The definitive guide to the bottom

bottom of Truk Lagoon

Hailstorm Over Truk Lagoon.

By Klaus P. Lindemann. Pub lished by Maruzen Asia Press, Singapore. 370 pp. No ISBN provided. Price SUSIS.

Following Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1935, Truk was fitted out as a major naval base. Preparations for such use by the Japanese, however, had started years ear lier. In October 1941, two months before the outbreak of hostilities, a U.S. reconnaiss ance overflight confirmed the importance of the Truk Lagoon to Japanese naval superiority in the Pacific.

Among the American military authorities, Truk took on an awesome aspect, and during the war was sometimes referred to as “terrible Truk” or “the unsinkable aircraft carrier”.

The reality was much diffe rent, particularly after the American capture of the Mar shall Islands in February 1944.

This rapid and inexpensive suc cess changed the overall plan ning in the Central Pacific cam paign. The Japanese retreated from the eastern Carolines to the relative safety of the Philip pines-East Indies-New Guinea

barrier. Admiral Nimitz ordered Truk to be by-passed, and brought the target date for the capture of the Marianas forward by almost 20 weeks.

Once the Marshalls were se cured, Truk was continually violated by air from American bombers. When the Marianas were finally captured and the B-29 bases established there, Truk was relentlessly neutral ised. But as early as March 1944, the Japanese had virtual ly abandoned it. Most of her capital fighting ships were wise ly withdrawn in February after news of the fall of the Marshalls reached Combined Fleet Headquarters at Dublon. The ranking Japanese admiral sta tioned at Truk during the mid dle period of the war testified that he would listen to the American radio proclaim Truk “the impregnable bastion of the Pacific”, and then become apprehensive that perhaps the U.S. Navy might somehow learn the truth.

When American raids began over Truk in February 1944, the pilots found fewer targets than they expected. More than two-thirds of Japan’s 365 land based planes were destroyed,

and some 140,000 tons of shipping went to the bottoms of the lagoon.

These ships rest there today, silently and forever. Encrusted with coral, they form a beautiful undersea garden of color with schools of fish swimming about among them. With increasing frequency these days, scuba divers from all over the world join the fishes, and often their photographs appear in maga zine articles and occasional pictorial books and essays.

Now and then some of these divers come here to the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam to research the sunken ships. More than once, as director, I have wished that someone would write the de finitive work on the sunken fleet at Truk and the circumstances surrounding it. Happily, Klaus P. Lindemann has done it.

Hailstorm Over Truk Lagoon (“Hailstorm” was the American code name for the engage ments) is not only must reading for all divers and visitors going to Truk. It is something of an historical contribution as well, and could be assigned reading for students in Pacific History courses. In this book one will find everything one needs to know indeed, all that is known about Truk and World War II with regard to the background to the battle, de scriptions by eyewitnesses, and an inventory explanation of all the wrecks that have been found on the lagoon floors.

Lindemann’s work has been an organic literary effort. By this I mean that when he went to Truk to dive for the first time, he had no intentions of writing a book. But, when he found that no descriptive material was im mediately at hand, he set out to produce some. It took him nearly 10 years to complete it.

He has been very thorough, and scuba divers at Truk for years to come will thank him.

A newcomer to Truk who intends to dive will find Hail storm an indispensable hand book. It will help him find the wrecks, identify them, and, be cause of the careful accounts of

each vessel and its present condition at the lagoon’s bot tom, it will make for more efficient and safer diving.

Lindemann is not an his torian and doesn’t claim to be, but nevertheless he has put together a cogent descriptive narrative of the fateful events at Truk during February 1944, and all that went before and after. He investigated all avail able sources. He contacted both Japanese and American people and institutions who could be of assistance. Moreov er, he included the Trukese themselves. He interviewed many eyewitnesses, and has reproduced their comments in such a way as to allow them to express themselves in their own cultural context, and this is most productive and comfortable for them. This part is a special contribution because nowhere else does such testimony appear.

The physical aspects of the book are pleasing, too. There’s an excellent cover design. The body type is a bit small, but not tedious. There are pictures, both black and white and in color, which are useful as well as inspiring. There’s also an index and acknowledgments.

Author Lindemann hasn’t left a stone unturned. He deserves a lot of credit and we are grateful for his efforts. Dirk Anthony Ballendorf.

Books received

The Children Must Dance.

By Tony Maniaty. Published 1984 by Penguin Books, 487 Maroondah High way, Ringwood, Vic. 3134, Australia.

ISBN 0 14 007089 3. Price $5.95.

Culture, Youth and Suicide in the Pacific: Papers from an East-West Center Conference.

Edited by Francis X. Hezel, S.J. Pub lished 1985 by Pacific Islands Studies Program, Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. No ISBN or price provided.

Solomons; A Portrait of Traditional and Contemporary Culture in Solo mon Islands.

Edited by Julian Maka’a. A special issue of Pacific Moana Quarterly published 1985 by Outrigger Publishers, P.O. Box 13-049, Hamilton, New Zealand, ISSN

0110-3970. Snzi2.Oo.

Out of Asia: Peopling the Americas and the Pacific.

Edited by Robert Kirk and Emoke Szathmary. Published 1985 by The Journal of Pacific History. The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Can berra, ACT 2601, Australia. ISBN 0 9595477 4 6. Price $18.50 plus p. & p.