Touched with fire

Between 1942 and 1944 the Allied forces and the Imperial Japanese Army struggled over the uncharted and inhospitable islands of the South Pacific. In what quickly became a war of annihilation, the Allies fought to defend their air and sea bases against an enemy that neither asked for nor showed any mercy.

The fate of Australia and the eventual outcome of the war in the Pacific hung in the balance until the combined efforts of Allied air and sea support finally shattered the myth of Japanese invincibility. Touched with Fire is a revelatory portrayal of the lives of the regular infantrymen who struggled to contain the Japanese advance. Eric Bergerud has spent hundreds of hours interviewing the last surviving veterans of this remarkable campaign and he presents the dynamics of the war through their eyes. Rather than review the decisions made by the commanders, he has depicted the flow of battle in all its terrifying immediacy and occasional beauty.