PACIFIC WAR DIARY by James F....

PACIFIC WAR DIARY by James F. Fahey, edited by Von Hardesty (University of Washington Press: $29; 193 pp.). James Fahey (1918-1991) served on the light cruiser U.S.S. Montpelier, engaging the Japanese off the Solomons, the Marianas, the Philippines, Okinawa, Borneo and China. Initially published in 1963, his journal offers a typical bluejacket’s view of the war. The most moving chapters recount the devastation Fahey witnessed at Hiroshima and the rest of Japan immediately in 1945. This illustrated abridgment takes on a renewed topicality as the 50th anniversary of the end of the War in the Pacific approaches.