| Bud Feuer is a pretty prolific military historian, | | | | Guadalcanal from the Japanese, the reports and |
| having written more than a dozen military history | | | | timely warnings from Stations JEF and STO on |
| books. But what makes Feuer stand apart, in my | | | | Bougainville were directly responsible for the |
| opinion, is his histories of little known, unheralded, | | | | enemy's defeat." |
| unusual military units. A case in point is the | | | | To perform their tasks, the coast watchers relied |
| Australian coast watchers who performed heroic | | | | on "teleradios" which were relatively large, heavy |
| duty when the Japanese were advancing through | | | | and clunky radio communications equipment that |
| the South Sea Islands during World War II. | | | | had to be hauled from one hiding spot to another. |
| In Feuer's book, Coast Watching in WWII: | | | | The teleradio had a voice range of about 400 |
| Operations Against the Japanese on the Solomon | | | | miles and had a range of an additional 200 miles if |
| Islands 1941-43, the author details the activities of | | | | you used the telegraph key. Besides having to lug |
| up to 400 coast watchers scattered along the | | | | this heavy machine around, the men in the unit |
| coastal areas of the Solomon Islands. These units | | | | had to lug around the batteries, charging engine, |
| would hide away in the jungle/mountain areas, | | | | and benzene fuel. It took several men to carry |
| keep an eye on Japanese ship movements, and | | | | the teleradio from one site to another. Imagine |
| then radio reports to headquarters on what ships | | | | what these guys could have accomplished today |
| were moving into the area. | | | | with micro-electronic technology? |
| The Japanese most likely would never have been | | | | Feuer points out why propaganda is so important |
| halted if they were able to maintain the element | | | | in wartime, recording the successes of the coast |
| of surprise. But that was taken away, | | | | watchers and failures of the Japanese who |
| unknowingly to them, by the coast watchers. | | | | angered the natives by arresting men and women |
| Feuer makes a good argument when he states | | | | in the villages and using them as free laborers. |
| that "coast watching alone was responsible for | | | | The Japanese also knew little about mountains |
| the success of the air war. During the early and | | | | and were unskilled in tracking. |
| uncertain days of the American struggle to wrest | | | | |