Book Review – The Battalion Artist

(See all my Book Reviews and Author Interviews) – This is Janice Blake’s first publication. The Battalion Artist: A Navy Seabee’s Sketchbook of War in the South Pacific, 1943–1945 was published in 2019. This was the 99th book I completed in 2022.

I received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com with the expectation of delivering a fair and honest review. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! I categorize this book/novel as G.

Natale ‘Nat’ Bellantoni spent three years, three months, and three days in the Seabees. His ship left California in June 1943, sailing into the Pacific Theater of Operations. His unit, the 78th Seabee Battalion, would serve throughout the Pacific.

Bellantoni had been an artist before the war. This book shows an assortment of photos, drawings, and watercolors he produced while in the Navy. His works show life in New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and Okinawa.

I enjoyed the 2 hours I spent reading this 120-page WWII history. The book contains many attractive full-color images depicting life in the Pacific Theater. I like the chosen cover art. I give this book a rating of 4 out of 5

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

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If you have an interest in the WWII era of history, you may find these three pages of interest. 

• The “World War II Resources” page is a constantly growing collection of more than 600 links to museums, memorials, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and other sources with information on the World War II era in history.
• The “World War II Timeline” page expands almost daily and shows events leading up to WWII, as well as during the war. Events are broken down into the Pacific and European Theaters by date.
• The About WWII page is a collection of links to posts that I have made over the years that are relevant to WWII. Included are links to many fiction and non-fiction books on WWII that I have read and reviewed. There are also links to WWII oriented podcasts.