History Literature / TalesOfTheSouthPacific

* BuxomIsBetter: In "Fo' Dolla'", Joe Cable notes Liat's beautiful breasts when they make love for the first time. Later, Jacques the gross French planter who is marrying Liat makes the "hourglass" gesture as he's bragging about her.

The setting is Des Moines, Iowa--no, just kidding, the South Pacific, namely the area around the Cook Islands and the Solomon Islands, in the years 1942-1944 during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The nineteen stories in the collection are narrated by an unnamed "Commander" who is an avatar for James Michener, who served in RealLife as a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu New Hebrides]] islands. The stories are loosely connected, with several characters appearing in more than one, and also by a plot thread about American plans for a fictional "Operation Alligator" against the Japanese, but the emphasis is on the long, long periods of boredom between the occasional bloody assault, and how the Americans in the south Pacific interact with the natives, other locals, and each other.

The setting is Des Moines, Iowa--no, just kidding, the South Pacific, namely the area around the Cook Islands and the Solomon Islands, in the years 1942-1944 during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The nineteen stories in the collection are narrated by an unnamed "Commander" who is an avatar for James Michener, who served in RealLife as a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu New Hebrides]] islands. The stories are loosely connected, with several characters appearing in more than one, and also by a plot thread about American plans for a fictional "Operation Alligator" against the Japanese, but the emphasis is on how the Americans in the south Pacific interact with the natives and other locals.

* OfficerAndAGentleman: "An Officer and a Gentleman" actually subverts this in the case of Lt. Harbison, who emotionally manipulates and then rejects two nurses on their island outpost.

* SwitchingPOV: Most of the stories are narrated by the unnamed commander, but not all. "The Milk Run" is narrated by Lt. Bus Adams, who's telling his story to the commander.

* TheNiedermeyer: Captain Kelley, the officer in charge of the supply depot for Operation Alligator. He is a nasty petty tyrant in true Niedermeyer tradition, forbidding the sailors from playing games, making everyone stop wearing ball caps. The men start making joes about Captain Bligh and the ''Bounty''. ("The Strike")

* ThematicSeries: Each story is paired with another story at the opposite end of the narrative. The first and nineteenth stories are the narrator reflecting on his experience. The second and eighteenth involve battles, the third and seventeenth involve preparation for battles. The ninth and eleventh stories both revolve around American servicemen writing letters back to women in the States. The story in the middle, tenth story "Fo' Dolla'", is unpaired.

* In "Our Heroine" Emile mentions that his oldest daughter Latouche is married to another planter and lives on a different island. In "Wine for the Mess at Sugi", Tony Fry and the gang stop at that island and meet Latouche.

* ContinuityNod: Many as stories are loosely connected.

* LifeWillKillYou: In "Dry Rot", a soldier named Joe falls in love with a girl named Alice back in the States. He is heartbroken to hear that she was killed in a car accident.

* BuxomIsBetter: Joe Cable notes Liat's beautiful breasts when they make love for the first time. Later, Jacques the gross French planter who is marrying Liat makes the "hourglass" gesture as he's bragging about her.

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: "The Milk Run" is narrated by a pilot who crashes in a channel between two Japanese-held islands. He's left bobbing in the channel, kept afloat by his life vest, subject to rifle fire from each shore. An enormous effort to rescue him ensues. First a whole squadron of P-40s strafe the Japanese positions. Then a flight of Marine [=F4Us=] on the direct order of an admiral, who strafe the Japanese and drop the pilot a life raft. Then a PBY amphibious plane, which attempts to rescue him but gets shot up and sunk by the Japanese, leaving the crew of the PBY adrift in the channel with him. Still more waves of fighters assault the Japanese islands to protect the Americans in the channel. Finally two PT boats show up and rescue the pilot and the PBY crew. The pilot eventually totals things up and concludes that the Navy lost a P-40 fighter, lost a PBY, used up the available operational hours of several fighter squadrons, altered operational plans after diverting the PT boats, and spent over $600,000, all to rescue him.

* SwitchingPOV: Most of the stories are narrated by the unnamed commander, but not all. "An Officer and a Gentleman" is told in third-person. "The Milk Run" is narrated by Lt. Bus Adams, who's telling his story to the commander.

* ContinuityNod: In "Our Heroine" the French plantation owner mentions meeting a man named Anderson on Malaita. That's a nod to previous story "The Cave" in which Anderson is TheVoice, having stayed behind after the Japanese captured Malaita, radioing intelligence to the Allies from the jungle.

* ThematicSeries: Each story is paired with another story at the opposite end of the narrative. The first and nineteenth stories are the narrator reflecting on his experience. The second and eighteenth involve battles, the third and seventeenth involve preparation for battles. The story in the middle, tenth story "Fo' Dolla'", is unpaired.

* NationalGeographicNudity: The French authorities in the area have sequestered all the women of the islands on the island of Bali-hai, so the Allied servicemen in the islands can't rape them. Lt. Joe Cable has occasion to visit Bali-hai, and is bowled over by the sight of dozens of topless Polynesian and Asian women.

* IndenturedServant: With a side dose of EvilColonialist. The Tonkinese (that is, Vietnamese) workers on the French plantation in "Fo' Dolla'" are indentured servants, brought to the island to harvest cocoanuts and whatnot. So the French colonialist planters do not like it one little bit when the workers discover they can make more money selling grass skirts to American servicemen than they do working the plantations.

The setting is Des Moines, Iowa--no, just kidding, the South Pacific, namely the area around the Cook Islands and the Solomon Islands, in the years 1942-1944 during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The nineteen stories in the collection are narrated by an unnamed "Commander" who is an avatar for James Michener, who served in RealLife as a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu New Hebrides]] islands. The stories are loosely connected, mostly by a plot thread about American plans for a fictional "Operation Alligator" against the Japanese, but the emphasis is on how the Americans in the south Pacific interact with the natives and other locals.

* AuthorAvatar: The "Commander" is is basically James Michener.

* JapaneseRanguage: The Japanese soldiers who finally uncover an American observation post behind enemy lines say "American peoper! You die!" Then they destroy the radio set.

* KissingCousins: The narrator travels to isolated Norfolk Island to see about the construction of an airstrip. Fry, the Navy officer who welcomes him to Norfolk, tells him that the residents of Norfolk are descendants of the mutineers from HMAV ''Bounty''. Due to their extreme isolation the people on Norfolk have been marrying each other ever since they arrived.

* ThematicSequel: Each story is paired with another story at the opposite end of the narrative. The first and nineteenth stories are the narrator reflecting on his experience. The second and eighteenth involve battles, the third and seventeenth involve preparation for battles. The story in the middle, tenth story "Fo' Dolla'", is unpaired.