
Saipan
The Battle that Doomed Japan in World War II
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Narrated by:
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Tim Dixon
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By:
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James H. Hallas
About this listen
The story of the Battle of Saipan has it all. Marines at war: on Pacific beaches, in hellish volcanic landscapes in places like Purple Heart Ridge, Death Valley, and Hell's Pocket, under a commander known as "Howlin' Mad." Naval combat: carriers battling carriers from afar, fighters downing Japanese aircraft, submarines sinking carriers. Marine-army rivalry. Fanatical Japanese defense and resistance. A turning point of the Pacific War. James Hallas reconstructs the full panorama of Saipan in a way that no recent chronicler of the battle has done. In its comprehensiveness, attention to detail, scope of research, and ultimate focus on the men who fought and won the battle on the beaches and at and above the sea, it rivals Richard Frank's modern classic Guadalcanal. This is the definitive military history of the Battle of Saipan.
©2019 Rowman & Littlefield (P)2019 Rowman & LittlefieldListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story
After some two years at war, the Army in the Pacific held ground across nearly a third of the globe, from Alaska’s Aleutians to Burma and New Guinea. The challenges ahead were enormous: supplying a vast number of troops over thousands of miles of ocean; surviving in jungles ripe with dysentery, malaria, and other tropical diseases; fighting an enemy prone to ever-more desperate and dangerous assaults. Yet the Army had proven they could fight. Now, they had to prove they could win a war.
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Wonderful book, but incomplete and poorly narrated.
- By Linda S. on 02-24-22
By: John C. McManus
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The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945
- Modern War Studies
- By: Robert M. Citino
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world's leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this book, Citino charts the path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a "war of movement," inexorably led to Nazi Germany's defeat.
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The fake English with a pseudo German accent,
- By Neil on 11-29-24
By: Robert M. Citino
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Blazing Star, Setting Sun
- The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942-March 1943
- By: Jeffrey Cox
- Narrated by: Lance C Fuller
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, edging Japanese imperialism towards its sunset.
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Narrator Ruined the Book
- By Duncan on 08-20-20
By: Jeffrey Cox
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Leyte Gulf
- A New History of the World's Largest Sea Battle
- By: Mark E. Stille
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Pacific War expert Mark Stille examines the key aspects of battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, with new and insightful analysis and dismantles the myths surrounding the respective actions and overall performances of the two most important commanders in the battle, and the “lost victory” of the Japanese advance into Leyte Gulf that never happened.
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Perhaps a little scholarly
- By Michael Kiehn on 11-14-24
By: Mark E. Stille
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Bloody Okinawa
- The Last Great Battle of World War II
- By: Joseph Wheelan
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, more than 184,000 US troops began landing on the only Japanese home soil invaded during the Pacific war. Just 350 miles from mainland Japan, Okinawa was to serve as a forward base for Japan's invasion in the fall of 1945. Nearly 140,000 Japanese and auxiliary soldiers fought with suicidal tenacity from hollowed-out, fortified hills and ridges. Under constant fire and in the rain and mud, the Americans battered the defenders with artillery, aerial bombing, naval gunfire, and every infantry tool.
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Very Technical
- By J.Brock on 07-16-21
By: Joseph Wheelan
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The Savage Storm
- The Battle for Italy 1943
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Al Murray
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war. James Holland’s The Savage Storm chronicles the dramatic opening months of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail.
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Time Well Spent
- By E. Ronakov on 04-08-25
By: James Holland
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Crucible of Hell
- The Heroism and Tragedy of Okinawa, 1945
- By: Saul David
- Narrated by: Saul David, William Roberts
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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With Allied forces sweeping across Europe and into Germany in the spring of 1945, one enormous challenge threatened to derail America's audacious drive to win the world back from the Nazis: Japan, the empire that had extended its reach southward across the Pacific and was renowned for the fanaticism and brutality of its fighters, who refused to surrender, even when faced with insurmountable odds.
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One of the best on Okinawa
- By J.Brock on 11-12-22
By: Saul David
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Saipan
- The Beginning of the End
- By: Carl W. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Victory at Saipan was the key that opened the door to the soft underbelly of the Japanese Empire. Yet because the Japanese were aware of this vulnerability, they were willing to throw everything they had against the ever-encroaching American forces and fight to the death to defend this island.
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Very intellectual
- By Amazon Customer on 08-16-19
By: Carl W. Hoffman
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Fire and Fortitude
- The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943
- By: John C. McManus
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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John C. McManus, one of our most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes listeners from Pearl Harbor - a rude awakening for a military woefully unprepared for war - to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower.
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Excellent Work In Spite of A Woke Author
- By J.Brock on 07-09-20
By: John C. McManus
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Neptune's Inferno
- The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the same for the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal. Neptune’s Inferno is at once the most epic and the most intimate account ever written of the contest for control of the seaways of the Solomon Islands.
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The WWII Pacific Theater Explodes In My Lazy Chair
- By Rum Runner on 03-01-11
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World War II at Sea
- A Global History
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 25 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U-boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina - at the start of the war the fourth-largest navy in the world - and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; and much more.
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Outstanding
- By Patrick on 02-14-19
By: Craig L. Symonds
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Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island
- The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation
- By: John R Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 20, 1942, twelve Marine dive-bombers and nineteen Marine fighters landed at Guadalcanal. Their mission: defeat the Japanese navy and prevent it from sending more men and supplies to "Starvation Island," as Guadalcanal was nicknamed. The Japanese were turning the remote, jungle-covered mountain in the south Solomon Islands into an air base from which they could attack the supply lines between the U.S. and Australia.
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A unique perspective
- By Item arrived onetime and has functioned perfectly. on 05-23-24
By: John R Bruning
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Band of Brothers
- E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Tim Jerome
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. Band of Brothers is the account of the men of this remarkable unit.
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High Expectations Met
- By Audrey on 02-12-13
What listeners say about Saipan
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- Asarchus
- 04-10-20
Like Being in the Thick of Battle
Amazingly detailed account of how the US Army, Navy, and Marines wrested control of one small island from Japan, with war-altering results. You are there, grinding yard by yard through murderous gun and mortar fire, or plummeting down on enemy ships as air bursts riddle your dive bomber. On the island comes a final convulsive Japanese armor and infantry attack when heads literally roll and thousands choose suicide over surrender, all told foxhole to foxhole. This is among the best histories of the Pacific war ever written.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Doggie
- 01-07-21
I appreciated learning about
The sacrifice of our soldiers was very great and we shouldn’t forget how much they gave
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- Edward D. Wegmann
- 09-11-22
Amazing history and personal experiences
This is one of the best war historical novels I have ever read. It presents the history from both the Japanese and American side and in the end demonstrates exactly why America had to use the atom bomb.
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- Squeakbox
- 01-13-22
Incredible
EXCELLENT narration by Tom Dixon. One of the most engaging audiobooks I've ever listened to.
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1 person found this helpful
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- great great game
- 07-07-22
Very good
My Great Uncle, Sgt Francis Myers was at Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division, 3 Battalion, 25th Regiment, Kilo Company. I have a DVD of him discussing his experiences and he attended the 232nd Marine Corps Birthday Ball with me. He was treated very well. Hope other enjoy.
~ Semper Fidelis
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- James Greer
- 01-10-24
Echos of My Father
My dad never talked about his time on Saipan, so books like this have to suffice. this was an excellent examination of a horrible battle. it was easy to follow, and ended with a somber reminder that even after the war is over, the battles sometimes never end.
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- Jah9
- 02-23-24
All those names made this very personal.
Put this campaign in a prospective that made much of the Pacific more whole. Brought to me echoes of stories my father told of the issues he faced.
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- A. Mattson
- 04-23-20
Incredible
Easily one of the best purchases I've ever made on Audible. the narrator was great, the writing was exemplary, and the story was riveting, informative, and horrifying
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3 people found this helpful
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- Shane S Shull
- 03-17-21
A brutal and thorough Saipan account
This book was one of the most brutal historical warfare accounts of any work I've ever read or listened to. I picked up this title because I'm interested in learning everything I can about World War 2 in the pacific. "Saipan" did not disappoint in it's thoroughness and was a very effective overview of the Saipan campaign from the highest to lowest levels, supported with technical detail. Individual stories were presented fairly from all sides, even from a civilian perspective and the extreme brutality and reality of what total war actual is, was made very clear in this work. I found myself having to take periodic breaks from the book due to multiple protracted and gruesome sections that described combat injuries in intricate gory detail. I do not hold this against the writer as there is absolutely no other way to get a true sense of what happened on Saipan and to do the campaign justice.
You'll find heroism, unbelievable coincidences, close calls, superhuman feats and loads of technical detail in this work. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a hardcore historical overview of the Saipan invasion, however, make sure you have the stomach to face the true ugly face of war.
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-10-22
My thoughts
The research about individual people was both impeccable and interesting I would recommend this book highly
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