“An entertaining, impressively researched chronicle of the tense period between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American victory at the battle of Midway.  In between these two signal events of World War II, uncertainty shook America. In the Pacific, the United States was caught off-guard by Japan’s sneak attack, her Navy crippled and her fighters outmatched by the agile and deadly Japanese Zeros. Rumors of Japanese invasion of the West Coast seemed more likely with each defeat suffered by the combined forces in the Philippines. Toll (Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, 2008, etc.) examines the forces moving behind the scenes—the trends in naval combat, complicated allegiances of American and Japanese politics, the military hierarchies and infighting that occurred between the combined forces—to create a full picture of the complex dynamics involved… When illuminating the remarkable men behind the headlines, Toll truly excels.

“From the horror of Pearl Harbor to the triumphant battle of Midway, the author carefully balances the narrative to tell the story from both sides of the conflict. His account begins with the American and Japanese officials involved in the burgeoning field of aircraft-carrier combat, and continues down to the pilots and crewmen who acted as the guinea pigs. What he finds is not a group of fearless soldiers, but real, conflicted men nearly torn apart by their doubts and fears, men who found the real courage necessary to act all the same.  Toll gives everyone involved in the conflict a chance to speak, bringing readers into the command centers and cockpits to reveal the humanity of combatants on both sides of the Pacific.”

-Kirkus

“Toll’s work takes in a vast geographic sweep, a host of compelling subplots and details, and a cast of characters ranging from Roosevelt and Churchill through the admirals, sailors, pilots and civilians who lived and died on both sides. The result is not just a military history, but the portrait of a rare historical moment when the fate of nations hung in the balance. The book’s more than 600 pages are hard to stop turning. Among Toll’s paramount achievements is his skill in weaving events across a wide scale into a coherent, compelling narrative. Toll combines the grand and the mundane from the halls of government to the lower decks: the naval tactics of Alfred Thayer Mahan, great power diplomacy and Japanese politics, as well as blackout nights in Hawaii, salt water showers and canned Spam…. Attentive to accident as well as intention, frailty as well as strength, Toll produces a vivid, human and highly readable account….
“Critical to Toll’s success is his use of hundreds of separate voices to narrate and illustrate his story. Drawing from published sources, memoirs, collected interviews and naval and governmental records, Toll crafts a multivalent history that illuminates the human experience of war from aerial combat to the hell of burning ships at sea. Especially impressive, Toll benefits from a trove of scholarship on the Japanese experience in World War II to reveal the memories, emotions and fears of combatants and civilians that American audiences rarely encounter…. On the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, lovers of maritime history and many others will welcome Toll’s grand retelling of the events surrounding this signal moment in modern history.”
- Andrew Wiese, San Diego Union Tribune

“Prize-winning freelance naval historian Toll (Six Frigates) chronicles one of the U.S. Navy’s finest performances of WWII in this page-turning narrative of the months following the devastating attacks on Pearl Harbor. Eyewitness accounts and extensive research in American and Japanese print and archival sources combined with Toll’s storytelling abilities make this an approachable and compelling read in a genre typically reserved for military historians. More than mere battle plans and fighter plane model numbers, Toll’s take on the fight in the Pacific is imbued with a sensitivity to detail and individuals, as evidenced by his moving account of the disembarkation of Admiral Fitch and his crew from the sinking USS Lexington at the Battle of the Coral Sea, which saw ice cream being served as the boat burned and men awaiting rescue swam in the warm waters below. But Toll does not pander to sensationalism: his incisive scholastic efforts also shed light on Japanese motives for entering a war that many in the high command considered unwinnable. Revealing and poignant, Toll’s latest deftly navigates the rough waters of the Pacific struggle with flying colors.”
- Publishers Weekly

“No volume really covering the first six months of WWII in the Pacific can be other than hefty.  However, this latest from the author of Six Frigates (2006), is also excellent. The research is thorough, the writing clear, and the narrative flow exemplary, even when the author is trying to explain Allied command arrangements for defending Java in early 1942. The run-up to war is in itself notable, as it makes clear that the Japanese genuinely saw themselves as having few options and did not trust the Allies to give them even those. After the shooting started, Japanese tactics, training, and weaponry receive high marks—what emerges is a set of Allies not really prepared for a war that had been looming since at least 1937.  The author makes vast quantities of technological and tactical concepts intelligible to all but the rankest beginner—for whom this book is not remotely suitable.* A particular gift of the author is intelligent character portraits: Yamamoto, MacArthur, Halsey, and Nimitz (clearly one of the author’s favorites).  Add to all these other attributes a thorough scholarly apparatus, and it is difficult to think of a recent book on this subject that is of such consistently outstanding value.”

— Roland Green, BOOKLIST

*rank beginners welcome.

“Mr. Toll’s version of this oft-told tale is vivid, fast moving and highly readable. He has made excellent use of the large number of extant memoirs, diaries and oral histories by sailors and Marines, and the result is a story told from the viewpoint of the participants as much as from that of the leaders and strategists. He has, moreover, put his finger on one of the neglected keys to American success: the Navy’s ability to rapidly adapt to the unfamiliar environment of war at sea in the air age… Mr. Toll has provided an engaging and perceptive account of a critical and dramatic period in the story of World War II.”

— Ronald Spector, Wall Street Journal

Pacific Crucible is “a riveting account of the war in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, to the decisive Battle of Midway, the American victory in early June 1942 that was a turning point in World War II. But perhaps its greatest lessons lie in Toll’s account of the militarization of Japanese culture in the years and decades leading up to the war, the conviction of the military leadership that its destiny could lead it to defeat a power with many times its industrial strength, or at least use violence to force a negotiated peace that would leave Japan the unquestioned dominant power in Asia.”

— Paul Jablow, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Toll’s first foray into naval history was his highly acclaimed Six Frigates, which told the story of the founding to the U.S. Navy and its triumphs and tribulations from the Revolution through the War of 1812. His latest work, Pacific Crucible, is a major leap both in time and in scope—the full history of the opening months of World War II in the Pacific… Toll is a true master of this particular craft… the level of detail and the refreshing modern analysis that Toll brings to each [chapter] is superb. It’s arguably the new standard for Pearl Harbor to Midway. For anyone looking for a meticulously accurate all-inclusive history of the opening months of the Pacific War, look no further.”

— Ron Russell, Chairman, Battle of Midway Roundtable