The Gathering Storm: Book 2 of The American War

The war America won at Pearl Harbor is far from over.

December 7, 1941 was supposed to be Japan’s greatest victory. Instead, it became a trap. The Japanese fleet was expected. The American carriers were waiting. And when the smoke cleared over Pearl Harbor, Admiral Kimmel held the initiative—and Lieutenant Jack Gibson, the Ace of Pearl Harbor, had five confirmed kills and a war still to fight.

But Pearl Harbor was just the opening move.

The Gathering Storm follows the six brutal months after the battle that changed everything—months of convoy warfare, grinding attrition, and desperate fighting across the Philippine mountains as America learns what it costs to win a war rather than simply survive one.

On the ground

General George Patton holds the Philippine line with Marines and a handful of Shermans against Kwantung Army veterans who know how to build positions that don’t collapse. First Lieutenant Dale Tillery—China Marine, Shanghai 1937—anchors the ridge above Santa Fe while Private Pete Kowalski learns what combat really asks of a man. Sixty Shermans wait in a sugarcane facility for the moment MacArthur has been calculating since December. Chesty Puller’s China Marines are in the mountains. The road to Baguio is six months and ten thousand casualties away.

In the air

Jack Gibson commands the Lightning Squadron—sixty P-38s, all Pearl Harbor veterans, the most effective fighter unit in the Pacific. He has fourteen confirmed kills and a letter from Annie Fuller in Pittsburg, Kansas that he carries in his breast pocket. His commanding officer, Major Gilkey, has been flying on a broken arm since December and won’t stop until the flight surgeon makes him. The Japanese are sending everything they have. It isn’t enough. But it costs something every time.

At sea

Admiral Yamamoto has spent six months trying to force the decisive battle that American strategy keeps denying him. His fleet is the finest naval force Japan has ever assembled. Musashi has commissioned early on Tojo’s order. The Combined Fleet sorties in June with thirty-seven warships, six destroyers loaded with ammunition for Homma’s starving army, and Yamamoto’s calculation that this is the last moment the terms will be acceptable.

He is right about the terms. He is wrong about the battle.

The reckoning

What follows in the Philippine Sea is the largest naval gun battle of the Pacific War—seven American battleships crossing the T, P-38s destroying the Japanese air umbrella before it reaches the carriers, Lockwood’s submarines in the approach channels with the torpedo fix that finally works. And somewhere in the handling room beneath turret three on USS Arizona, Electrician’s Mate Eddie Kowalski loads shells for guns that are about to find the wrong end of an eighteen-inch shell from Yamamoto’s flagship.

The battle will be decided in one day. The war will not end for years. And the men who survive will carry what it cost them in ways that don’t show from the outside.

The Gathering Storm is the second book in The American War, Brian C. Thompson’s five-book alternate history series asking what happens when America wins the battle it was supposed to lose. Inspired by Thompson’s great-uncle Frederick J. Gibson, a real WWII fighter pilot who flew P-38s, P-39s, and P-51s across three theaters of the war.

For readers of Jeff Shaara, Stephen Coonts, and Harry Turtledove.

Book 1: A Date with Infamy — Available Now

Book 2: The Gathering Storm — Coming Soon