Max Hastings, Retribution; the Battle for Japan, 1944-45

The author describes the last year of the war against Japan, which had started on 18th, September 1931, when Japanese troops attacked Manchuria. However, this was just the beginning of their conquests, which up to December 1941 included large portions of China, and the whole Korean Peninsula. To stop the Japanese expansion, which was accompanied with so far unheard of atrocities against the captured soldiers as well as toward the occupied populations, the USA imposed progressively tighter embargoes on industrial goods and raw materials exported to Japan. Since this might actually stop the Japanese war machine and prevent their further conquests, the Japanese committed a fateful move by attacking Pearl Harbor.

The architect of this assault was the competent Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He had studied at Harvard and served several years as the naval attaché in Washington D.C. Knowing well enough the strength of the USA and their mighty industrial potential, he at first opposed the planned adventure. But, as an obedient soldier, he nevertheless carried out the order to attack. His plan was to destroy the main US Pacific fleet with a single decisive blow, by attacking Pearl Harbor, where - at the time of the attack - the major part of US Pacific fleet should be anchored. If successful, then Japan would have a half to one year's time to expand her possessions. Then the Japanese Government should offer acceptable terms for peace, before the USA, supported by its enormous industrial power, would start reversing the process. He almost succeeded, but on December 7, 1941, when the attack was launched, no US airplane carriers were in Pearl Harbor. And just those carriers, plus others, built in 1942-45, together with submarines and other navy vessels as well as the new B29 Superfortress bombers were decisive in achieving the eventual Japanese defeat.

After crippling the US Navy in Pearl Harbor the Japanese hastily began fulfilling their plans. In the following three years they occupied all important Pacific harbors of China, French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Philippines, a larger part of New Guinea and some smaller Pacific islands, all the way from the Aleutians in the north, down to Gilbert and Salomon Islands in the south. The "Battle of Coral Sea" (in May 7, 1942) was the turning point, followed by the massive defeat of the Japanese Navy in the "Battle of Midway" (in June 4, 1942). Then the circumstances became ripe to beat Japanese for good.

To liberate such a vast occupied area and press the Japanese to surrender, the leaders of the British-, Chinese-, Australian-, American- and other armies, had basically different ideas of how (and why) to achieve their ultimate goal. The most straightforward was the American plan. After the B-29 bombers began their massive air raids on Japan in 1945, their plan was to bomb the "Country of Rising Sun" into the Stone Age and starve the population by the navy and submarine blockade to such extent, that the assault on the main Japanese islands would probably not be necessary in order to achieve capitulation. (At that time the knowledge that an atomic bomb was being developed was limited just to few US leaders).

However, even on the US side General Douglas McArthur wanted to liberate the Philippines before the main assault on Japan. When he was forced to escape these islands on March 11, 1942, he promised to return and he wanted to keep his word no matter what the cost. It is easy to understand that all nations suffering under Japanese occupation would prefer to be liberated first, before attacking Japan proper. The British, French and Dutch, which had their colonies in Asia, would prefer to get them back as soon as possible. For Mao Zedong in China the preference was to establish a Communist system in his country, while the struggle against the Japanese was of secondary importance. On the other hand, for the Chinese nationalist leader Chang Kai-shek the most important thing was to get rid of the Japanese (and to prevent Mao fulfilling his plans) but the effectiveness of his actions was excessively impaired by the corruption and incompetence of his army. For Australians the price to continue fighting the Japanese, who had bombed Darwin and Broome in 1942, seemed too high, after the occupied islands in their immediate north were liberated. In short, the main burden of final assault on Japan lay on the shoulders of the Americans. And even among them the Army, Navy and Air Forces had different concepts of how this should be carried out.

From the book we learn of discords and concords among the allies, of enormous cost in blood and material for the liberation of Philippines, and of the stubbornness of the Japanese, who were fighting almost to the last soldier. Their leaders were harboring the false idea that the Americans would not dare to attack the main Japanese islands, because they were already paying an extremely high price in blood, when conquering the Philippines and minor islands in Pacific.

It became clear that the Japanese military leadership has lost the main objective - that the Army is to defend their people. Instead - to "save face" - their Army intended to perish together with their people. When in the beginning of 1945 it became obvious that Japan will be defeated, they kept fighting, neglecting the lives of their soldiers, of their own people and even more so the lives of peoples under their occupation.

Though the Japanese were brave soldiers, the author concludes that their leaders were mainly moral cowards. They did not have the guts to admit to their own people, that the war was lost, and stop the senseless bloodshed. Even when confronted with the fact of both atomic bombs, which were dropped in August 6th and 9th, and the Russian assault of August 8th on Manchuria, the Japanese Government remained indecisive. (The total number of deaths due to atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was approximately equal to the number of Nanking citizens, massacred by the Japanese in January 1937.) It was Emperor Hirohito, who eventually tilted the scale (in mid August) by accepting the terms of capitulation - providing it would not affect the Emperor and the members of his family. To stop the senseless further carnage, the Americans accepted, though this was not an unconditional surrender.

The author describes in great detail the struggles in continental Asia, on Pacific Sea and islands, and the bombing of Japan. His vivid description of living conditions of people and soldiers on all sides is excellent. The book is probably the best information of the final year of the war against Japan, which can be found in a single volume.

The history of the last years of the Pacific War is expansive,so many details, so much to tell. I think the author did a wonderful job in telling in a thorough but readable fashion this history.

The portrait he paints of Douglas MacArthur is unflattering and this may cause some concern with American readers as he is one of their main heroes but I can readily credit this portrait as men with huge egos and great responsibilities many times act for the preservation of their image to posterity even against the best interest of their nation as a whole. We are presented with a rather inept handling of the Phillipines campaign that cost the American military many unnecesary lives and suffering as the islands could have been by-passed as suggested by Adm. Nimitz. In the end Manila got the worst as the Japanese vented their vengeance in the unarmed civilians and the city itself was subjected to destruction in the fighting.

We are presented with the ineptitude of the japanese Navy that readily caused its demise in the Leyte Battle without getting any visible results and loosing the Battleship Musashi and many carriers in a flawed plan. This battle also gave a bad reputation to Adm. Halsey as he recklessly abandoned the San Bernardino Straits to pursue a decoy fleet of japanese carriers led by Adm. Ozawa but that didn't have planes and did not represented a real threat to the American navy. This in turn produced the battle of Samar as the main Japanese navy encountered no resistance in the part of Seventh Fleet in San Bernardino and found the Taffy 2 group almost defenseless and American destroyers and escort carriers had to fight heroically a fleet of japanese dreadnouts including Battleship Yamato that produced many casualties among the small American ships. If Adm. Kurita in command of the japanese main fleet had more stomach for fighting he could have destroyed the entire American invasion fleet at anchor at Leyte but chose to retire again through san Bernardino accomplishing almost nothing. The japanese fleets that attacked through the Northern route were totally destroyed by Adm Kincaid's Battleships (some of them survivors of Pearl Harbor) to add to the pathetic handling of this battle by the japanese that in the last year of the war seemed to do everything wrong. The only visible damage done to the American fleets was done by the japanese Kamikaze suicide pilots in a strategy that will create in the end one of the conditions for the release of the atomic bombs.

We are confronted with the British campaign on Burma led by Field Marshall Slim that was heroic and well led but ultimately futile as it did not contribute in a great fashion to the overall victory but gave the British some consolation to the dismal fashion in which they at first conduted their part of the war.

The campaigns of Iwo Jima and Okinawa are reviewed in all of their gory details. Also the extensive destruction brought forward by the B29 bombing campaign that reduced to rubble Tokyo and many important cities in japan.

We are confronted with the fact that Japan itself was almost at the brink of starvation as the American submarine campaign destroyed most of their merchant navy and that this if continued could have led to the ultimate submission of Japan. Japanese main armies were stationed in China and Korea and continued to provide victories against the Chinese Kuommingtang army almost to the end of the war thus making a necessity to bring the Soviet Union to the war in order to deal with these huge field armies. The Soviet invasion was devastating especially for the civilian population that were systematically plundered and raped by the Soviet victors.

In the end the japanese military even confronted with the destruction of their main fleets, the devastation of their cities, the starvation of the citizens did not want to concede victory to the allies thus making necessary the use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese army was ready to fight to the death defending the homeland in the event of an allied invasion that could have cost the Americans espcially millions of casualties. There are some scholars that think the use of the atom bombs was unnecessary and that the ultimate surrender of Japan was just a matter of time but I believe cool heads were not the norm in the japanese Army's high command and that the atomic bombing was the price to pay in order to make the japanese leadership to see some reason and not think just in terms of honor or saving face. In the end Anami and the Japanese Army's leadership brought destruction to their countrymen for their inhability to see the truth.

Great read and a real eye openner to the end of this great conflict that still shapes the way we are living today.

Hastings is one of the best authors of our time, and I have thoroughly enjoyed his previous works. So I eagerly awaited this selection by the History Book Club, in part to see what was advertised as his defense of the use of firebombing and the atomic bombs, a rarity in academe these days, but a position with which I agree. When it did, as I typically do, I did not start at the beginning, but went to what should have been my favorite part of the book, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, to see what novel ideas and theories he has.

And Hastings does have some novel ideas and theories. See if you notice a pattern:

Page 132: "[In October 1944] The Imperial Navy still disposed a force which, a few years past, had awed the world. Of ten battleships in commission at the start of the war, nine remained."

At the start of the war, the Japanese had ten battleships. In October 1944, they had nine. That much is true. The problem is not all of those nine were in commission at the start of the war. Of those ten that were, three were sunk: Hiei and Kirishima were sunk during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and the Mutsu sunk after she exploded under mysterious circumstances at Hashirajima anchorage. So seven of that original ten were still in service. Two more were completed after the start of the war: Yamato and Musashi.

Starting on page 132: Hastings calls the Japanese operational plan at Leyte Gulf "Shogo" -- "Operation Victory." I have seen it referred to as "Sho Go," "Sho-Go," "Sho-I-Go" or Sho-Ichi-Go" ("ichi" meaning "one" -- the plan for Leyte Gulf was "Sho 1"). I have never seen it called "Shogo" before.

Page 135: The submarine attack on Kurita's Center Force off Palawan by US submariens Darter and Dace. Hastings says, "This first American success was made possible by a tactical carelessness amounting to recklessness [...]" without giving elaboration. This amounts to a drive-by. In truth, the Darter ended up running aground on Bombay Shoal and had to be destroyed after the crew was taken off by the Dace.

Page 138: Hastings claims that light cruiser Noshiro was sunk by US carrier aircraft during Kurita's transit through the Sibuyan Sea on October 24. During this enounter, the Musashi was sunk and the heavy cruiser Myoko so badly damaged she had to retire.

Page 159: Hastings claims that the light cruiser Noshiro was sunk again on October 26 as Kurita retreated through the Sibuyan Sea. In truth, this was when the Noshiro was actually sunk. She was undamaged during the attacks on October 24.

Page 144: Hastings touches on the entire "Fuso-Yamashiro thing" -- the controversey over which battleship was sunk where in the Battle of Surigao Strait. Hastings claims that Jesse Coward's eastern destroyers launched torpedoes and at 3:08 am "heard a single explosion aboard a Japanese ship, probably Yamashiro." He later states that a torpedo from the Monssen of Coward's western destroyers left the Yamashiro "crippled," and continues:

The next American destroyer attack, by Squadron 24, probably achieved two hits. It is still disputed whether battleship gunfire or torpedoes were responsible, but what is certain is that the battleship Fuso, laid down in 1912, caught fire and broke in two after a huge explosion. Bewilderment persists about how readily such a hugh ship succumbed, but senility plaintly rendered it vulnerable.

The Fuso-Yamashiro controversy involves whether or not the Fuso took a torpedo hit at about 3:09 am (Hastings says 3:08) from the destroyer Melvin of Coward's destroyer group. No one that I am aware of has alleged that Yamashiro took that torpedo hit at that time. Moreover, the account from the Melvin alleged "two large and separate explosions seen." It was Japanese heavy seaplane cruiser Mogami that saw only one explosion.

There is indeed a dispute as to whether Fuso was sunk by torpedoes or gunfire, as Hastings claims, but the dispute concerns whether she took that torpedo and dropped out to explode and break in two, or if it was Yamashiro that dropped out to explode and break in two while Fuso continued onward to face the US battleline where she would receive concentrated gunfire from US battleships and cruisers.

By Hastings' description, Fuso has taken no gunfire, and the tropedo hit that she is believed to have received Hastings instead says was received by the Yamashiro. By Hastings' timeline, Fuso has taken no definite damage. Hastiongs has garbled the controversy and, in the process, garblesd the account of the Battle of Surigao Strait.

Pages 146 and 147: Hastings' timeline of Shima's torpedo atatck is also all wrong. Hastings has Shima launching a torpedo attack on radar contacts that turned out to be the Hibuson Islands (the humor of war), then seeing the two burning halves of the Fuso, mistaking them for separate ships. At that point he turned his force around, during which time his flagship Nachi collided with the Mogami.

What actually happened is that Shima saw the Fuso, mistaking the two halves to be burning ships, and the burning Mogami. Passing the Fuso, he saw the radar contacts and decided to launch a torpedo attack on them while hiding behind the glare of the Mogami. he mistook Mogami to be stationary when she was moving southward, and the Nachi then "skidded" into the Mogami. Aftwer receiving this damage, as well as the earlier torpedoing of the light cruiser Abukuma, and with no definite intelligence aside from the apparent annihilation of Nishimura's force, Shima withdrew.

Page 156: Hastings continually gets the names of two of Taffy 3's escort carriers wrong. He calls the Kitkun Bay the "Kitgun Bay" and the Kalinin Bay the "Kallin Bay."

Page 157: Hastings states the Japanese heavy seaplane cruiser Chikuma was sunk by bombs and aerial torpedoes. He goes on to describe the sinking by Japanese gunfire of the US escort carrier Gambier Bay. Except the Gambier Bay was sunk by the Chikuma; several pictures from the battle off Samar show the Gambier Bay under fire with the Chikuma vuisible in the distance. Hastings messed up the timeline again.

These are just the mistakes and omissions I found in one chapter. Basic things like events, timelines and ship names. Is this the result of poor editing or poor research?

What other factual errors are hidden in this book? Can I trust Hastings general writing, themes and opinions (usally very, very good) when there is so much erroneous with this thin slice?

retribution there is an awe inspiring confusion by the author of laquerware and porcelin the former being made from wood, the latter of fire clay this collossal error makes on wonder what other clumsiness lurks in the book. this is in the chapter on okinowa Palmer Madden

For those of us who fought in the Pacific during World War II, one wonders what more can be said that has not been previously written about by dozens of authors, from grand overall strategic reviews to those of individuals. The British journalist-historian Max Hastings, who has written extensively on war and in particular the Second World War, has succeeded in brilliant fashion to examine the last year of the Pacific war, combining battle accounts flavored by interviews with participants, to produce a riveting analysis of the strategic decisions and tactics used, and from this to produce sharp judgments about these decisions and those in charge.

In Hastings' account there are fascinating details little covered by others writers. These include the important role played by U.S. subs in sinking Japanese shipping, so vital to Japan's war-making powers. The shadow war in China where Mao and his cohorts in Yenan's caves did little to attack Japanese forces, waiting till the war's end to renew their battle with the Chinese Nationalists. Hastings' view of Chiang Kai-shek and his largely toothless armies is likewise largely negative. He is also critical, unfairly in my view, of the State Department Foreign Service officers in China whose reports to policymakers on the relative strength and popularity of the Chinese Communists compared to those of the Nationalist government were more favorable to Mao's guerrilla forces. He has pages about the non-military nonchalance of Naval aviators, to the concern of their superior officers, but also praise for their contributions in defeating Japan's naval power and its carrier air wing. Other interesting sidelights include the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria, the forgotten campaign of British General Slim--who Hastings' admires--in recapturing Burma, and the non-use of Australian forces in the last years of the war.

Hastings is critical of both leaders and tactics. He has little use for the showmanship and sometimes deceit of General Douglas MacArthur. Nor does he much good to say about Lord Louis Mountbatten. The author suggest, a bit unconvincely, that the entire Philippines campaign was more about MacArthur's own retribution for his failures after Pearl Harbor in defending Manila. In contrast, he has great admiration for Admiral Chester Nimitz and his leadership of the U.S. Navy. He believes, as others have, that the long and costly battle the Marines fought for Peleliu was not needed in that the importance of the island for Japanese aircraft to attack the Philippines had disappeared by the time the invasion took place. He also suggests that Iwo Jima may not have been necessary either, though many a B-29 crewmen who landed there, as did I on three occasions, would disagree. Although he is critical of the human suffering in Japan caused by the B-29 air campaign against urban target, he also believes that Japan would not have surrendered without the twin blows of the B-29 bombing attacks, ending with the dropping of the atomic bombs. He therefore allies himself with Richard Frank and other historians as to the necessity of the bombing, and has scant regard for revisionist historians who believe Japan would have surrendered without the bombing campaign, climaxed by the dropping of the A-bombs. Anyone who was in the Pacific either engaged against Japan or transferring from the European theater to be part of the invasion force held the opposite view--an immense sense of relief and joy when the overwhelming blows from the air, in addition to the virtual elimination of Japan's naval forces, caused Japan at last to accept unconditional surrender. As one who was interviewed by Max Hastings for this book, it is an honor to be cited in this candid and highly informative analysis of the final tragic months of the Pacific war.

Well written, told through the eyes of the many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and commanders of all the armies involved. The author has a strong point of view about the strategic decisions taken to end the war, and whether you agree with him or not, it is worth reading if you are interested in the war or in Japanese or American or British military history and culture.

This excellent book provides an education on the war in the Pacific. The British in Burma, miseries of jungle warfare; Japan's Chinese conquests; warships in the Pacific, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines; the battle of Leyte Gulf; the national image of MacArthur through efforts of his public relations operations (for a more splendid account of this read David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter"; return to the Philippines; Iwo Jima; Allied POW's: 27% died in Japanese prison camps as opposed to 4% in German camps; Okinawa; Mao and Chiang Kai-shek and the fruits of our great investment in supporting Chiang; loss of European empires; Curtis LeMay and the Air Force bombing Japan: dropping incendiaries on Tokyo, events leading to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Russian invasion of Manchuria; and most significantly during the last year of the war, the Japanese bushido attitude of suicidal annihilation, and the agonies of surrender, particularly bringing the war to its conclusion. POW slave labor; the human cost of victory. Japanese denial of guilt. You will think twice before buying a Honda, Toyota and especially a Mitsubishi automobile. This is a worthwhile effort by Hastings to provide a comprehensive overview of the Pacific war in a writing style that is sometimes uneven, but always lively and interesting.

No need to waste time repeating what the other 5 star reviews say, but here is my vote.

It took me a couple of chapters to get used to Mr. Hastings' writing style, but after that, couldn't put the book down. I now have a more comprehensive understanding of the Pacific War, the sacrifices, the politics, the strategies, the culture clashes, and the Bombs.

I very much appreciate that Mr. Hastings is not shy with his criticism of the legends described in this book like Gen McArthur, Adm Halsey and others.

Max Hastings is one of Britain's finest historian/journalist. A few years ago he published "Armageddon" dealing with the final year of warfare waged against Nazi German. Now he has produced "Retribution" (called "Nemesis" in England).
Over 2.5 Japanese military personnel and civilians died in this brutal war. Japan was ruled by a militaristic government noted for their cruelty. In 1937 they invaded China raping, murdering and mutilating their way across that vast nation. The rape of Nanking led to thousands of innocent civilians being brutally murdered and raped. The Japanese set up a puppet government in Manchuria. This government would fall to the Russian onslaught in the late summer of 1945. Their regime was always brutal beyond Western understanding. Among the countless crimes of Japan were:
a. launching the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Java and Singapore in 1941.
b. Starvation treatment of POWS of Asian and Western powers in which death was all too often a routine event. Countless beheadings, beatings and executions have been reported by eyewitnesses.
c. The kamikaze pilots led to untold death on the ships they attacked in a futile effort to "save face" and postpone the Rising Sun's Empire.
d. Captured people were treated as slave labor being beaten, brutalized and murdered in the millions.
In a massive war no nation's hands are clean but Japan, as Hastings makes crystal clear, were given carte blanche by the Imperial government to terrorize enemies with no considerations of humanity getting in the way. Hastings asserts that despite the massive B-29 raids on Japan led by General Curtis LeMay the Japanese would never have surrendered. Only the unleashing of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the war's end. Hastings defends the bombs as being part of the general strategy to defeat Japan in unconditional warfare. If the bombs had not fallen there would have been countless more deaths in a last ditch defense of the Japanese homeland. One person's death is a tragedy but in warfare the best policy is to end the war as soon as possible. The atomic bombs did that beginning the Cold War.
Hastings gives the outlines of the strategy and implementation of war plans at such hellholes as Leyte Gulf, the Philippines, Burma, China, Manchuria and Iwo Jima. What makes these battle narratives so poignant is the eyewitness accounts from survivors and their families. Suffering in warfare is endemic and attacks those of both sides. Japan was dead wrong in their belief that America would cave in to their demands following the Pearl Harbor attack. They were also wrong in believing the Nazis would win the European war and Russia would not declare war on their nation. The oil and food embargo strangled Japan making their victory over the Allies and their rulership over Asia a dream that was unfulfilled.Japan has never apologized for their wartime atrocities.
Along with hundreds of these reports and anecdotes of the battles, Hastings draws short personality profiles of such leaders as MacArthur, Nimitz, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and their Japanese counterparts. Emperor Hirohito was a weak ruler who allowed the war to continue at the behest of the military government led by the odious Tojo.
This book will allow the reader to vicariously experience the hell of war at sea from submarines on prowl to battleship and airship combat. We see death in all of its grisly incarnations. Man's inhumanity to man is on lurid and graphic display in these densely written 550 pages. The book is well illustrated with good maps. Hasting's bibliography is strong on first person accounts as well as standard secondary sources from throughout the world. We well fell Americans have no idea what living through this terrible time was like unless we were there.
Long ago General William T. Sherman pronounced that "War is Hell." May all who read this book work for peace among men and women in our world that is still dealing with the events of World War II.
I find Max Hastings to be a brilliant historian who keeps you turning the pages. He is a man of deep understanding and insight.

In contrast to many of the reviews, I found that this book Retribution by Max Hastings totally unbelievably sucked. The author is obviously a British liberal of the quite leftist variety. He goes to great lengths to most unfairly excoriate and malign General MacArthur and he also does a great disservice to the American fighting man in general. If one accepts the views of this author, it is a wonder how Americans managed to kill any of the enemy, much less conquer Iwo Jima. According to Hastings, the fighting caliber of the American fighting man left much to be desired. He also concludes that the aerial bombing campaign was a virtual waste of precious resources. Perhaps he and Albert Speer could have a lively debate.
However in fairness to Hastings' liberal views he is even handed in one regard. Lord Louis Mountbatten is similarly as slandered as General MacArthur. Consistent with the author's leftward slant, the British minority fighting men came in with great praise. One wonders how the British could have done so well on the Asian mainland without their Indian and other minority troops. That point could well be taken up with many other British writers and veterans. Ironically, the British minority troops that are universally revered, the Gurkas, get no where near the attention that they deserve. Personally, this book so sickened me that I just could not finish it. It was a complete waste of money.

This is a history of the fall of Japan. It covers the last year of the war. In 1944 Japan controlled a considerable empire. Its forces occupied what is now Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, large parts of China and the Philippines. Despite this Japan was on the verge of defeat. The reason is that the United States had built a naval force comprising some 40 carriers and its aircraft were vastly superior technically to the Japanese. The United States submarine force had also sunk most of the Japanese merchant marine effectively crippling the economy.

If Japan had not been run by idiots they should have given in early in 1944. However Japan was run by a military clique who held insane hopes of victory. The Japanese knew all along that they could not defeat the United States and its allies. What they had hoped to do was to stage a decisive battle which would sap the will of the allies and lead them to sue for peace. Although the Japanese army was poorly armed their leaders hoped that their superior willpower would offset the technological superiority of the allies.

What happened were a series of defensive battles in which the Japanese tried different tactics to inflict the most casualties they could on the attacking Americans. The Americans used their firepower and superiority to try to minimise casualties. Because most of these battles took place on Pacific Islands all the cards lay with the Americans. The Japanese once a battle started could not re-supply their troops and they had no ability to manoeuvrer or to counter attack. Most battles consisted of the Americans advancing carefully over hostile terrain being sniped out by Japanese in concealed fortifications. If the Japanese moved or tried to attack they were destroyed quickly. The only advantage they had was to wait concealed till the Americans came and to try to kill or injure as many as they could before they were killed. Most of these battles resulted in kill ratios which favoured the Americans. The only battle which broke this pattern was Iwo Jima which was the most successful Japanese defensive battle with the casualty ratio being 1:1

The truth was that as the Japanese had no ability to move their troops around the Americans did not really have to seek battle with most of the Japanese troops. They could simply leave them to starve to death or to die of disease on various outposts. The winning strategy was to develop bases which could threaten the Japanese home islands. This was done with the conquest of the Marianas. With the conquest of these islands the newly developed superfortress bombers could fly to Japan and to bomb its cities. Japan had no ability to fight against night raids and the superfotresses flying from the Marianas were able to destroy all of the cities they attacked.

The end of the war was brought about by a combination of the use of nuclear weapons, the entry of the Soviets into the war who destroyed a Japanese army in Manchuria in five days. It also seems clear that the defeat of the Japanese forces in Okinawa brought home that the hope of a decisive battle was illusionary. At Okinawa the Japanese used huge numbers of Kamikaze planes against the US fleet. There were some 1,500 used and 5,000 American sailors were lost.(To give some idea of the scale of the operation the average force level of the entire German Luftwaffe was about 3,000 aircraft at any time) Whilst it was the most successful action by the Japanese against a navy the American forces were so large that it failed to slow the progress of the operation much less defeat it.

A good deal of the book is devoted to the discussion of the American use of nuclear weapons. Hastings argues that the war conduct of the Japanese justified the use of nuclear weapons. That is they were barbaric and they were likely to use barbaric methods in defending their homeland which would have led to massive loss of life. (The Americans estimated 100,000 combat deaths for the invasion of Japans most southern island) Whilst there is some truth to this one struggles really to see a significant difference between the fire raids and the use of nuclear weapons. Burning Japanese cities led to huge numbers of civilian casualties.

The reality is of course that if the nuclear weapons had not been used the Japanese would have surrendered without any American casualties. Stalin had the means to invade Japan (his forces had just cut through 700,000 men defending China as if they were not there) and he would not be troubled by casualties. He was quite interested in doing so. Of course it is no doubt better for the world that we did not have a democratic republic of Japan from 1945 to 1989.

The book is interesting as the defeat of Japan is usually seen as an American story. Hastings looks at the entire theatre with discussions about the British in Burma, the Chinese and even the Australians. (He concludes that Australian dock workers did more for the Japanese war effort than most of the Japanese army)

He counters a lot of the old myths. Mcarthur was not much of a general although he was a good ruler of Japan. Campaigns in the Philippines and other places such as Iwo Jima were a waste of time. (As was a lot of the fighting in New Guinea which was in reality just filling in time till the Americans achieved total naval superiority.) All in all an easy book to read.

Hastings does a marvelous job of describing actions and policies at the lowest and highest levels spread over large distances and two years without causing the reader to suffer a form of vertigo. This accomplishment should never be underrated. In addition, the author presents material from interviews and written accounts in a way that lets the reader appreciate the experiences and mindset of the participants in a way that is almost beyond compare.

While it is true that Hastings makes a case that Iwo Jima was of marginal value in terms of lives saved versus lives lost, he also points out that the loss of Iwo was important in opening the eyes of at least some Japanese. I would add that Iwo served Japanese air defense as a warning post to the cost of American planes and crews, and the positive effect on the morale of aircrews who saw Iwo as an emergency airfield after it was captured should be added to the balance. As for Okinawa, if the US had not had this experience, the planning for invading Japan might have been based on totally false assumptions which would have cost far too many American lives.

Hastings does a terrific job of clarifying the misleading nature of the claim that "Japan was ready to surrender." As he details, the civilians were ready to surrender if they could be guaranteed not only the emperor, but also Manchuria, no occupation, and no war crimes trials. Hastings gives enough details to put to rest the idea that the war could have been ended before August 9 if only America had been willing and more skilled in diplomacy. Against the duplicity, stubbornness, and self deception of Japan's leaders the shock value of the atomic bombs (for the civilians), the Russian entry into Manchuria (for the military), and the Imperial intervention were the sine qua non of the prompt capitulation which saved so very many lives on many sides.

As others have commented, the book reads well and is hard to put down.

There are, however, some faults that I find inexplicable and that I would not have expected given the merits of the author and his book.

In Hastings' discussion of the atomic bomb he doesn't mention directly the order from Imperial Headquarters to wipe out all Allied prisoners leaving no traces in the event of invasion of Japan's main islands. Also unmentioned was that Japan was starting to build advanced fighter airplanes that might have cost America dearly if the war had not ended as it did. Still another unmentioned factor was that orders had been issued to perpetrate a biological attack on California in September with the goal of 100,000 dead. Hastings mentions that continued war would have meant starvation for Japanese civilians, but doesn't give numbers; yet the estimate for Japanese deaths from starvation was in the millions. Were these omissions due to an appreciation on the part of Hastings that these factors were too poorly documented to be credible, or what? Such observations, if credible, would go a long way toward illustrating the truism that in war delay is usually costly and sometimes disastrous.

Hastings does a good job of illustrating how racism influenced the attitudes of the grunts on all sides, and led to much callousness and brutality, but doesn't show the effect on much higher level decisions. For example, he faults the Japanese Navy for never perfecting its anti-submarine warfare capability, but doesn't relate this, as the author of Downfall does, to a racist assessment of Americans as too sissy to fight well in submarines. Why?

Finally, and only as a very minor warning, the book seemed to me to be poorly edited. I would have preferred not to see so many examples of lists that did not include "and" before the final item. The inclusion of a comma after a verb followed by its object jarred me; in general the placement and non-placement of commas was puzzling and disconcerting, as was the occasional lack of agreement of subject and verb with respect to number. I wasn't expecting a British wordsmith to use "whom" where "who" was required.

Please understand that, if Amazon would allow it, I would subtract only a half of one star from my rating: the pluses are much bigger than the minuses.

Reading this masterpiece, I finally understood why I find Hastings so difficult to read: his account of WWII is unutterably grim and terrifying. The most relentlessly frightening war book I have ever read.

Actually, it did. But despite appalling tactical and strategic losses at Midway, Guadalcanal and the Philippine Sea, the Japanese High Command kept insisting the tide would turn at any moment, giving Nippon the opportunity to negotiate a "favorable peace" with the Allies.
There are, of course, many books on the Pacific War, a fact that author Hastings notes immediately in his introduction to "Retribution." What makes this work different is the all-encompassing scope of the work -- equal time is given to Chinese, Southeast Asian and Russia areas of operation -- an unusual theme in the U.S., where histories, for obvious reasons, tend to focus on the American island-hopping campaigns.
For me, the main thrust of the book is how Hastings highlights the utter cluelessness of the Japanese High Command and the fantasies they nurtured as their world came crashing down around them. The Japanese peoples' suffering was made far worse by their leaders utterly failing to acknowledge the crimes (on par with the Nazis, as Hastings makes clear) committed in the Emperor's name and the righteous anger the Americans held against the Japanese for Pearl Harbor and the treatment of POWs and downed airmen. As far as the high command was concerned, Japan had merely waged a righteous war and was now being cruelly victimized by racist, over-reacting Americans. Then and now, the Japanese have been unwilling to face the reality of their crimes in World War II. It was, a nation that had clearly, as Hastings puts it, "lost its moral compass," and the author does a fine job of highlighting the denial of those crimes and the skewed sense of reality that pervaded Japanese leadership at the end of the Second World War. This is a fine work that will add layers of nuanced understanding to anyone interested in this pivotal period of history.

RETRIBUTION: THE BATTLE FOR JAPAN, 1944-45 is, as the title suggests, about the end (the last year) of the Pacific War. Hastings has done a commendable job in tracking down first-person accounts of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilian victims of the Asian war and using them liberally to give a feel of "being there." But the real strength of the book are Hastings' opinions as a historian about various aspects of the Pacific War. There is no mealy-mouthed equivocation. Hastings makes clear what he thinks, and by and large he successfully marshals more than satisfactory evidence and arguments to support his magisterial judgments.

Chief among those opinions is the one alluded to in the title -- RETRIBUTION. Again and again Hastings presents the essential theme of the Pacific War from the Allied perspective (which, of course, was mainly the perspective of the U.S.) as one of retribution -- not just for the attack on Pearl Harbor, but also for a wide range of Japanese atrocities, including the slaughter of millions of Chinese in Manchuria in the 1930s and the brutal and barbaric treatment of thousands of POWs. In Hastings' view, the Japanese war crimes have been matched in modern times only by Hitler's SS. "The casual sadism of the Japanese towards their prisoners was so widespread, indeed almost universal, that it must be considered institutional." Thus, to Hastings, the single-mindedness and (in retrospect) cold-bloodedness of the U.S. campaign to end the war not only can be characterized as retribution, but also can be defended as "understandable" and even "just" retribution.

A principle that Hastings invokes several times is that "few belligerents in any conflict are so high-minded as to offer to an enemy higher standards of treatment than the enemy extends to them." Thus, for Hastings, some "[p]ost-war critics of U.S. conduct in the weeks before Hiroshima seem to demand from America's leaders moral and political generosity so far in advance of that displayed by their Japanese counterparts as to be fantastic."

A few other noteworthy opinions:

* Contrary to many post-war analyses of the Pacific War, Hastings believes that the dropping of the atomic bomb was NOT the bloodiest possible resolution. "Considering the plight of civilians and captives, dying in thousands daily under Japanese occupation, together with the casualties that would have been incurred had the Soviets been provoked into maintaining their advance across mainland China, almost any scenario suggests that far more people of many nationalities would have died in the course of even a few further weeks of war than were killed by the atomic bombs."

* "Those who seek to argue that Japan was ready to surrender before Hiroshima are peddlers of fantasies."

* More generally, Hastings advances numerous considerations and persuasive arguments in defense of (most of) the U.S.'s conduct in ending the war, especially its insistence on unconditional surrender and the dropping of the atomic bombs.

* The single most decisive factor in the American defeat of Japan was the crippling of the Japanese maritime fleet, with the resulting strangulation of Japan's economy and military transport, which was achieved almost single-handedly by U.S. submarines. "No other combatant force as small as the U.S. Navy's submarine flotillas and their 16,000 men achieved a comparable impact upon the war anywhere in the world."

* Douglas MacArthur was not just vainglorious; his conduct during the Pacific War was marked by "megalomania, disloyalty to his own national leadership, pettiness, contempt for intelligence, poor selection of staff and subordinates, refusal to acknowledge error[,] and determination to shape national strategy to conform with his personal ambitions." On the other hand, the performance of the U.S. Navy, and Chester Nimitz, was truly glorious. "Nimitz, a supremely professional naval officer, neither sought nor received a due share of fame for his stellar peformance in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy's achievement was as brilliant, as decisive, as that of the Royal Navy in frustrating Napoleon's tyranny almost a century and a half earlier."

The above are just a small sample of the noteworthy opinions contained within the pages of RETRIBUTION. It is popular history of the highest order. It is exceedingly well-written. And while provocative, it is well- and responsibly considered. I believe that all accounts or analyses of the end the Pacific War over the next quarter century will have to take Hastings' judgments into account.

Everything is in this book. The facts of the war - and especially the horrific treatment of the Japanese against all. Also includes many little stories of the people who were there which gives a human touch. The discussion of the A-Bomb is really informative and reviews the decision to use it in the sense of the times of the war - not the later day skeptics. I was a young boy at that time and I can tell you that we celebrated the bombing of Hiroshima. They really had it coming

This book along with Richard Frank's "Downfall" gives a good picture of the end of the Japanese war and further puts to rest the idea that the Atomic Bombs should not have been employed. The Japanese were still full of fight.

This book is less a "nuts & bolts" history of the end of the war in the Pacific and more of a "soft" history. What did people think? How did they feel? Why did they do what they did? It speaks more to the WHY rather than the HOW. Excellent book, hard to put down, and it explores some obscure areas of the conflict. Buy it.

I have been a Max Hastings fan for years. This is another in a series of his excellent books. While I was born in 1939 and have always been a student of WWII history he shares views of the people and events that are not well known.

An excellent book that brings focus to the end of the war with Japan. Detailed and well researched as are all Max Hastings book. As with every Max Hastings book 5 stars.

Hastings continues his fine histories of the last years of World War 2. His earlier book "Armageddon"
focused on the battle for Germany, he continues in "Retribution" with the last years of the Pacific war
Starting with a striking dust cover, an eerie night photograph of a smoke screen off Iwo Jima by the legendary Life photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, the journey of death and atrocity in Asia begins. His presentation technique moves chronologically and sequentially deftly mixing commentary, observations with American, British and Japanese soldiers' memoirs. Less well known aspects of the war find space; the heroic British
push in Burma, the Australian unions' refusal to unload ships and their general difficulties supporting the Allied case, the Soviets push in Manchuria, the laxity of the Chinese nationalists under Chang Kai shek and the Communists under Mao to advance the war against the Japanese preferring to ration their efforts until once the Pacific war ended. Hastings is a fine and insightful writer; his objectivity is underscored by his severe critique of MacArthur but finally complimenting on his conciliatory speech on the deck of USS Missouri at the end of signing of the Potsdam Declaration; his criticism of the Japanese warrior ethic of bushido and
its militarist leadership for their wartime atrocities and his historical justification for Truman's dropping of
the atom bomb in August 1945. This last point has been criticized by some media reviewers for being conclusory on Hastings part. Hastings, on the contrary, lays out a convincing set of detailed rationales for
the American bombing of Hiroshima. "Any scenario suggests that far more people of many nationalities would have died in the course of even a few further weeks of war than were killed by the atomic bombs." Anyone who reads the book to its end will understand his points but may not agree with them. But that is one of the reasons why reading fine historians like Max Hastings is such pleasure.

Met or exceeded my expectations after reading reviews of it in the New York Times and the WSJ.

Relatively few people are alive today who experienced any aspect of WWII as a teenager or older. Fewer still live in countries where the WWII experience can be freely discussed, as in the United States and UK. The Soviet Union considered the war to be a people's war and only recently have stories of individual experiences been forthcoming. In Germany, less and less attention is paid to the horrendous crimes of the German people. France dramatizes its miniscule, if even existent, role. And in Japan, as Hastings points, out widespread denial is still the norm. As a result, accurate knowledge of WWII and its horrors and few glories is rapidly fading from human consciousness - and with that forgetfulness comes the danager of new and even more horrible wars.

Max Hastings writes highly readable military histories. He eschews footnotes and the minutia of academic writing in favor of a friendly narrative style. There is considerable depth, however. In its 550 pages, Hastings covers a war that spanned the years 1931 - 1945 and a bit beyond. It covered a larger geographic area than any other conflict in history, though most of the area was the Pacific Ocean.

The book opens on the saddest possible note: the dedication is to Max Hasting's son who apparently died at age 27 in 2000. And on that sad note, the deaths of millions and unspeakable cruelties at the hands of the Japanese are chronicled in the following pages.

In twenty-two chapters, Hastings treats every major aspect of the war against the Japanese by the primary combatants: the United States, Britain, China and late in the game, the Soviet Union.

Hastings begins with a look at the motivation and goals of the United States. President Roosevelt had announced the goal was unconditional surrender. In recent years, revisionist historians have claimed that this policy prolonged the war. Throughout the book, Hastings demolishes these arguments over and over again. It is quite something to see: Hastings has a clear mastery of the subject.

He then goes on to describe the various battlefronts and he is equally at home here. He uses dozens, if not hundreds, of interviews and memoirs to create his descriptions of battles like the British Burma campaign, the Battle of Leyte Gulf and so on, all the time weaving in the machinations of the main players in the Japanese, US, British and other governments. It is a very effective approach. His descriptions of the battles on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the sea war at the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the kamikazee campaign leave no room for doubt as to why the Americans feared the blood cost of an invasion of Japan.

This is a critical history and Hastings heaps it on. The vastly overrated Douglas MacArthur is cut appropriately down to size, though Hastings does laud his post-war stewardship of Japan. Hastings criticizes the revisionists, apologists and anti-Americans who condemn the United States for its actions, such as the use of nuclear weapons. He spares nothing in his criticism and outright condemnation of Japanese leaders, past and present for the widespread atrocities.

I devour history and there are few well-written histories, so I found myself dealing with "Retribution" as if it were a great thriller and couldn't wait to get from one page to another. I truly wish that books like this were require reading in America's schools so chilren would grow up with an understanding of why they enjoy such lavish freedom. It did not come free and Hastings gives new life to the tens of thousands of Americans who died in the Pacific and Asian campaigns. It is a sobering book and one that I hope will be widely read.

Jerry

Not much new here as far as new insights or evaluations, but the interviews and anecdotes from the battlefield and seas are priceless in conveying what WWII in the Pacific was like without the sanitized Hollywood filters. One must also remember that the Japanese, much like the Russians, have yet to admit their horrible scale of atrocities, genocide and massive raping even to this day. Germany has paid billions in reparations, banned Mein Kampf, and erect memorials to the suffering it has caused. Until both the official Japanese and Russian history reflects it's responsibility, they are both worthy of suspicion.

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. "Retribution" is a dramatic, precise, powerful and certainly appropriate word to describe the death throes of the short-lived Japanese empire that started with incursions into China in 1931 and ended with the last inglorious battle, the city of Hotu, on the Chinese-Russian border, in late August 1945. Hastings provides a clear, consistent narrative of the last year of the war. With extensive interviews, first-person accounts, and a broad, multicultural perspective ranging from India to Hawaii, with soldiers and civilians from Africa, Asia, America, Australia, and Britain, along with a few Dutch and French colonists, Hastings describes, analyzes and reflects on what is quickly becoming "dead" history as the people who participated in the war 65 years ago complete the long lives they deserved after such a miserable period of their existence.

Hastings is hard but not harsh on the Japanese. He admires the American naval skills and thinks not-that-highly of Douglas MacArthur, better known to the American public as the "face" of the Pacific War but actually the beneficiary of American material and naval power (including scores of aircraft carriers and their thousands of planes). In the end, the Pacific war was primarily an American-Japanese affair. British and other Allied numbers were few. The Russians opportunistically waited until August 1945 to make a brutal, neo-colonial grab in Manchuria. The Chinese split into two factions - Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, spent more of their time squabbling and acting more as bandits than soldiers. And, in the final analysis, American basically starved and squeezed the once-haughty, honor-bound, "bushido" warrior class and their people.

Hastings also examines the critics and the post-war, armchair second-guessing and apologies for the decision to drop the atomic bombs; to engage in the bloody, if perhaps unnecessary conquests of Iwo and Okinawa; and the all out or "total" bombing effort that killed tens of thousands of civilians. He finds the criticisms untimely if not unfounded. At the time, these were the best decisions to bring the war to conclusion, to save American lives, and to force a very stubborn Japanese military government to bow.

Here is the basic outline: Five hundred eight-five pages, almost thirty pages of notes and sources and an index just as long. Twenty-two chapters, starting with two parts, War in the East, Summit in Oahu; followed by the British in Burma, Titans at Sea, America's Return to the Philippines, Leyte Gulf, Battle for the Mountains, Luzon, China, Iwo Jima, Blockade (American submarine warfare), LeMay (fire bombing), Mandalay, Captivity and Slavery, Okinawa, Mao, the (atomic) Bombs, Manchuria, the Last Act and Legacies.

The entire book is highly readable, rich in details, and full of personal memories. It is as much a story of people and personalities as it is of naval or air power. It provides a good history lesson and wisely closes with the admonishment that Americans should not have assumed such an air of superiority after this war. That is, the contrast of Japanese hubris and American assets made this a unique, one-sided war, one that we will fortunately never see again, but that should leave Americans a bit more humble about their post-war position as a superpower being asked - and at times, asking -- to police the world.

Noted historian Max Hastings has written a compelling and comprehensive book about the final year of the Pacific War that is destined to become a classic.

By the summer of 1944, it had become clear that defeat was inevitable for the Japanese. Defeats in the Marshalls, Marianas and Philippines had put the Japanese back in their own front yard. American B-29s operating from bases in the newly-won Marianas islands were bombing the Japanese home islands with startling regularity. Many Japanese cities were literally burned to the ground as a result of American incendiary bombing. Tokyo itself lost over 16 square miles.

The American Navy, Marines, and Army was busy vanquishing the Japanese from such places as Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The American Navy, operating with over 100 aircraft carriers of various sizes, roamed virtually unopposed across the Pacific, delivering carrier-based planes to attack the Japanese homeland. American ships managed to get close enough to Japan to bombard the islands. However, kamikaze units posed a very real and tremendously dangerous threat to American ships. Many kamikazes managed to score hits on American vessels, sinking dozens and damaging hundreds more.

By the time the Atomic Bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, Japan was a battered, starving and defeated nation on the brink of total collapse. This was accomplished by the American armed forces who, in the eyes of the Japanese, would never fight to the end and were not known as aggressive or willing to die for their country. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the mindset of the American fighting man, and the Japanese found out just how much they changed.

This is a spectacular book. Max Hastings covers every aspect of the final year of the Pacific war. Included are descriptions of the well-known battles of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the re-capture of the Philippines, but what makes this book stand out among other similar titles is Hastings' concentration on the lesser-known theaters of the Pacific war, such as Burma, Malaya, China, India, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Each campaign has been meticulously researched by Hastings, and this book offers a wealth of information on the "hidden" side of the Pacific war. Also included in this volume is a discussion about Japanese atrocities and how, even today, Japan refuses to acknowledge responsibility for these terrible acts against civilians and POWs.

I give this excellent book my highest recommendation. I've been reading World War II history for 35 years, and this book rates as one of the best I've read. This book is destined to become the standard on the history of the final year of the war in the Pacific. This book is a must-read for World War II history fans.

I packed this for a trip to Asia, where I go every month, and was totally absorbed for the entire 12 hour flight.

Retribution covers the last two years of the War in the Pacific - pretty much the period after the Allies turned the tide until surrender. It covers all aspects of the Japan theatre, including little known ones like Burma. Here are some observations:

- After reading this, you can't help but think that MacArthur was a total megalomaniac who killed thousands of troops just to satisfy his own personal desire to recapture the Philippines.

- Australia really didn't pull its weight in the war. On the domestic front, strikes held up shipping and loading since the Australian unions were more concerned about internal power than they were supporting the war (the side-by-side comparison of Australian vs. U.S. ship loading efficiency is damning)

- I found the Asia mainland chapters a bit boring (the only parts of the book that were). England's Burmese campaign was little cared for then and virtually unknown today for good reason - it did little to advance the cause of the war. The China chapters are interesting, only because they provide the background up for that country's civil war (the bottom line is that the Chinese factions were more concerned about fighting each other than they were fighting the Japanese).

- The naval battles and island campaigns are, of course, the most fascinating parts of the book.

- Everyone knows about Japanese brutality during WWII, but this book really hits it home. Everyone thinks the Germans were the only ones vivisecting live humans. It also covers the brutality of their occupied "colonies" and prisoner camps.

- The book totally annihilates critics who argue against the use of the atomic bombs. All data, then and now, support the use of the devices, and this book hammers it home.

If you have just a little interest in the Pacific War, you should pick up this book

Hastings has portrayed the sweep of these great campaigns, often from the viewpoints of the dwindling number of eyewitnesses. His vignettes of life at war in Burma, China, on the hotly contested specks of land all over the south and western Pacific and in war-torn Japan flesh out the narrative very effectively. Of particular interest to me was his less-than-complimentary treatment of Mac Arthur, entirely fair in my view. What a contrast with authors like William Manchester in "American Caesar" and the published opinions of those such as Alan Brooke and Winston Churchill. I agree that Mac Arthur's shining moments began with the ceremonies aboard the USS MISSOURI and continued with his stewardship over a defeated Japan and later his brilliant landing at Incheon during the Korean War. However his arrogance and hubris tripped him up with Harry Truman and, quite rightly, he got canned, thus illustrating to any other would-be Caesars the subordination of the military to the elected civilian authority in our system of government.

Complex reading; need to have knowledge of politics and history and Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Excellent

I have literally read hundreds of books on the Pacific War but this is the best. Well written with scores of new info and acute observations. Not a re-telling but a new interpretation. He lays to rest the myth that the bomb was not necessary. As the son of a combat engineer who was scheduled for the first wave in the invasion, the bomb was always viewed as a life saving event. Hastings expounds and explains this seeming paradox. As fine as his prior volumes. I put down the Coldest Winter to read this as soon as it arrived.

This book, while lengthy, is very well written and takes the reader behind the typical military operations. It involves the more humane, or rather inhumane, stories of the blunders of both the Allies and the Japanese war machine. I found it very educational and full of many eye-witness accounts. The author seems very balanced in his approach and delivers praise where due as well as criticsm. The author points out that sometimes the Japanese Navy just blundered, not so much that the U.S. Navy made a brilliant tactical move. As uisual, Macarther is wrapped up in his ego and oblivious to the real needs of the war.

Highly recommended for followers of Japan's involement in WWII.

Max Hastings' well written book, Retribution, is a grippingly powerful story about the final campaigns of World War II in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, many of them personal accounts, Professor Hastings provides a well focused look inside the desperate fighting that took place in the final year of the war against the "Empire of Japan." Combined with his insights into the leaders of the different forces, and the shambles that were happening in China, Hastings explodes many of the popular "myths" that came out of WW II surrounding the fighting in the closing year of the war. He sets the stage for much of what is going on today in the region politically and economically.

Max Hastings has produced a unique and insightful view into the last year of the war in the pacific. Retribution offers the standard viewpoints of the American side which we have all come to know and are well acquainted with, but he also offers unique insider views on the Russian and Japanese sides which up until now have been underreported. Mr. Hastings does an excellent job at portraying both the military events of the last year and splicing in the impacts they had on civilians. He also does a wonderful job making it a story worth reading and keeping the reader engaged with insightful commentary and strong and identifiable character both famous and less well known.

Overall, this is a highly readable and interesting book for anyone who would like to learn the complete story of the end of the Pacific War.

This is one of the finest books about WWII that I have ever read. I would recommend it to any one who studies WWII history

Max Hastings' Retribution presents a fascinating analysis of the Pacific Theater endgame against Japan. Hastings weaves in "worm's eye" views of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines but also presents grand strategy. Overlooked aspects of the Pacific war include Japan's total dominance of China, including their successful "Ichigo" offensive that deprived the US of B-29 bases.

Hastings also explores the British role in ousting the Japanese from Burma, with a strong emphasis on the role of colonial troops such as Sikhs and Gurkhas from India.

However, Hastings' critiques of Gen. MacArthur and Gen. Chennault reek of British arrogance. Hastings rebukes MacArthur's entire Phillipines campaign by claiming that the islands could have been bypassed. Really? The Japanese would not have held the Filipino people hostage? The huge garrison there would simply surrender at some future date? US troops would not need the combat experience of seizing these islands?

Hastings' scorn for Gen. Claire Chennault, of "Flying Tigers" fame, is most unusual. He calls Chennault overrated, a "charlatan" and views this innovative commander as a pure fake. Unfairly, Hastings does not give Chennault credit for his outstanding leadership of the Flying Tigers prior to US entry into the war.

His disapproval of the kamikaze offensive is not quite right. He raises the very legitimate point that the kamikazes should have attacked the troop filled transport vessels and not frittered themselves against the well armed and well defended carriers. But to suggest that the kamikazes enraged American forces and thus created the climate that led to the firestorms and nuclear attacks is wrong. That hatred already existed.

Finally, Hastings is too quick to justify and dismiss the massive civilian casualties caused by US firebombing raids. This is a common symptom of British historians, including Robin Neillands. Hastings does provide a great deal of evidence of Japanese atrocities vs. POWs and captive populations, especially China and the Phillipines. This evidence in turn helps explain LeMay's firebombing attacks and the atomic raids.

This is an outstanding, highly readable book. I hope Hastings produces more such fine work in the very near future.

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am a big Max Hastings fan. I find his writing superb, his narrative riveting and his facts enlightening. However, Retribution misses the mark.

The War in the Pacific is not as linear as the European theatre. No straight line maps work to enlighten the reader of positions and strategy. The messiness of the Pacific campaigns makes writing about it difficult. However, a master like Hastings should be able to overcome these obstacles. He fails to do so here.

So many recently released documents have made for several great recent histories of the Pacific war. Revisionist histories placing more critical light on the failures of Halsey and the role of Hirohito make for important reading. Nothing in Retribution rises to that level. After so many pages of text I found nothing new in Retribution to justify its writing or reading. I expected so much and got so little.

Sure a work by Hastings is important in and of itself to justify purchasing Retribution. However, if you are looking for new insights, prepare to be disappointed.

World War II history books were the first serious books I began reading as a kid. I've probably read over 100 titles ranging from autobiographies (like William Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness" or Saburo Sakai's "Samurai") to "big" history (like Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich") and everything in between (especially a lot of those great Ballantine Books from the 1960s and 1970s). The value I see with Max Hastings effort, "Retribution," is that while it supplies well written history, it also reminds us of the past. The book clearly demonstrates that war is brutal, ugly, and vicious and even this "Good War" from the "Greatest Generation" still proves there's no nice way to do it.

I would quibble with Hastings' recurring need to snipe at various historical figures like Douglas MacArthur, William Halsey, Patrick Hurley, and others. He frequently finds fault with decisions that appeared to make a battle worse and that the decision makers should have known better at the time, but because they were vain, arrogant, or incompetent, more people suffered as a result.

For example, Admiral William Halsey has been second guessed for his pursuit of what turned out to be a Japanese decoy force at Leyte Gulf. Halsey directed his naval forces after that decoy, leaving vulnerable other American forces in the area. Those remaining American forces had one helluva fight on their hands when the main Japanese naval force attacked, but they managed to more than hold their own and drive off the Japanese assault. Every history book I've read going back to very early titles published shortly after the war, commented that Halsey at the very least got fooled by the decoy and should have provided better communication to other American commanders in the area. Hastings comments that Halsey should have been relieved of command, but since things turned out okay and it was so close to the end of the war, Halsey's superiors let it go.

My take on this is simple: You're always the smartest guy in the room when it's not your job. Hastings often acts like that annoying backseat driver, Monday morning quarterback, . . . (insert your favorite cliche here) throughout the book, offering these tidy, smart smacks on the wrist of the historical reputation of men who are dead now. Most of the older history books I've read didn't go that far. They noted as descriptively as possible what happened and what people thought they knew at the time and left it at that. Hastings frequently has to weigh in with his wisdom. My concern here is that if this is the only book you'll ever read about this area, you'll come away with a negative opinion of a lot of folks and I don't think that's warranted or fair. Hastings cannot accept the "fog of war" as a legitimate explanation and instead prefers to make attributions to perceived character defects.

This weakness noted, I find "Retribution" to be an accurate, detailed, interesting and complete examination of the last year in the Pacific theater of World War II. You will both understand the "big picture" and you will also have a great deal of emotional connection to all the people, whether Allies or Axis. This is a well written book. Just remember: They did it. You're thinking about it.

"When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today," is inscribed on the War Memorial at Kohima. It commemorates a forgotten battle fought by forgotten soldiers of a forgotten army of a forgotten empire for a forgotten cause against a forgotten foe - I exaggerate only slightly, for what school child in any of the great democracies (assisted only at its dénouement by the dreadful Soviet dictatorship of 'Uncle' Joe Stalin) that eventually triumphed over a monstrous and militarist enemy can tell today of Kohima, of Imphal, of Leyte Gulf, of Iwo Jima, of Okinawa? Not many, I guess. I am deeply regretful that so few of our young know anything of the above. Max Hastings has performed a first-class service for those who know little or nothing of what happened then or of the need to destroy that 'monstrous and militarist enemy,' the Japan of Hirohito. Those of us who know of the need must never forget, nor permit others so to do. Read this book (published as "Nemesis" in England) in order to know why!

"When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today," is inscribed on the War Memorial at Kohima. It commemorates a forgotten battle fought by forgotten soldiers of a forgotten army of a forgotten empire for a forgotten cause against a forgotten foe - I exaggerate only slightly, for what school child in any of the great democracies (assisted only at its dénouement by the dreadful Soviet dictatorship of 'Uncle' Joe Stalin) that eventually triumphed over a monstrous and militarist enemy can tell today of Kohima, of Imphal, of Leyte Gulf, of Iwo Jima, of Okinawa? Not many, I guess. I am deeply regretful that so few of o