Being there . . . . in September of 1943 on the small island of Espiritu Santo in the New
Hebrides of the South Pacific after a young American pilot is lost in heavy fog on what
supposedly is to be a routine, non-combat flight. In his inspiring “SURVIVAL IN THE SOUTH
PACIFIC – – A Lost Airman’s Desperate Rescue Amid the Maelstrom of War”, author Robert
Richardson, who also wrote “The Jagged Edge of Duty” (2017) and “Spying from the Sky”
(2020), now offers his best story yet – – an unusual, yet riveting book-within-a-book, i.e., a top-
rate history of the Pacific War from 7 December 1941 thru 1944 dealing with the “turning of the
Pacific tide”, our astounding victorious naval battle at Midway, Japan’s first land defeat on
Guadalcanal Island after a bloody six-month nightmare, then a nonpareil account of his father’s
aerial crash, survival, miraculous rescue, and postwar activities. Good writing places us buffers
at the core of each account, and fully so. We, too, are onboard, not on our way to bomb Tokyo
by storming Japanese fortresses, island upon island, but on a normal patrol flight . . . .
AN ENTIRELY NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE EARLY STAGES OF THE PACIFIC WAR, “SURVIVAL IN
THE SOUTH PACIFIC” OFFERS AN AMAZING AMOUNT OF INFORMATION ON OUR MARINES
SLOGGING THROUGH THE MIRE FOR GUADALCANAL, FOLLOWED BY THE COLOSSAL FIRST
STAGES OF “OPERATION CARTWHEEL” TO RETAKE THE STRATEGICALLY PRIZED JAPANESE-HELD
ISLANDS. MEANWHILE, WE JOIN THE METICULOUS SEARCH AND RESCUE MISSION FOR A
YOUNG HERO PILOT BELIEVED TO HAVE SURVIVED A SUDDEN OCEAN STORM. . . .
Reviewed and highly recommended as a superlative Xmas gift by Don DeNevi
“SURVIVAL IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC – – A Lost Airman’s Desperate Rescue Amid the Maelstrom of
War”, by Robert Richardson. CASEMATE PUBLISHERS, Pennsylvania: 2024, 6 ¼” x 9 ¼”, 318
pages, hardcover, $37.95. Visit, www.casematepublishers.com.
Good narrative is rare enough. Great storytelling is an even rarer skill. Author Robert
Richardson achieves both. In this book, add a superbly relevant 39-page section of Endnotes, a
two-page bibliography of similar search and rescue titles, including a six-page index, and,
suddenly, you have a reference source hitherto unpublished. In his Preface, the son of the lost
hero, Leonard Richardson, Robert writes, “Our father would speak about the crash, his crawl
down the mountain, and his rescue, but only as his children grew older, never in great detail
and only when asked. As he neared the end of his life, he wrote a short narrative entitled ‘The
Crash of ‘43’ in it, he briefly described his arrival to the South Pacific, the unit to which he was
assigned, his experiences on the island of New Caledonia, and his flights out of Espiritu Santo.
He wrote in some detail about his events of September 5, the tragic crash, his excoriating
painful efforts to save himself, and his rescue.”
Son Bob’s book is the result of 12 years of research to provide new data and preserve dad
Leonard’s original narrative in order to create an understanding of what role the brave man
played in the vast sea and sand war that was in full cry in 1943, and to explain how he and the
other victims of that crash came to be in the aircraft in the first place, at that time and in that
place . . . . “Dad’s ‘Crash of ‘43’ was his endeavor to encompass not only his own remarkable
story, which a reader can vicariously live and experience, but also the story of the young men –
boys, really – who died in the crash . . . . based upon this, plus new materials and researched
documents I’ve uncovered, many published here for the first time, the full story of the ‘Crash of
‘43’ can now be told, including its aftermath and the results of the search undertaken 68 years
later by me, the afore mentioned aging and not particularly robust explorer”, Bob concludes.
Literally, one of the better, nay, BEST, Christmas gift-reads to order early and directly from
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS, (610) 853-9131. This season’s promised bumper crop of Best Military
Book Buys For 2024 exceeds most others, this reviewer insists, since World War II ended in
1945.
