Hi all. I'm writing an essay on Aircraft carriers and naval strategy in the Pacific in WW2.
I needed some recommendations or suggestions of which books I should get for this essay.
So far I have thought of the following, which of these should I order?
Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941
Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941
Shattered sword
Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara
Neptune's inferno
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Of the ones you mention, Kaigun and Sunburst are both excellent, well-focused looks at the IJN in the period. For a broader view, I'd recommend Toland's The Rising Sun, which studies the Japanese Empire, and the development of its goals, strategies and actions through the war. Another look at the IJN, taking the perspective of the Royal Navy, is Arthur Marder's Old Friends, New Enemies. This two-volume work covers the relationship between the two navies, their respective strategies, and the war itself. However, finding copies can be tricky, as it's not been recently reprinted.
Shattered Sword is one of the best studies of Midway in recent years, though one mainly giving the Japanese perspective of the battle. For the USN's perspective, I'd recommend Lundstrom's The First Team, which gives an excellent study of the American carrier fighter force from Pearl Harbor to Midway. The sequel, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign follows a similar trajectory. Neptune's Inferno is a good read, but focuses more on the surface actions of the Guadalcanal campaign than on the carrier battles. It also frequently seems like it is more interested in telling a good, if accurate, story than in being an objective work of history. For later battles, Tillman's Clash of the Carriers is a good look at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, while Hobbs' The British Pacific Fleet is an excellent look at the British participation in the later stages of the war in the Pacific.
Two big ones you are missing are The First Team and The First Team at Guadalcanal both by John Lundstrom.
He was one of the first in the 80s to really try to catch up Western Pacific War scholarship to what it was in Japan for that side of the story. While also providing a deep personal look at carrier aviation in the first year of the war through the 4 big battles of 1942.
Later Parshall and Tully would also credit him for showing the way and poking the first holes in the now discarded Prange dominated narrative of Midway. He has also continued to write, his most recent book Black Shoe Carrier Admiral may also be of interest. It is a study in the tenure in command of Frank Jack Fletcher, who he asses to have been treated very poorly and given an undeserved bum reputation post war.