Jay Stout's Savage Skies, Emerald Hell is one of those books that leaves me very conflicted. The hardest books to rate for me are those which have no real problems, but at the same time, don't reach the heights of some other books within the same subject area. If you are interested in this book, I politely request you read my whole review and decide if this book is for you and don't trust the star score I end up giving it. The book mainly focuses on Papua New Guinea and the surrounding area in World War II and chronicles the horrible conditions for the Allies from the beginning to the end of the war.

First, let's start with the good and there is a lot of it. Stout has done tremendous research and specifically has delved into numerous personal accounts to bring an intimate feel to the narrative. I've read a lot about the Pacific theater of World War II, even multiple books on the Papua New Guinea area and I still learned a lot. The book has more of a tactical focus rather than a larger strategic focus. Stout has an easy writing style and the book is not overlong or bogged down with extraneous information which is not necessary to understanding the story.

The flip side of the good is not bad, but merely not exceptional. Stout does talk about a lot of characters and it would be best to describe each chapter as a vignette of the area of operations. It kept me from really understanding or being gripped by any one person's story because they would dip in and out or never show up again. And while Stout's reading style is easy, it also never quite reaches superlative in most aspects. For example, he describes multiple dogfights in the book and they are technically well told. However, they are not propulsive like some other books I have read with similar scenarios (examples: Taking London by Martin Dugard, Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island by John Bruning).

Ultimately, I would ask anyone who wanted to read this whether or not they know much about this specific area of the war. If they could list off a bunch of books about it, I might tell them they would like this but not get too much more out of it. For someone completely new to this subject, this might be a perfect gateway to other more in-depth books. My score is based on my own personal opinion as someone who had a solid background before diving in, but if someone said they loved this book, I wouldn't tell them they shouldn't.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Globe Pequot.)

Interesting history of a part of WWII that I was not very familiar with. Standard military-history fare: lots of mentions of very specific planes and battles, with some personal stories woven in about major players and everyday folks who fought heroically (or avoided capture in the dense New Guinea landscape). A little dry at times but thorough and captivating.

This book joins several other works about the war in the Pacific din WW2 that ‘fill in the gaps’ that the strategic summaries of the war fail to cover. Readers are familiar with phrases such as ‘the Allies launched coordinated air and sea attacks against the Japanese positions and suffered only modest casualties’. What this and similar works do is to bring that dry phrase to life by describing some of the conflicts in detail, setting out the very challenging environment in which mainly US, Australian and New Zealand forces operated, particularly in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour. It is hard for us in the comfort of our homes to contemplate the distances and difficulties involved when fighters and bombers attacked Japanese forces as the push back began.
The long distances travelled over water or jungle added significantly to the problems faced by the young men who fought so valiantly at great personal cost to deliver a final victory. As Jay Stout explains, baling out over Japanese held territory was, all too often, a death sentence as so many of those captured were either summarily executed or suffered a lingering death in captivity undertaking hard, physical labour. It is against that background that the author acknowledges the efforts of the crews of PBY Catalina flying boats, submarines and Coastwatchers in saving the lives of many downed crew members.
In truth, the only way to fully appreciate what the Pacific War involved is to read a collection of ‘big picture’ books, but then look in some detail at the conflict on a tactical and personal level to get to the heart of what was involved. This is an excellent book to deal with the latter point.
Highly recommended.

This account of the primarily air war over New Guinea and surrounding islands during 1942-44 by the USAAF and the RAAF. US naval and army involvement was also significant as the air power was to prevent Japanese air interdiction as well as attacking Japanese army infiltration into New Guinea. These operations are little known in the overall history of WWII, but the book rectifies this with incredible detail of the human element of the defenders against the Japanese onslaught to reach and influence the Allied Forces building up in Australia.
The extreme conditions faced by the aircrews and ground personnel through lack of sanitation and disease combined with the lack of spares to maintain the aircraft are graphically described, as are the attacks by Japanese aircraft on their rudimentary airfields. The gradual improvement of logistics capabilities and supplies took months to come through and eventually the tide was turned as more modern aircraft arrived from the US. With tier arrival, increasingly aggressive missions were carried out against Japanese targets that were heavily defended by aircraft and anti-aircraft ground fire. Nevertheless, the allies prevailed but at a high cost in both men and aircraft.
A significant factor that worked against aircrew who were forced to either bail out or crash land, was the unforgiving jungle occupied by the Japanese, the shark infested waters around the islands and the severe tropical weather conditions. The stories of how these hazards were overcome, or not, are compelling and once again are examples of human resilience.
A compelling account in so many ways and highly recommended.