-PDF Download- Central Pacific EBOOK

Storm Landings

Author: Estate of Joseph H Alexander

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2012-09-15

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1612512666

The Pacific War changed abruptly in November 1943 when Admiral Chester Nimitz unleashed a relentless 18-month, 4,000-mile offensive across the Central Pacific, spearheaded by fast carrier task forces and U.S. Marine and Army assault troops. The sudden American proclivity for amphibious frontal assaults against fortified islands astonished Japanese commanders, who called them “storm landings” because they differed so sharply from the limited landings of 1942-43. This is the story of seven epic assaults from the sea against murderous enemy fire—Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Each risky battle enhanced the U.S. capability to concentrate overwhelming naval force against a distant island and literally kick down the front door. While the assault forces learned priceless operational lessons from each landing, so did the Japanese. The ultimate U.S. victory in the seven “storm landings” came at the total cost of 100,000 killed and wounded. The survivors faced the prospect of even bloodier future beachheads against mainland Japan. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of analyzing U.S. and Japanese battle accounts, personal interviews with veterans, and his own amphibious warfare experience. Abounding with human-interest stories of colorful “web-footed amphibians,” his book vividly portrays the sheer drama of these naval battles whose magnitude and ferocity may never again be seen in this world.

Iron Horses to Promontory

Author: Gerald M. Best

Publisher:

Published: 1969

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In picture and text this book tells of the locomotives involved in the building of the first transcontinental railroad and its completion with the driving of a golden spike into a laurel tie at Promontory Utah, May 10, 1869. The rolling stock is described; the locomotive builders too long neglected, are presented and the writer brings to the reader interested in the Pioneer West, many "happenings" along the line which have hitherto not been published. This book also includes many rare and unpublished photographs of construction times, locomotives, and scenes along the route by such acknowledged cameramen of the time as Andrew J. Russell, S. ). Sedgwick, Charles 11. Savage, and Alfred A. Hart. There are maps, timetables and documentary reproductions, a complete roster of motive power of the Central Pacific to 1891 mid the Union Pacific to 1885 and scale model drawings of Central Pacific No. 60 Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119.

Traditional Micronesian Societies

Author: Glenn Petersen

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0824832485

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Traditional Micronesian Societies explores the extraordinary successes of the ancient voyaging peoples who first settled the Central Pacific islands some two thousand years ago. They and their descendants devised social and cultural adaptations that have enabled them to survive—and thrive—under the most demanding environmental conditions. The dispersed matrilineal clans so typical of Micronesian societies ensure that every individual, every local family and lineage, and every community maintain close relations with the peoples of many other islands. When hurricanes and droughts or political struggles force a group to move, they are sure of being taken in by kin residing elsewhere. Out of this common theme, shared patterns of land tenure, political rule, philosophy, and even personal character have flowed. To describe and explain Micronesian societies, the author begins with an overview of the region, including a brief consideration of the scholarly debate about whether Micronesia actually exists as a genuine and meaningful region. This is followed by an account of how Micronesia was originally settled, how its peoples adapted to conditions there, and how several basic adaptations diffused throughout the islands. He then considers the fundamental matters of descent (ideas about how individuals and groups are bound together through ties of kinship) and descent groups and the closely interlinked subjects of households, families, land, and labor. Because women form the core of the clans, their roles are particularly respected and their contributions to social life honored. Socio-political life, art, religion, and values are discussed in detail. Finally, the author examines a number of exceptions to these common Micronesian patterns of social life. Traditional Micronesian Societies illustrates the idiosyncrasies of individual Micronesian communities and celebrates the Micronesians’ shared ability to adapt, survive, and thrive over millennia. At a time when global climate change has seized our imaginations, the Micronesians’ historical ability to cope with their watery environment is of the greatest relevance.

Pacific Thunder

Author: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-10-19

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1472821858

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

On 27 October 1942, four 'Long Lance' torpedoes fired by the Japanese destroyers Makigumo and Akigumo exploded in the hull of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). Minutes later, the ship that had launched the Doolitte Raid six months earlier slipped beneath the waves of the Coral Sea. Of the pre-war carrier fleet the Navy had struggled to build over 15 years, only three were left: USS Enterprise, which had been badly damaged in the battle of Santa Cruz; USS Saratoga (CV-3) which lay in dry dock, victim of a Japanese submarine torpedo; and the USS Ranger (CV-4), which was in the mid-Atlantic on her way to support Operation Torch. For the American naval aviators licking their wounds in the aftermath of this defeat, it would be difficult to imagine that within 24 months of this event, Zuikaku, the last survivor of the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor, would lie at the bottom of the sea. Alongside it lay the other surviving Japanese carriers, sacrificed as lures in a failed attempt to block the American invasion of the Philippines, leaving the United States to reign supreme on the world's largest ocean. Now publishing in paperback, this is the fascinating account of the Central Pacific campaign, one of the most stunning comebacks in naval history, as in just 14 months the US Navy went from the jaws of defeat to the brink of victory in the Pacific.

Tuvaluan

Author: Niko Besnier

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 1134974728

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language spoken by the 9,000 inhabitants of the nine atolls of Tuvalu in the Central Pacific, as well as small and growing Tuvaluan communities in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. This grammar is the first detailed description of the structure of Tuvaluan, one of the least well-documented languages of Polynesia. Tuvaluan pays particular attention to discourse and sociolinguistics factors at play in the structural organization of the language.