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31 voters
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South to Java
The crew of an old U.S. Navy destroyer steaming toward a deadly battle in the Java Sea is the focus of this famous novel set at the outbreak of World War II as the Allies attempted to defend the Philippines and Dutch East Indies against superior Japanese forces. Thrust into conflict against the highly trained modern navy, the American sailors often had only their own coura
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Hardcover, 460 pages
Published
by Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of Ame
(first published November 1987)
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30 of 46)
A love of mine for some time has been the Southwest Pacific and the campaign fought there. I was first turned on to this area when I read The Fleet the Gods Forgot and The Ghost that Died at Sunda Straits. Merging this with a love of flush decks and four stacks (no, I don’t know what it is about these destroyers I love other than they did what they shouldn’t have) made getting this book a must. While the story itself is fictional (the ship and the crew), the scene being played against and the si
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When the authors stuck to what they knew--the Asiatic Fleet of yore and its old ships, this was an interesting narrative of a time and place in American history pretty much forgotten. It was kind of a continuation of "The Sand Pebbles" in that regard. I like details of how life and work were in the past, and now I know how anti-submarine warfare was conducted in those days, as well as surface actions, both night and day, anti-aircraft defense, the difficulties of maintaining an old steam powerpl
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Mack and Mack Jr. are no Herman Wouk or James Michener- however, they do serve up a solidly satisfying novel about the first days of World War II on the "Asiatic Station". I couldn't find much background information about Mack Sr., but it does seem like he used his own experiences as a destroyer officer (who participated in the same battles enumerated in the book) as the basis for the main protagonist and plot strands in the book. His anger at the incompetence Douglas McArthur and his staff are
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One of my favorites!
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