One Damned Island After Another: The Saga of the Seventh

De: Clive Howard, Joe Whitley

Narrado por: Will Stauff

On October 19, 1940, the Hawaiian Air Force, later known as the Seventh Air Force, was established to provide air defense of the Hawaiian Island and to engage with threats in the Pacific. Just over a year later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor devastated this force. Out of a total of 231 aircraft of the Hawaiian Air Force, 64 were destroyed and not more than 79 were left usable. Out of the inferno emerged the newly reformed Seventh Air Force.

It faced, in the central Pacific, the largest water theater in the world - 16,000,000 square miles, five times the size of the United States.

The Americans patched up their planes as best they could and began to fly the "Atoll Circuit", the low-lying, white sand atolls and the first stepping stones on the long road to Tokyo. In this huge area and against a fearsome opponent, the men of the Seventh were forced to fly the longest missions in any theater of war, entirely over water and, at first, without fighter escort. They fought at Midway, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Truk, Palau, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and finally Tokyo.

Clive Howard and Joe Whitley's history of this remarkable air force covers from the events at Pearl Harbor through to V-J Day, covering every single island that the force landed on in between. They listened to demand of Corporal Earl Nelson's article Heroes Don't Win Wars, that criticized the press and radio that only recorded the fantastic achievements of men who wore medals; why don't they talk about the guy who is just a soldier?

So with humor and insight, Howard and Whitley and provided us with a history of the Seventh Air Force that doesn't focus on only the glorious achievements of some men, nor does it simply record the accounts of the "brass hats", but instead gets to the heart of what the men of this extraordinary force did and thought.

Clive Howard and Joe Whitley were both sergeants and served as correspondents for the Seventh Air Force. They were there; they saw it happen.

©2019 BN Publishing (P)2019 BN Publishing

Narration distracts from a good story

Narrator needs to go back to grade school. Producer and director of the audio product did not do their jobs.

Narrative is difficult

It became painful to listen to . I found myself correcting the narrative out loud repeatedly . From the Japanese names to the king of Hawaii he did not have a knowledge of the history he was talking about. These stories need to be edited by historians. Too much is lost in his translation

Read too quickly for me

The entire book was like hearing the obligatory legalities at the end of a ad.

Love the Book - Hate the Narration

The story is very interesting and engaging. On the other hand, the narration is abysmal. The narrator’s performance is riddled with mispronunciations. Those mispronunciations constantly distract the listener from the story, and literally ruin what could have been a first class audiobook. The narrator should have cared enough to research, learn, and rehearse the material. The producer should have checked things before releasing the book.

Good tale ruined by terrible narration

The premise of this book was intriguing - the stories of "regular guys" who worked behind the lines during WWII. It seems well written enough, but I simply cannot continue listening to the narrator. In addition to choppy pauses in inappropriate places, the mispronunciations (like "is let" for islet) drove me crazy. Oh yes, don't get me started on his attempts to pronounce Japanese ship names, or even Hawaiian island names. It honestly sounds like this is an unedited version of his first read through of this book. No way I can spend another 10 hours listening to this as I find myself listening for errors more than the story itself. Too bad...

Well-written, poorly narrated

The writing is lively and energetic and the book would likely be a good read. However, the narration is extremely distracting. There are awkward. Pauses throughout the reading and pronunciations are absolutely. Butchered. I had to turn it off around chapter 4 when the word echelon was pronounced eckelon. That's after listening to three preceding chapters full of pronunciation flubs. Akagi does not rhyme with shaggy. Hickam Field is not Hickman field, and on and on. This is the first title that has made me look into Audible's refund policy.

Great history.

Great history. confusing pronunciation of names by reader. But his pacing and enthusiasm was great.

Full of inaccuracies

Not worth a credit
I should get a refund
A true waste of time, I bailed after suffering through 4 chapters

I was pleasantly surprised

Excellent story about the 7th Air Force. The author does an excellent job with the fine nuances of aerial warfare during WWII. This book is very informative and appears to be accurate with its presentation of the information.