CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations List of Maps Introduction CHAPTER ONE Dilemmas and Decisions War in the East Summit on Oahu CHAPTER TWO Japan: Defying Gravity Yamato Spirit Warriors CHAPTER THREE The British in Burma Imphal and Kohima “The Forgotten Army” CHAPTER FOUR Titans at Sea Men and Ships Flyboys CHAPTER FIVE America’s Return to the Philippines Peleliu Leyte: The Landing CHAPTER SIX “Flowers of Death”: Leyte Gulf Shogo The Ordeal of Taffy 3 Kamikaze CHAPTER SEVEN Ashore: Battle for the Mountains CHAPTER EIGHT China: Dragon by the Tail The Generalissimo Photo Insert One Barefoot Soldiers The Fall of Stilwell CHAPTER NINE MacArthur on Luzon “He Is Insane on This Subject!”: Manila Yamashita’s Defiance CHAPTER TEN Bloody Miniature: Iwo Jima CHAPTER ELEVEN Blockade: War Underwater CHAPTER TWELVE Burning a Nation: LeMay Superfortresses Fire-Raising CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Road past Mandalay Australians: “Bludging” and “Mopping Up” Captivity and Slavery Inhuman Rites Hell Ships CHAPTER SIXTEEN Love Day Okinawa At Sea Photo Insert Two CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Mao’s War Yan’an With the Soviets CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Eclipse of Empires CHAPTER NINETEEN The Bombs Fantasy in Tokyo Reality at Hiroshima CHAPTER TWENTY Manchuria: The Bear’s Claws CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Last Act “God’s Gifts” Despair and Deliverance CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Legacies A Brief Chronology of the Japanese War Acknowledgements Notes and Sources A Note About the Author Also by Max Hastings Copyright In memory of my son CHARLES HASTINGS 1973–2000 War is human, it is as something that is lived like a love or a hatred…It might better be described as a pathological condition because it admits of accidents which not even a skilled physician could have foreseen —Marcel Proust “Oh, surely they’ll stop now They’ll be horrified at what they’ve done!,” he thought, aimlessly following on behind crowds of stretchers moving away from the battlefield —Tolstoy’s Pierre Bezukhov at Borodino, 1812 In 1944, there seemed absolutely no reason to suppose that the war might end in 1945 —Captain Luo Dingwen, Chinese Nationalist Army ILLUSTRATIONS INSERT ONE Roosevelt, MacArthur and Nimitz on Hawaii (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Admiral William “Bull” Halsey (U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Sikh troops charge a foxhole in Burma (Imperial War Museum, London: IND 4550) Elephant transport in Burma (Imperial War Museum, London: SE 3189) River crossing during the 1944–45 Burma campaign (Imperial War Museum, London: SE 4100) Bill Slim (Imperial War Museum, London: SE 3310) Two scenes during the Japanese invasion of China (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS; © Associated Press/PA Photos) Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai (© AFP/Getty Images) The puppet emperor Pu Yi (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS) Chiang Kai-shek (© Bettman/CORBIS) The Japanese Combined Fleet on its passage towards destruction in September 1944 (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) USS Gambier Bay bracketed by Japanese fire during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) The cruiser Birmingham aids the stricken Princeton after a crippling air attack (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Nimitz, King and Spruance aboard the cruiser Indianapolis (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Krueger and Kinkaid (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Kurita (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Ugaki (Courtesy of Donald M Goldstein, University of Pittsburgh) Men crouch tensed aboard a landing craft (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Marine amphibious vehicles approach Peleliu (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) A task group led by U.S carriers at sea in late 1944 (© Bettman/CORBIS) A pilot in the “ready room.” (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Launching a Hellcat (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Commander David McCampbell (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) U.S soldiers taking cover on Leyte in November 1944 (© Associated Press/PA Photos) U.S soldiers fighting through the wreckage of Manila in February 1945 (© Associated Press/PA Photos) The Marines land on Iwo Jima (U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Japanese surrendering on Iwo Jima (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington) Gen Douglas MacArthur (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Lt Bill Bradlee Lt Philip True (Courtesy of Philip True) Emory Jernigan (Courtesy of Vandamere Press) Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) British survivor at Nakhon Pathom, Siam, in 1945 (Imperial War Museum, London: HU 4569) Four Australians drag themselves to the U.S submarine Pampanito, which had sunk the transport taking them to Japan (Australian War Memorial: PO3651.009) INSERT TWO A Japanese pilot prepares for his final mission (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images) A suicide plane narrowly misses the U.S carrier Sangamon off Okinawa (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) USS Franklin afire (© Associated Press/PA Photos) Marines in one of the innumerable bloody assaults on Okinawa (© W Eugene Smith/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) Civilians on Okinawa await their fate (© Bettmann/CORBIS) A Marine helps a woman and her baby to safety (© Bettmann/CORBIS) Yoshihiro Minamoto Haruki Iki Toshio Hijikata Renichi Sugano Harunori Ohkoshi Toshihara Konada Kisai Ebisawa Yoshiko Hashimoto with her family, who paid a terrible price for the March 1945 USAAF firebombing of Tokyo Hachiro Miyashita One of Miyashita’s photographs of a sombre young pilot watching fuelling for his plane’s last flight USAAF B-29s release incendiaries over Japan in May 1945 (© U.S National Archives/CORBIS) Maj Gen Curtis LeMay (© Bettmann/CORBIS) Bai Jingfan, her husband and other guerrillas Li Guilin Zhuan Fengxiang and her husband Liu Danhua Weng Shan Li Dongguan Australians search enemy corpses for documents in northern Borneo, June 1945 (Australian War Memorial: 109317) Mountbatten addresses British troops in Burma (Imperial War Museum, London: SE 3484) John Randle (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books Ltd.) 758 “Someone yelled down the hatch” Andrew Wilde (ed.), The U.S.S Emmons in WWII, privately published 1998, p 21 759 “The first instinct of a destroyer skipper” Andrew Wilde (ed.), The U.S.S Douglas H Fox in WWII, privately published 1999, p 760 “I was so tired” Surels, op cit., p 101 761 “The fighting off Okinawa became routine” Clark, op cit., p 227 762 “I expected to die” AI Hijikata 763 “By the spring of 1945” AI Iwashita 764 “You’re a lucky guy” AI Ajiro 765 “What in the Philippines had been” War with Japan, op cit., p 196 766 “We took a chance and launched” NHC Box Burke file 767 “How are you? We are fine” Mitsuru Yoshida, Requiem for Battleship Yamato, Constable 1999, p 10 768 “a poor ratio of hits is due to human error” ibid., p 76 769 “At the instant Yamato” ibid., p 118 770 “Nothing gives me greater joy” ibid., p 89 771 “The destruction of Ito’s squadron” Russell Spurr, A Glorious Way to Die , Sidgwick & Jackson 1982, passim 772 “There can be little doubt” Quoted Philip Vian, Action This Day, Muller 1960, p 186 773 “KGV went up astern” Quoted John Winton, The Forgotten Fleet, Michael Joseph 1969, p 114 774 “Except for those engaged” ibid., p 140 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN • MAO’S WAR 775 “Though their enemies denounced” Snow, op cit., p 201 776 “The Communists operated in regions” AI Funaki 777 “In the anti-Japanese war, the Kuomintang” AI Yang Jinghua 778 “We had to adopt the strategy” AI Zuo Yong 779 “Guerrillas could not realistically engage” AI Wang Hongbin 406 “‘For us,’ said Li” AI Li Fenggui 780 “A lot of couples whose marriages” AI Zuo Yong 781 “nothing more than a provincial government” BNA FO371/ F6140/34/10 782 “I cannot believe he means business” ibid.; and Adrian Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey, Cape 1950, passim 783 “The Communists not, any more” BNA FO371/F2375 784 “the incandescence of personality” Davies, op cit., p 345 785 “I got the impression that here” ibid., p 347 786 “Mao and the Communists” AI Yang Jinghua 787 “Western visitors were charmed” Philip Short’s Mao, John Murray 1999, is probably the best biography for the general reader, while also commanding the respect of scholars Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story, Cape 2005, makes fascinating reading as an impassioned polemic, the case for the prosecution The book, and rival views of Mao, are exhaustively discussed in The China Journal, no 55, Jan 2006 There are also, of course, many contemporary eyewitness accounts of Mao in wartime Yan’an, some of them cited above 788 “They had an infrastructure” AI Wei Daoran 789 “If Chinese unable put up even show” BNA WO203/291 22.12.44 790 “at present were mostly inactive” USNA RG457 Box 24 SRH 074–081 18.12.44 791 “In addition to the reconnaissance groups” Vasily Ivanov, I Fought the Samurais, Moscow 2006, pp 310, 312 (Russian-language edition) 792 “Both of us felt” Snow, op cit., pp 138, 161 793 “Under no circumstances is any material help” BNA WO203/291 794 “Seeing that the Communists have not been equipped” ibid 795 “despised the Chinese [and] asked” Michael Lindsay, The Unknown War, London, Bergstrom & Boyle 1975, cited Thorne, Allies of a Kind, op cit., p 574 796 “Yan’an provided the great mass” Davies, op cit., p 371 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN • ECLIPSE OF EMPIRES 797 “extremely busy” USNA RG457 Box 24 SRH074–081 798 “The news is terrific isn’t it?” IWM Wightman Papers 97/34/1 799 “The end of the war in Europe” AI McAllister 800 “Men! The war in Europe is over!” Fraser, op cit., p 28 801 “If, as reports have it” USNA RG457 Box 24 SRH074–081 802 “There were cases” James Bradley, Flyboys, Aurum Press 2003, p 227, gives some vivid examples, but many others are to be found in contemporary files and narratives 803 “and flesh was removed from thighs” LHA PW interrogation reports 10IR579 804 “Rewarded only by silence, the launches” BNA WO203/5082 805 “From May onwards, prisoners” 114 Field Regiment RA, narrative loaned to the author 806 “I could not think of anything else to do” Winton, op cit., p 210 807 “Mass air attacks” USNA RG496 Box 809 808 “It would have been not only unfair” Slim, op cit., p 522 809 “I am trying very hard” BNA WO203/55 810 “We must naturally be prepared” H G Nicholas (ed.), Washington Despatches , Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1981, p 559 811 “The Americans are virtually conducting” BNA FO371/f1955 Sterndale Bennett 812 “To hear some people talk” Quoted R G Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, New York 1948, p 921 813 “I often think that we might” BNA WO203/5610 814 “It will look very bad in history” BNA PREM 3/178-3 815 “an awfully sweet guy” Quoted Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution, Deutsch 1966, p 29 816 “undisciplined, underequipped and destitute” Unless otherwise cited, all quotations and details given in this passage are taken from Peter Dunn’s The First Vietnam War, Hurst 1985 817 “considerable assistance from [the] British” ibid., p 108 818 “The division of French Indochina” ibid., p 112 819 “Keep off Russo-Japanese” BNA WO203/368 27.7.45 820 “There was disorderly behaviour” Col Saburo Hayashi with Alvin D Coox, Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War, Marine Corps Association 1959, p 151 821 “Those of us who knew” Horikoshi diary quoted Zero!, op cit., p 333 822 “It seemed unbelievable” AI DeTour 823 “When I took him to task” Clark, op cit., p 209 824 “We had the usual fun” Flight Quarters, op cit., p 103 825 “At Mick Carney’s insistence” Halsey and Whittlesey, op cit., p 304 826 “It was all a matter of upbringing” AI Kikuchi 827 “We felt that kaiten offered us” AI Konada 828 “It is almost impossible not to believe” Frank, op cit., p 276 829 “Ye stupid sods!” Fraser, op cit., p 124 CHAPTER NINETEEN • THE BOMBS 830 “Every Russian killed” James J Halsema, quoted Clayton James, op cit., p 774 831 “When we are vexed” BNA PREM3/472 17.10.44 832 “We must not invade Japan proper” U.S Dept of Defense, The Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan: Military Plans, 1941–45, Washington, D.C 1955, pp 50–51 833 “Everybody wants the Roosh” Swing, op cit., 28.5.45 834 “There are notes” H G Nicholas, op cit., p 559 835 “the biggest sonofabitch” Quoted Richard Rhodes, Ultimate Powers, Simon & Schuster 1986, p 393 836 “We really held all the cards” Stimson diary 14.5.45 454 “[The] meeting leaves a mental picture” USNA RG457 Box 24 837 “Japan has made special efforts” Okumiya and Horikoshi, op cit., p 335 838 “To comprehend the president’s behaviour” Professor Robert H Ferrell, Harry S Truman and the Bomb, High Plains Publishing 1996 839 “both because of the enormous reduction” West Point Archive, George A Lincoln Papers 840 “Generally it is believed” Nicholas, op cit., pp 593, 595 841 “A great many people feel” USAMHI, Eichelberger Papers, “Dearest Miss Em,” op cit 842 “Perhaps this statement” Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy, Belknap, Harvard 2005, p 135 843 “We had a most” Truman diaries, ed Ferrell, op cit., 16.7.45 844 “that at any rate they had something” BNA PREM479/2 845 “The preoccupation” Freedman and Dockrill, op cit., p 195 846 “all things are always” WSC to Portal 7.10.41 847 “Her unwillingness to surrender” Quoted Frank, op cit., p 232 848 “Subject: Bombs Away” USAF Historical Research gp-509-su July–August 1945 849 “Official investigation of the results” LC Arnold Papers Box 256 850 “The lurid fantasies” H G Nicholas, op cit., 11.8.45 851 “Old Joe called upstairs” 7.8.45, Nella Last’s War, Sphere 1983 852 “From what we knew” USAMHI Eddleman Papers 853 “It is now widely held” Fraser, op cit., p xx 854 “Stephen—a ghastly thing has happened” Abbott, op cit., p 95 CHAPTER TWENTY • MANCHURIA: THE BEAR’S CLAWS 855 “It was the worst” Ivanov, op cit., p 381 856 “This was the last great military operation” This chapter owes much to Col David M Glantz’s massive two-volume narrative of the campaign, The Soviet Offensive in Manchuria, 1945, and Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria 1945, Cass 2003, supported by Japanese and Chinese accounts and author interviews, together with interviews with and personal accounts by Soviet veterans 857 “a still more shocking report” Okumiya and Horikoshi, op cit., p 321 858 “At last!” AI Funaki 859 “The Soviet Union’s aims” VOV 389, P N Pospelov, History of the Great Patriotic War , Moscow, Voenizdat 1963, Vol V 860 “Ah, boys, they are taking you” Ivanov, op cit., p 320 861 “Uncles, is our daddy” ibid 862 “Everyone slept a lot” ibid., p 322 863 “I was twenty-two” AI Chervyakov 864 “Please, Lyosha, could you ask” AI Fillipov 865 “we came to realise the price” Ivanov, op cit., p 320 866 “What a host is moving east!” ibid., p 322 867 “there was that perpetual uncertainty” Ya Dralsya S Samurayami, Moscow 2005, p 383 868 “I’d taken part in plenty of offensives” ibid., p 322 869 “Machine-gunner Anatoly Shilov” Ivanov, op cit., p 343 870 “It took us a week” ibid., p 324 871 “Guys rubbished the Americans” ibid., p 322 872 “Some Japanese bayonets” USAMHI POW monograph no 154-b Col Hiroshi Matsumoto 873 “They were simply skin and bones” Ivanov, op cit., p 325 874 “In the hours before the assault” ibid., p 292 875 “Say hello to the Manchurians” AI Fillipov 876 “Soon there was this crazy heat” Ivanov, op cit., p 327 877 “Sixty years have passed” ibid., p 292 878 “If your majesty does not go” Pu Yi, op cit., p 317 879 “These created hazards” In the Hills of Manchuria, Military Herald no 12, 1980, p 30 880 “The Russians solved the problem” Ivanov, op cit., p 379 881 “The road widened somewhat” Belobodorov, op cit., p 50 882 “Yet even when tanks were hit” JM154, 293, quoted Glantz, op cit., Vol I, p 173 883 “Because of the difficulty of holding” Quoted ibid., p 103 884 “Soviet pilot Boris Ratner’s wing” AI Ratner 885 “Many Japanese lacked the will” AI Hongbin 886 “Units advanced from hill to hill” Quoted Glantz, op cit., Vol I, p 178 887 “We were completely exhausted” Ivanov, op cit., p 304 888 “The 59th Cavalry Division faced special difficulties” ibid., p 364 889 “I could never have believed” AI Petryakov 890 “At first, we were so thrilled” Ivanov, op cit., p 331 891 “We’re too late again” ibid., p 306 892 “The stench was indescribable” ibid., p 350 893 “They went mad and stung” ibid., p 351 894 “They deserved everything” AI Li Dongguan 895 “who gave us a great welcome” AI Jiang De 896 “This was no country stroll” Ivanov, op cit., p 314 897 “On the summit they found” ibid., p 351 898 “Suddenly the sheep were shooting” AI Fillipov 899 “On the evening of 15 August” Ivanov, op cit., p 360 900 “criminal carelessness” Russian Arkhiv 18, op cit., no 338, Political Report from the Chief of Political Department of the 2nd Red Banner Army to the Chief of Political Department of 2nd Far Eastern Front on the Brutal Murder by a Japanese Group of Medical Personnel of 70th Rifle Regiment of 3rd Rifle Division Source: TsAMO RF F.304 Op 7007 D.160 L.318, 318b, 319 901 “As soon as our anti-tank guns” Quoted Glantz, op cit., Vol II, p 121 902 “I shall die here” JM154 272–23, quoted ibid., p 124 903 “The defending troops in the Japanese fortified regions” ibid., p 255 904 “It was so hot” ibid., p 352 905 “When we entered the city of Vanemiao” Ivanov, op cit., p 330 906 “Most of us knew that Stalin” AI Luo Dingwen 907 “This was not justice” AI Xu Guiming CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE • THE LAST ACT 908 “Undoubtedly the biggest question” West Point Archive, Lincoln Papers 909 “Ignore it all” AI Maj Shigeru Funaki 910 “and this secondary revulsion” Nicholas, op cit., p 598 911 “pour them all on in a reasonably short time” Quoted Hasegawa, op cit., p 235 912 “The days of negotiation” Nicholas, op cit., p 603, 18.8.45 913 “For Japan’s civilian politicians” AI Hando 914 “Robert Newman suggests” Newman, op cit., passim 915 “Considering the suicidal tactics” USNA RG207 Box 404, Entry 55 916 “Despite the courage of every unit” Ugaki diary, op cit., p 665 917 “The war ended on August 15” Onoda, op cit., p 75 918 “a reprieve from” AI Kikuchi 919 “The Allies will destroy” Mitsuo Abe, Staff Officer, Fuji Shobo 1953 920 “The men all cried” AI Hashimoto, loc cit 921 “Now we’re going to live in a new world” AI Sekine 922 “Surely we have lost the war” AI Watanuki 923 “I thought the Americans” AI Iki 924 “I was sure there would be” AI Hijikata 925 “All the way back to general staff headquarters” AI Takahashi 926 “Didn’t you hear?” AI Miyashita 927 “‘What’s up?’” he demanded” AI Ando 928 “Oh, war finish!” Somerville, op cit., p 292 929 “What reaction? Absolutely nil” IWM Thompson Papers 87/58/1 930 “The Japs won’t like that” Somerville, op cit., p 293 931 “A repatriation officer” George Cooper, Never Forget, Never Forgive , Navigator Press 1995, p 167 932 “It seemed like talking to men from Mars” IWM Pearson MS 99/3/1 933 “I felt a lump” Sunday Pictorial 7.10.45 934 “the wicked Americanos had dropped” IWM AR Evans Papers 82/24/1 935 “Listen, you goddamned son of a bitch” Glusman, op cit., pp 437–79 936 “My God, Stuart, you look fat” AI Cunningham 937 “Mei kuo ting hao” White and Jacoby, op cit., p 277 938 “because this meant” AI Luo Dingwen 939 “who else is alive?” AI Yan Qizhi 940 “and even if we had been, I doubt” AI Wu Yinyan 941 “We had to tell them” AI Najiro 942 “The samurais were” Belyaev, op cit., pp 295–97 943 “I was nineteen” AI Nakamura 944 “We felt nothing” AI Fillipov 945 “The Russians were our allies” AI Zuo Yong 946 “The Russians simply behaved” AI De 947 “Japanese propaganda had successfully imbued” “The Northern Pacific Flotilla in the Southern Sakhalin Operation,” VIZh, no 2, Feb 1980, p 78 948 “Go-go-go! I’ll stay and look after the house” AI Fushun 949 “In view of the current war situation” Matsumoto monograph, op cit., p 191 950 “After the first [Russian] salvo” The Last Battle of Hutou, Beijing 1993, p 76 (Chineselanguage edition) 951 “There were plenty of” ibid., p 83 952 “The defence was extraordinarily brave” AI Hongbin 953 “Most of the local people” Ivanov, op cit., p 315 954 “I saw some men coming down” ibid., p 384 955 “When I came back to the depots” ibid., p 299 956 “I didn’t get a wink of sleep” ibid., p 336 957 “Comrade Lieutenant” ibid., p 337 958 “Instead, he spent the next five years” Pu Yi, op cit., p 324 et seq 959 “Give us ten years” AI Li Min 960 “the Russians had stripped the peasants” AI Li Fenggui 961 “They were sick—and they had no money” AI Fengxian 962 “An image of Manchuria” Ivanov, op cit., p 353 963 “‘The Japanese,’ concluded” BNA FO371 F11097/6390/61 964 “I felt I had acquitted myself” IWM Daniels MS, op cit., p 289 965 “The feeling of Japan’s leaders” Shigemitsu, op cit., p 324 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO • LEGACIES 966 “If the bombing of Hiroshima” Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, Penguin 2002, p 778 967 ‘“Dear Sir,’ wrote Garba Yola” LHA Stockwell Papers 968 “Despite his undoubted qualities” Spector, op cit., pp xiv–xv 969 “Our country is in ruins” Abbott, op cit., p 196 970 “I marvel continually” USAMHI Griswold Papers 18.9.45 A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Max Hastings is the author of the critically acclaimed Warriors, Armageddon and Overlord, and thirteen other titles He has served as a foreign correspondent and as the editor of Britain’s Evening Standard and The Daily Telegraph and has received numerous British Press Awards, including Journalist of the Year in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988 He lives outside London ALSO BY MAX HASTINGS REPORTAGE America 1968: The Fire This Time Ulster 1969: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland The Battle for the Falklands (with Simon Jenkins) BIOGRAPHY Montrose: The King’s Champion Yoni: Hero of Entebbe AUTOBIOGRAPHY Going to the Wars Editor MILITARY HISTORY Bomber Command The Battle of Britain (with Len Deighton) Das Reich Overlord Victory in Europe The Korean War Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945 Warriors: Extraordinary Tales from the Battlefield COUNTRYSIDE WRITING Outside Days Scattered Shots Country Fair ANTHOLOGY (EDITED) The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A KNOPF Copyright © 2007 by Max Hastings All rights reserved Published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York www.aaknopf.com Portions of this work appeared in World War II magazine Originally published in Great Britain as Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45, by HarperPress, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, London, in 2007 Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hastings, Max Retribution : the battle for Japan, 1944–45 / by Max Hastings p cm Includes bibliographical references World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area World War, 1939–1945—Japan I Title D767.H353 2008 940.54'25—dc22 2007034202 eISBN: 978-0-307-26864-8 v3.0 ... the rest of the conflict put together Posterity knows that the war ended in August 1 945 However, it would have provided scant comfort to the men who risked their lives in the Pacific island battles,... judge for themselves whether the fate which befell Japan in 1 945 merits that description, as I believe it does The war in the Far East extended across an even wider canvas than the struggle for. .. Washington) MAPS The Pacific Theatre The American campaign on Leyte, October–December 1944 The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23–25 October 1944 The Japanese occupation of China, 1937 45 The American invasion