by Max Hastings
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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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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A wonderful book. I loved it., 2008-09-21
Every page of this book was fascinating. All my previous knowledge of WWII was limited to the European arena. This book was a complete education on the Japan side of the war. I do a lot of business in Japan. With this book, I was able to gain insights into the Japanese perception of victory and honor which might influence their business behavior as well. This was a great book.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 a somewhat Anglocentric view of the Pacific War, 2008-09-16
First off, let me say that having Kai Bird review a book about the Pacific War is akin to having George Soros give a considered judgment on a book about the Bush administration. What was the Washington Post thinking? Kai Bird is not a historian of the atomic bomb; he is an impassioned critic of anything and everyone connected with its development and use. For my part, I find Mr Hastings's view of the a-bomb deployment to be one of the more valuable features of this history. He deserves great praise for not buying into the second-guessing of Harry Truman's decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.
I do have two complaints about the book. First, though he resists the temptation to condemn the United States for using the atomic bomb, he does follow the usual academic and media ritual of equating Allied war crimes with Japanese, even to the extent of blaming MacArthur for the Japanese rape of Manila. (MacArthur should have bypassed Manila? Really? Why not bypass Berlin or Tokyo while we were at it?) Second, like Hastings's otherwise magnificent histories of the Normandy invasion and the fall of Germany, this one is absurdly Anglocentric. The British sideshow in Burma gets 36 pages; the infitely more significant US submarine campaign merits only 15. Similarly, Hastings is relentlessly critical of the American fighting man and of American military leaders like MacArthur and Chennault. (Calling Chennault "this considerable charlatan" is about the stupidest assessment of a WW2 figure I have ever read.)
Overall, I would recommend Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire as the better history of war's end in the Pacific. Still, Max Hastings has a formidable gift for discovering, interviewing, and quoting the men and women who were caught up in these events, and his book is worth reading on that account alone. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Best End of the Asian War Book, 2008-09-08
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.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Last Year Against Japan, Bogs Down On Surrender vs Atomic Bomb Issue, 2008-08-29
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 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, an item Hastings doesn't mention. 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. As Hastings said, "The myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway (without the atomic bombs being dropped) has been so comprehensively discredited by modern research that it is astonishing some writers continue to give it credence."
On the other hand, Hastings said, "It is now widely acknowledged that Olympic (the invasion of Japan) would almost certainly have been unnecessary." Maybe, but incorrectly. Yes, Japan was facing declining food availability, but had been for some time. A greater question was whether the American public would be willing to accept the casualties an invasion would would bring. If not, then a negotiated peace would be necessary, and in this respect is it noteworthy that post-war Japan has successfully fought off almost all attempts to assign war guilt to Japan or even to accept responsibility for their aggression and murderous occupation policies. US citizens blithely purchase Mitsubishi products even though the company employed slave labor during the war. Mitsubishi even sought to question whether Japan had invaded China, but somehow its automobiles are purchased by Americans who are willing to give Japan a pass on its crimes. Perhaps Mitsubishi should use the slogan, "From the Company that gave you the Japanese Zero with slave labor."
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.
The reader should also consider 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." An historian can easily understand what this meant.
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.
The negatives of the book are many, and it is riddled with mistakes. Major Archimedes Patti is listed as Sebastian Patti as an example, and I could fill the review with like errors. It is as if Hastings's researchers were incompetent, but Hastings took their information unquestioningly because small mistakes would not invalidate his arguments and points of view. Maybe not, but the book as is cannot be considered definitive history. One should be warned that many historical details are inaccurate so the reader will not use this book's details as points of reference.
With respect to Hastings's arguments, his constant use of disparaging adjectives to describe MacArthur was jarring. Perhaps Hastings overlooked the fact that MacArthur's forces suffered the lowest casualty rates of any major allied commander. And if MacArthur was wrong in not bypassing the Philippines, what rationale on earth was there for the British campaign to retake Burma? Had Slim's army never moved an inch after Imphal, the war's outcome would have been the same. More tellingly, MacArthur can be faulted for fighting the South Pacific campaign at all. The case can be made that the decision came in the Central Pacific, and the US should have bypassed everything to the south and west of the Marianas and gone straight to Japan. But MacArthur fought the enemy in front of him as he was told to do, initially to defend Australia, then to take the fight to the enemy.
In conclusion, this is an interesting book that will add to discussions of US Pacific strategy and Japan's demise. Please read past the "the British were the experts, the Americans bumbling amateurs with a gift in economic production" attitude. Depictions such as, "Hurley (US General Patrick Hurley) was a buffoon, loud-mouthed and verging on senility" when Secretary Stimson characterized Hurley as "...loyal, intelligent and extremely energetic ... pleasant and diplomatic in his manner..." and a "very fortunate" choice (by General Marshall), seem woefully out of place and should be ignored. The question then becomes, what does the reader ignore? The answer only comes after reading more books by other authors on the subject.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Overall themes excellent; some details a bit weak, 2008-08-25
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.
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