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Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 | 
 enlarge | Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $15.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 2002
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 656
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.8
ISBN: 0307263517
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5425
EAN: 9780307263513
ASIN: 0307263517
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: DUST JACKET SHOWS SOME WEAR ,BUT IT IS A BRAND NEW BOOK BUT OUT OF SHRINKWRAP,'BOOK CLUB EDITION'.UNREAD,UNOPENED,SHIPS WITH DELIVERY CONFIRMATION,BUY WITH CONFIDENCE,THANKS
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Product Description
Hailed in Britain as “Spectacular . . . Searingly powerful” (Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Telegraph), a riveting, impeccably informed chronicle of the final year of the Pacific war. In his critically acclaimed Armageddon, Hastings detailed the last twelve months of the struggle for Germany. Here, in what can be considered a companion volume, he covers the horrific story of the war against Japan.
By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan’s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast stage of Asia, with massive clashes of naval and air forces, fighting through jungles, and barbarities by an apparently incomprehensible foe. In recounting the saga of this time and place, Max Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the theater’s key figures—MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors—American, British, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese—caught in some of the war’s bloodiest campaigns.
With unprecedented insight, Hastings discusses Japan’s war against China, now all but forgotten in the West, MacArthur’s follies in the Philippines, the Marines at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria. He analyzes the decision-making process that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which, he convincingly argues, ultimately saved lives. Finally, he delves into the Japanese wartime mind-set, which caused an otherwise civilized society to carry out atrocities that haunt the nation to this day.
Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Best End of the Asian War Book September 8, 2008
Retribution is every bit as good as Max Hasting's previous book, Armageddon. Also, a person gets the story that in 1944 the issue of the war against Japan was still somewhat in doubt. Hastings breaks the book down into three main themes. First, there is the two part American offensive against Japan by both the Army and Navy. Second, there is the British action against the Japanese in Southwestern Asia. Third, the last theme is about several different subjects.
As in the allied book Armageddon, Retribution can get to be a little ghastly. The reader is given a small paragraph on the horror of war on about every fifty page. Strangely, both the Americans and Japanese are just as barbaric towards one another as the Germans and Soviets were to one another in the Eastern front of the European war. One British commander tells a soldier driving a jeep to remove a skull from it. The reason is not empathy with Japan but the fact the British lost thousands in the great retreats in early '42 and the worry was it would be a British soldier's skull decorating the jeep.
Retribution does a fair job of explaining the scope of the US Navy's win during the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot". In the intensive aerial combat during the Battle of Britain, perhaps 65 aircraft were shot down on both sides per day. The US Navy destroyed well over 450 aircraft during the Battle of the Phillippines sea in just one day. In the space of a few days Japan's carriers were made impotent by American air power. With the exception of the debacle with Taffy 3, the US Naval operations are textbook .
The book pretty much follows this formula of British War, American War, and allied subjects. The individual subjects covered in the book range from the poor Chinese military leadership, the basic ineffectiveness of the 14th Air Force (formerly the AVG), how Australian went from being on the front lines against Japan to an inglorious end to the war, the British Navy's setting in the sun, the very overdone US Navy's build up during the war, and dozens of other Pacific war related subjects.
What makes this book important is it shows that most historians fail to understand is it was the B-29 SYSTEM that lead to the nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities. The atomic bombs were not the end all or be all of weapons. The atomic bombs were merely a part of an arsenal of weapons to attack Japan. These weapons ranged from plain bombs to fire bombs to very complex anti-ship mines. The American taxpayer had put billions of dollars (1940 era) into the ultimate bomber system. Max Hastings makes it very clear the B-29 was both an expensive weapons system and it was somewhat ineffective. B-17 and B-24 bombers operating from Iwo Jima and Okinawa could have done the same job as the B-29 and at a fraction of the cost. This fact is lost on the anti-nuclear weapons critics. It was not the building of the bombs that demanded their use in war. It was the making of the most expensive bomber system in the world that forced the B-29 owners to use any weapon to justify the extremely high cost of the program.
If a reader gets anything from the book it should be the understanding that it was the B-29 that begat the nuclear age. So much money was spent on the B-29 program that the US Army Air Force had to use nearly any weapon to justify the huge cost of the project.
This book also explained why Russia and China relationships soured by 1973. When the Soviets invaded Manchuria in August of 1945 their soldiers acted as barbarically to the local Chinese as they had to the Germans in '44 to '45. The seeds of the Chinese/American pacts of 1973 were sown by raping and pillaging Soviet solders in 1945.
That is the biggest difference between Armageddon and Retribution: Armageddon is the end of the story; the Great European war of 1914 to 1945 was over. Retribution is actually the beginning of an era; the advent of an independent South East Asia. From India to Vietnam, from China to the Philippines, all these nations can count WWII as the milestone on their road to independence or self determination.
 Excellent Last Year Against Japan, Bogs Down On Surrender vs Atomic Bomb Issue August 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The British author Max Hastings normally a creditable job in covering his campaign de june, but this time as with "Armageddon" he attempts to cover larger campaigns and issues of WWII and doesn't altogether succeed. The British slant is present as usual, this time playing up the British campaigns in the CBI theater as important to Japan's defeat. Well, hardly. The fastest the British moved was in steaming to Hong Kong to re-occupy their former colony at war's end before the Americans got there. Siam was lost to them due the OSS support of the "Black Thais", and that couldn't be allowed to happen again.
The strong points have been covered well in other reviews, but allow me to add a few facts into the debate over the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs. Yes, the Japanese Foreign Office had made an offer (in response to a query) to surrender through the Soviet Union in early July but it was clearly unacceptable to the US. These cables and their decoding through Magic were discussed at length (see Richard B. Frank, "Downfall"), and although the clear Japanese text is sometimes seized upon to prove the revisionists' case that Japan would have surrendered without the atomic bombs being dropped or suffering an invasion, the analysis made at the time clearly held such a possibility to be highly improbable. Nonetheless, we see it again and again by those, often from the now-defunct British Empire, who wish to vilify the US. You can see some of this in the other reviews, including the one done by the Washington Post writer. Hastings generally follows the most rational analysis of this period without polemics to pursue.
It is also interesting to note that none of the capitulation initiatives until after the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb originated in Japan. The Japanese Foreign office only responded to initiatives from other countries during June and July. In addition, the Potsdam Declaration issued on July 26th, effectively spelled out the Allied terms of surrender that were unacceptable to the Japanese military. Their only hope was to make American casualties so unacceptable to the American public that they could obtain better terms. The validity of such a strategy would later be proven by the Chinese in Korea and the North Vietnamese in Vietnam.
It is also interesting to note that Togo's message to Sato on July 17th requesting he continue contacting the Soviets said, "Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender." The reader can easliy understand what this means.
The intelligence estimate generated for the Combined Chiefs of Staff at Potsdam concluded, "... for a surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese Army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgance of a military in Japan." Neither the Combined Chiefs nor Truman were willing to discuss terms on that basis. And there has been no evidence since that time to contradict that intelligence estimate. One must remember that the Foreign Office did not rule Japan -- the military did with the silent consent of Hirohito. It was only when Hirohito finally issued his rescript that the war could be brought to an end, and first he needed to be convinced to take such action. He was looking at possibly negotiating a peace in October or later after the Americans started taking unacceptable casualties (for them) as reported by Bergamini and supported by his later statement to MacArthur that the atomic bombs gave him an excuse to surrender earlier than that. Note: he needed an excuse, and losing a few million of his subjects was not sufficient for him to ensure compliance from his military.
The reader must also note the chronology. The Hiroshima bomb was dropped on August 6th, but that didn't catalyze much surrender activity. The Russians declared war on Japan on August 8th, and opened their attack on Manchuria on August 9th, the same day the Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Towards midnight on the 9th, Hirohito called a meeting of the Supreme Council and attempted to get them to accept capitulation. The most that came out of that meeting was a cautious sending of peace feelers through Sweden and Switzerland. On the 10th, Japan suggested it would surrender "... on the understanding that it (the surrender) does not comprise any demand which prejudices the perogatives of the Emperor as soverign ruler." On August 14th, Hirohito decided to issue his rescript by radio announcing the cessation of hostilities. The Americans took this as a surrender, although in the Japanese language version they simply "Ceased to Fight" rather than surrendering. Fighting continued at various locations through August 25th, and the final instrument of capitulation was signed on September 2nd.
With respect to the Soviet attack on Manchuria on August 9th, no doubt that helped Hirohito make up his mind, but it is folly to say that the Soviet attack was the deciding factor. There has been an enormous amount of Monday-morning quarterbacking based on a few statements that were and are still open to interpretation, and the opinions of high officials in the Truman administration who did not understand what was going on in Japan are hardly proof of Japan's intention to surrender without the military's concurrence. In this situation, Hastings is not kow-towing to the American Legion -- he is presenting the most likely case.
In conclusion, this is a fine book that will greatly upset the revisionists and those who wish to see the US as evil. Sorry, guys, but this situation is ten times clearer than the Kennedy assassination.
Overall themes excellent; some details a bit weak August 25, 2008
This book is a companion volume to Max Hastings' earlier book Armageddon, which chronicled the end of Nazi Germany. Retribution is about equivalent to Armageddon in scope, magnitude, and length, and it's about comparable also in terms of the author's intent in writing the book, at least apparently. While the author does attempt some original research, he's rather open that a lot of what he's written here is from other published sources, and he doesn't try to dress up what he writes as universally original scholarship.
The war with Japan in 1945 was especially violent. To modern sensibilities, it's one of the most senseless conflicts in the history of mankind. It should have been obvious to Japan's rulers that they couldn't win the war. This should have led them inevitably to the conclusion that they needed to find a way to surrender in order to stop the killing of civilians, both in Japan and abroad. Instead, Japan's leadership insisted on continuing the fighting, and factions within the leadership actually wanted to continue after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Hastings does a good job of illuminating all of this, and the result is an interesting discussion of the end of World War II in the Pacific.
Hastings recounts the last battles of the war reasonably well, though as documented in another of the reviews he somewhat garbles the surface battles that were part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The one thing I noticed that was pretty egregious was also rather odd: he reproduces, in the illustration section of the book, a photograph of USS Gambier Bay, bracketed by shell splashes, and neglects to point out that you can see a Japanese heavy cruiser on the horizon in the photograph. It's odd to see this photo without the proper caption explaining what's going on in it.
One side note: the review above by Kai Bird should be approached with considerable caution. Bird has almost nothing to say about Retribution itself, concentrating on Hastings' view of Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs and the Japanese intentions (were they going to surrender, or fight on?) before and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What gets left out of Bird's review, and what is probably unknown to many non-scholars (I certainly didn't know, and I pay some attention to this sort of thing) is that Bird is the co-author of a book on the subject of Japan's surrender. Bird's book takes the point of view that the Japanese were intending to surrender anyway, and Truman destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to intimidate the Soviets. This has been discredited repeatedly by more objective scholars: the premise rests on a very selective reading of some documents, while ignoring mountains of others which contradict it, and is therefore restricted to the liberal fringe of American scholarship. Too bad Amazon had to reprint the guy's article as if it was definitive.
All in all this is a good book. Hastings is a reliable, intelligent writer, and this is one of his better efforts. I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend it.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Pacific war, but were afraid to ask. August 24, 2008
The ETO has gotten a lot more ink than the Pacific, and frankly, I didn't know that much about it, that's why I got the book. The author gives a balanced view of the war in the Pacific that is refreshing. MacArthur wasn't the paragon of American military heritage that accounts have had us believe. Halsey was kind of a loose cannon, and the Japanese were real people, instead of the RKO/MGM images of war movies.
Truly a Downfall August 18, 2008
I would defnitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the historical truth about the end of WW II in the Pacific Theater. Mr. Hastings does an excellent job of covering the entirety of the Japanese conflict with the Allied forces. Further, his concentration on the 1944/45 time frame allows one to gain real perspective on the immense stupidity and fantasies the Japanese leaders held about their opponents, their own capabilities, and their hopeless position compared with their opponents.
It is notable that the author includes description from all of the battlefronts, and treats the experiences of most of the peoples involved in the Pacific War: Burma, China(s), Vietnam, Manchura, the Philipines, Australia, etc. Nowhere to my knowledge has such a wide view of the conflict been available in one volume, nor have many in the West seen this material.
Certainly the Chinese experience is one that bears highlighting. Hastings recounting of their treatment under Japanese invasion and occupation is of immense value in calculating just what the impact of prolonging the Japanese War would have meant. It also provides insight into the continuing Japanese avoidance in coming to grips with their national behavior and responsibilities as a nation state in Asia from 1931 onwards.
This book also continues the burying of revisionist claptrap (some by the Washington Post reviewer) about "Unconditional Surrender", the decision to use atomic weapons, their effects on the Japanese in power, and the entry of Stalin's Soviet forces into the Pacific War. Hastings reinforces hitorians like Frank and Newman in thoroughly demolishing the Alperovitz (and Bird) pipe dreams.
No doubt something went terribly wrong in Japan after the 1920's. This excellent book provides the reader the insight into the 1945 coda to that era.
My only semi-serious quibble is with the author's comparison of the '44/'45 Japanese air defense against US air attack. He compares it to that of the English during the Battle of Britain, and I would mention that the RAF air defense system was far more integrated, technologically sound, and wonderfuly led. The RAF also had a foe with far less capability, committment, and focus than the Japanese contended with.
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