940.53-940.54: World War II in the Pacific (2023)

The following list contains books, published in the last 5 years, that discuss the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. Works in this list will feature battles, campaigns, and personal narratives set in eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania between 1941 and 1945.

Updated June 9, 2023
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1

The Bomber Mafia : a dream, a temptation, and the longest night of the second World War
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paper Book
Dive into this "truly compelling" (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war--from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm...

2

Bridge to the sun : the secret role of the Japanese Americans who fought in the Pacific in World War II
Henderson, Bruce B.
Paper Book
One of the last, great untold stories of World War II-kept hidden for decades-even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives-a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller,...

3

Facing the mountain : a true story of Japanese American heroes in World War II
Brown, Daniel James
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of NPR's "Books We Love" of 2021 Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography  Winner of the Christopher Award    "Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their...

4

Fire and fortitude : the US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943
McManus, John C.
Paper Book
John C. McManus, one of the most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor - a rude awakening for a ragtag militia woefully unprepared for war - to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were...

5

Killing the rising sun : how America vanquished World War II Japan
O'Reilly, Bill
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestselling AuthorsFrom the bloody battlefields of the Pacific to New Mexico, where Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's team prepares to test the deadliest weapon known to mankind; from Washington, DC, as FDR dies and Harry Truman ascends to the presidency to Tokyo, where Emperor Hirohito...

6

Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice
Paradis, Michel
Paper Book
Michel Paradis's Last Mission to Tokyo, a "superb" (The Wall Street Journal) and "engrossing...richly researched" (The New York Times Book Review) account of a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolittle Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945...

7

Lucky 666 : the impossible mission
Drury, Bob
Paper Book
From the authors of the New York Times bestselling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic, untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest...

8

The mosquito bowl : a game of life and death in World War II
Bissinger, Buzz
Paper Book
Instant New York Times Bestseller · Winner of the General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation "Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and...

9

Operation Vengeance : the astonishing aerial ambush that changed World War II
Hampton, Dan
Paper Book
"Operation Vengeance is colorful, intimate, eye-popping history, delivered at a breakneck pace. I loved it." -Lynn Vincent The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot delivers an electrifying narrative account of the top-secret U.S. mission to kill Isoroku...

10

The storm on our shores : one island, two soldiers, and the forgotten battle of World War II
Obmascik, Mark
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Mark Obmascik has deftly rescued an important story from the margins of our history--and from our country's most forbidding frontier. Deeply researched and feelingly told, The Storm on Our Shores is a heartbreaking tale of tragedy and...

11

Tower of skulls : a history of the Asia-Pacific war, July 1937-May 1942
Frank, Richard B.
Paper Book
In 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean enclosed half the world's population, all save a fraction enduring under some form of colonialism. Japan's onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed...

12

Twilight of the Gods : War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
Toll, Ian W.
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller The final volume of the magisterial Pacific War Trilogy from acclaimed historian Ian W. Toll, "one of the great storytellers of War" (Evan Thomas). In June 1944, the United States launched a crushing assault on the Japanese navy in the...

13

Unsinkable : five men and the indomitable run of the USS Plunkett
Sullivan, James
Paper Book
In the bestselling tradition of Indianapolis and In Harm's Way comes a "captivating...gripping" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) account of the USS Plunkett--a US Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack on any Navy ship by the Germans during World War...

14

The women with silver wings : the inspiring true story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II
Landdeck, Katherine Sharp
Paper Book
"With the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, women pilots went aloft to serve their nation. . . . A soaring tale in which, at long last, these daring World War II pilots gain the credit they deserve."--Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code...

15

World War II at sea : a global history
Symonds, Craig L.
Paper Book
Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds ranks among the country's finest naval historians. World...

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