An Angry Giant: Book 4 of The American War

Isoroku Yamamoto, on the bridge of the Nagato in December of 1941, told his staff he feared the strike at Pearl Harbor had done nothing but awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

He had been correct in every particular.

The giant is awake. The Combined Fleet has been destroyed in detail. The Philippines is American again. The skies over the Pacific belong to the Army Air Forces and to the men of the 94th Fighter Group, who have flown the war from Pearl Harbor to Rabaul and who are flying it forward toward the Home Islands.

Jack Gibson commands Lightning Squadron.

The Americans are closing through the Marshalls. The Americans are closing through the Solomons. The Americans are closing through the Marianas. The supply lines that have moved oil and rubber and bauxite to the Home Islands since the establishment of the Co-Prosperity Sphere are being closed by American submarines and American long-range aviation one freighter at a time. The strategic strangulation Yamamoto had warned against in 1941 is the strategic strangulation Japan cannot end and cannot escape.

Japan has no intention of surrendering.

In his flag cabin aboard the Yamato, Yamamoto opens the drawer.

The giant is angry. The terrible resolve is the operational doctrine of an American military that has done in two years what the Combined Fleet had assessed could not be done in five.

In the Pacific, the cost of winning is about to get higher.

Coming October 2026