Oscar Wilde once remarked that there was no use in writing a book if you didn't irritate someone. That comment obviously applies to book reviews as well.
To judge from his review of my book, Lieutenant Colonel Bartlett gave the book only a cursory inspection. Bartlett cited several books about the war in the Solomon Islands and asked why another was necessary. The answer is that my book covers what other histories have not, and it includes more information on the Japanese involvement in the land campaign than all the cited books combined. For example, in his excellent work, Guadalcanal (Random House, 1990), Richard B. Frank neglected to mention that 5,000 U.S. Navy personnel took part in the land campaign — namely, the 6th, 14th, 26th, and 27th Naval Construction Battalions. I included them.
The reviewer criticizes me for taking tour chapters to get to the start of the Guadalcanal campaign. Those chapters lead up to the main story; they give the reader an idea of what life in the Solomon Islands was like before the Japanese invaded the islands and how the civilian populace and the skeleton military defense forces reacted to that event. That information is not available anywhere else.
Bartlett seems to think I was troubled about the naval enlisted ranks. They all were taken from the fifth edition of the Glossary of U.S. Naval Abbreviations, published by the Government Printing Office for the Chief of Naval Operations in April 1949. The Japanese naval ratings were furnished by Yoshi Sagai, a former sailor in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
In an effort to find something else to complain about, the reviewer asserts that Japanese names should be written with the family name first, followed by the given name. The preface to my book, however, clearly states, "Japanese names are presented in western style — given name first, followed by the family name." This is the same style used in Richard Frank's book.
Similarly, Bartlett complains about naval terminology — "artillery is organized into batteries, not companies." In the appendix, Japanese artillery units are listed as companies, battalions, and regiments. That list was compiled by Captain Akio Tani (better known to American veterans as Pistol Pete), who commanded the 2nd Company, 7th Heavy Field Artillery Regiment, during the Guadalcanal campaign. lf anyone knew about Japanese artillery units and their organization, it was Tani.
Bartlett states that "the Japanese also called Guadalcanal 'Starvation Island.' 'Ga,' the first syllable of Gadarukanaru — their name for Guadalcanal — means hunger." The latter statement, howver, is incorrect. There are many Kanji characters pronounced as "Ga," but only a few can be used w ith only, one charater as a word. They include "my," "moth," and "greetings." The Kanji character meaning "starvation" is not used with one character. It is used with a combination of other Kanji characters, as in Kiga ("starvation") and Gahi ("to die of hunger").
4/2/09
15 Cents
A woman says to her mother, 'I'm divorcing Sheldon. All he wants is anal sex, and my ass hole is now the size of a quarter, when it used to be about the size of a dime.'
Her mother says, 'You're married to a multi-millionaire businessman, you live in an 8 bedroom
mansion, you drive a Ferrari, you get $1,000 a week allowance, you take 6 vacations a year and you want to throw all that away over 15 cents!'
Her mother says, 'You're married to a multi-millionaire businessman, you live in an 8 bedroom
mansion, you drive a Ferrari, you get $1,000 a week allowance, you take 6 vacations a year and you want to throw all that away over 15 cents!'
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