![]() ![]() Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz ably handles operations in his theater but is not above taking questionable actions, including pursuing a deadly and perhaps unnecessary operation on Peleliu rather than making operational concessions to General Douglas MacArthur and the Army. ![]() Admiral Raymond Spruance, for example, emerges as the most steady and reliable task force commander, even though his counterpart, Admiral William Halsey, steals the headlines and ultimately receives his fifth star despite his penchant for poor decisionmaking. Toll’s work is a masterful study in leadership from the five-star ranks on down. ![]() As joint force members read this book, they will find invaluable lessons even more powerful because of the myriad primary and secondary sources that underpin them. Toll offers an exceptionally well-researched, integrated narrative built around the Services’ imperfect and, at times, remarkably parochial efforts in 1944–1945 to fight and ultimately defeat Japan. Twilight of the Gods, however, is more than the retelling of epic battles. ![]() His recounting of the Philippines campaign is particularly well done-easy to follow, detailed, and completely gripping. Major amphibious operations, such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, get considerable attention, as do major sea battles such as Leyte Gulf. As with his first two volumes, this dynamic, gifted writer tells a compelling story about how the United States ultimately triumphed in the Pacific. T wilight of the Gods completes Ian Toll’s superb trilogy of America’s war in the Pacific during World War II. Thornhill, Brigadier General, USAF (Ret.), is the Associate Director of the Strategic Studies program at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author of Demystifying the American Military: Institutions, Evolution, and Challenges Since 1789 (Naval Institute Press, 2019). ![]()
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