific and the lengths the Pentagon will go to conceal it.


A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY BACK TO MARINELAND OF THE PACIFIC

A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY BACK TO MARINELAND OF THE PACIFIC

Author: Jim Patryla

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 1411671309

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This beautifully illustrated book chronicles the history of world famous Marineland of the Pacific and features over 200 rare color and black & white photographs. A number of these historic Marineland images were selected from the author's own personal archive of original photographs, including the only known full color photographs taken of the actual birth of the world's very first killer whale ever to be conceived and born in captivity. Marineland of the Pacific opened in 1954 and during its reign as one of the premier tourist attractions in Southern California it managed to educate and entertain millions. 33 years later Marineland's controversial closing outraged a community and the world lost a truly remarkable institution. This one-of-a-kind collector's edition of facts and photographs will help to preserve Marineland's legacy of compassion, education and discovery.


Pacific on the Rise

Pacific on the Rise

Author: Philip N Gilbertson Ph D

Publisher: University of the Pacific

Published: 2016-07-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780997685404

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Pacific on the Rise: The Story of California's First University tells the story of University of the Pacific from its earliest days in Santa Clara through the years in San Jose, the move to Stockton and the gradual expansion into a major comprehensive university. Drawing on primary sources and interviews with more than 150 members of the Pacific community, Philip N. Gilbertson provides a record of the past for Pacificans to learn of Pacific's rich heritage and its lessons for the future, and to engage alumni and members of the Pacific community in this fascinating experience called Pacific. "It is a great story I think you will enjoy," says Gilbertson. "A history should enrich knowledge, add understanding, revive memories, and intensify the bond with a particular past, the life and legacy of University of the Pacific. I hope that this history will do that for you."


Pacific War Stories: In the Words of Those Who Survived

Pacific War Stories: In the Words of Those Who Survived

Author:

Publisher: WW Norton

Published: 2011-09-27

Total Pages: 1224

ISBN-13: 0789260107

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This is the most extensive collection published to date of first-person oral histories on so many diverse aspects of the war in the Pacific—told in gripping, eyewitness accounts by more than seventy veterans from all branches of service. In this new book by the authors of Pacific Legacy: Image and Memory of World War II in the Pacific, the history of the War in the Pacific comes vividly to life in the words of those who witnessed it first hand. The editors create for the reader, as the veterans themselves recall it, what that war was like—how it looked, felt, smelled, and sounded. The stories collected here are a unique portrayal of the mundane, exotic, boring, terrifying, life-altering events that made up their wartime experiences in World War II in the Pacific, a war fought on countless far-flung islands over an area that constitutes about one-third of the globe. What the veterans saw and lived through has stayed with them their entire lives, and much of it comes to the surface again through their vivid memories. This is an important book for military buffs as well as for the survivors of World War II and their families. The narratives, grouped into fifteen thematic, chronologically arranged chapters, are stirring, first-hand accounts, from front-line combat at the epicenter of violence and death to restless, weary boredom on rear area islands thousands of miles from the fighting. While their experiences differed, all were changed by what happened to them in the Pacific. These are not the stories of sweeping strategies or bold moves by generals and admirals. Instead, we hear from men and women on the lower rungs, including ordinary seamen on vessels that encountered Japanese warships and planes and sometimes came out second best, rank-and-file Marines who were in amtracs churning toward bullet-swept tropical beaches and saw their buddies killed beside them, and astounded eyewitnesses to the war’s sudden start on December 7, 1941.


Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Author: Alan J. Stein

Publisher: Historylink

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13:

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This richly illustrated and well-researched volume recounts in detail the history of the fair that brought Seattle and Washington into the national spotlight. The A-Y-P Exposition, held in Seattle in 1909 on the future site of the University of Washington, welcomed 3.7 million visitors and was the first world's fair to make a profit.