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Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

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This book will become the standard against which all future study of the use of atomic bombs against Japan is judged. The author describes in detail the continuous flow of new information to both the military and government bureaucracies of Japan and the United States. That information, mixed with prevailing ideology on both sides, helped determine the course of the World War II in the Pacific during the summer of 1945. Among pieces of the whole picture which I was not aware of before reading this book are:

1. While the United States was intercepting diplomatic messages sent from Japan to the USSR attempting to achieve a negotiated peace through Russian intervention, it was also intercepting many more messages planning for the last ditch battle against the expected American invasion of Japan. An invasion that the Japanese - including the Emperor - expected to end in a Japanese victory followed by a relatively favorable peace for Japan. (In fact, by August of 1945, Admirals Nimitz and King of the United States Navy worried that the planned invasion would end in a Japanese victory!)

2. The fire-bombing of Japanese cities was just as horrendous as the use of the atomic bomb, causing more deaths when done "correctly," and causing many more deaths in total than were caused by the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Plus, if General LeMay hadn't figured out how to "do it" right using B-29s and "conventional" weapons, he would have almost certainly been replaced by someone else, almost as fast as he replaced his predecessor. (His predecessor having failed to get much obvious destruction in Japan out of the B-29s at his command.)

3. About 100,000 civilians in Japanese occupied territory, including the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, China, French Indochina, and the Philippines, were dying because of the war each month the war lasted.

Needless to say, given the facts above, and many others presented in the book, the author of Downfall believes that the decision to use atomic bombs against Japan was almost inevitable, and morally defensible.

Was Hiroshima necessary? What about Nagasaki? Would the invasion of Japan really have cost the lives of a million American soldiers, or were the Japanese eager to give up? And hey, what about those Russians?

People know amazingly little about the Pacific War, compared to the epic conflict between the white nations in Europe. Indeed, the first two weeks of August 1945 loom larger for the chattering classes than do the four years that preceded them--eight years if you date the war from the invasion of China proper--fourteen years if you consider that it started with Japan's annexation of Manchuria. I've been reading about the events of August 1945 for a decade, and I have to say that the analysis gets better as the years go by. Richard Frank's book is the best yet.

Olympic: First off, Frank gives a good capsule description of Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu planned for November 1, and Ketsu-go, the preparations being made to destroy the American invasion force at the beaches. Frank then brings up evidence that during the summer of 1945, the Japanese reinforcement of Kyushu was so fearsome that American planners were beginning to turn against the invasion. By October 15, they now believed, 625,000 troops would be defending Kyushu. On Luzon, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, the Japanese had shown their willingness to fight almost to the last man, with death tolls running as high as 97 or 98 percent. Meanwhile, they inflicted casualties at the rate of one American for every one or two defenders. To me, that suggests 600,000 Japanese soldiers dead on Kyushu, and upwards of 300,000 Americans killed, wounded, or missing. No wonder Truman wanted the Russians in the war, and no wonder he dropped the atomic bombs.

The Russians are coming! After stringing Japan along for several weeks--the Japanese foolishly hoped that the Soviet Union would broker a negotiated peace with the Allies--the Russians attacked on August 9. So poor were the communications that neither Tokyo nor the Japanese armies on the mainland were aware of how massive the onslaught would be. The battles continued to August 22 in Manchuria--a week after the Japanese surrender--and in Korea the Russians continued to advance until they reached the 38th parallel at the end of the month.

The third object of the Russian attack was Japanese-occupied Sakhalin, and from there an amphibious landing on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. As might be expected, the Japanese fought more ferociously in defense of the homeland than they did for their mainland possessions, and the Russian advance was slow. That resistance, plus an equally stubborn reaction by President Truman, prevented the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold on Hokkaido and thus a voice in the occupation of Japan. On August 22, Stalin halted operations in this area.

Frank estimates that 2.6 million overseas Japanese were captured by the Russians and sent into slave labor. Of this number, about 350,000 died or disappeared into the Gulag--a loss that probably exceeded all of Japan's losses to American air raids in the last year of the war, including the great Tokyo fire-bombing raid and the two atomic attacks.

National suicide: "Even though we may have to eat grass, swallow dirt, and lie in the fields, we shall fight on to the bitter end, ever firm in our faith that we shall find life in death"--so said General Anami, the army minster and one of three (possibly four) hard-liners in the Big Six war cabinet. Given the Japanese requirement for consensus, the military men held veto power over cabinet deliberations. They were backed by officers at all levels of the army and navy: on August 13, Admiral Onishi broke into a government conference to urge: "Let us formulate a plan for certain victory, obtain the Emperor's sanction, and throw ourselves into bringing the plans to realization. If we are prepared to sacrifice 20,000,000 Japanese lives in a special [suicide] effort, victory will be ours!"

Prime Minister Suzuki: "[T]he atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war are, in a sense, gifts from the gods." Lacking these new incentives, he feared a revolution that would topple the throne.

General Anami, by the way, wasn't just talking the talk. He walked the walk, committing suicide when the government finally agreed to surrender.

The atomic arsenal: Frank believes that "another bomb was not ready anyway" at the end of the war, because George Marshall and Leslie Groves had delayed transport of the core to Tinian, "making it impossible to ready a third bomb until about August 21." (See the third bomb on this site.) "Groves and Marshall took this action because they believed two bombs would move the Japanese to capitulation, concurring with [SecWar] Stimson's policy that [atomic] bombs should be used only to end the war." Elsewhere, Frank says that on August 13, Maj Gen John Hull telephoned an officer at the Manhattan Project on behalf of General Marshall, saying that the chief of staff wanted all future bombs reserved for tactical use in Operation Olympic.

The Manhattan Project officer estimated that seven bombs would be ready by October 31--the day before the projected invasion. Displaying the then-universal ignorance of long-term radioactivity, he advised a 48-hour "safety factor" before American soldiers advanced into areas hit by atomic weapons. (In an earlier report, the same officer had guessed that radioactivity could be lethal out to 3,500 feet from an explosion, but that the ground would be safe just one hour later.)

At noon on August 14 in Washington, President Truman met with the Duke of Windsor and British ambassador John Balfour. He told them that the latest Japanese message indicated no acceptance of the surrender terms, and that (in Balfour's words) "he had no alternative but to order an atomic bomb dropped on Tokyo." It was at 4:05 p.m. local time that he learned that the Japanese had indeed surrendered.

This is an extraordinary book that belongs on the shelf of anyone with an interest in how the Pacific War was concluded, and why it ended that way -- Dan Ford

It is an overworked cliche but still true: the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan is one of those crucial, pivotal events in human history. Richard Frank's "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire" is undoubtedly the finest history written about the end of World War II and, thus, the beginning of the post-war tribulations. Using many Japanese primary sources as well as new American information, he provides a view into the events, emotions, and intentions nowhere previously available. He succeeds at showing us what people thought and felt and believed in addition to what they did. The insights into the Japanese plans and deliberations are especially illuminating and are essential to understanding the unfolding of events. I don't believe that Mr. Frank will put to rest the argument over the efficacy of using atomic weapons but he has provided the best narrative and explication of the analysis, plans, and decision to use them against Japan. My sole quibble with the writing in "Downfall" is that Mr. Frank breaks Barbara Tuchman's dictum never to argue the sources in the midst of the narrative. If ever there is a book to be an exception to that rule, this one is it.

This exhaustively-researched and carefully documented book is the necessary slap in the face that a new generation of Americans evidently need in order to reconcile themselves with the facts surrounding the use of the atomic bomb in ending the war with Japan in 1945. Too often we hear criticism of its use as too inhumane, savage, indiscriminate, or as a racist tool we would only use against Asians (as opposed to other whites, such as the Germans). This book make shambles of such notions by taking each in hand and examining all the evidence.

First, the Japanese were not willing to surrender in August 1945, and were in fact preparing for an invasion of the main islands, which they planned to make as costly and bloody for the Allies as possible. Estimates of more than a million Allied killed and wounded are quite conservative, not to mention the devastation that would have been visited on the entire main island system. All bridges, reservoirs, industry, highways, hospitals, etc. would have been laid to waste. Second, demonstrating the bomb's capabilities wasn't practical, as the Japanese would have viewed it as propaganda, discounting the threat. Thus, we would have lost one of only two devices, and could not afford to take the risk.

Thirdly, tactical use of the bomb to end the war was not indiscriminate, since it was construed by the American military as a quick, relatively painless, and highly effective way to bring the Japanese to their senses. While it is true that hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians were casualties of the two bombs, there were in fact more German civilians casualties as a result of the fire bombing of Dresden, a small and strategically unimportant city in south-central Germany.

Finally, if one takes the fact that the conduct of the Japanese during the war was the bane of civilized behavior, constituting a deliberate and systematic program of rape, mistreatment, starvation, and torture of combatants and noncombatants alike, it's hard to feel much empathy for the fate of the Japanese at the end of the war. One does well to recall that the Japanese never complied with the articles of the Geneva Conventions, and routinely murdered, raped, and pillaged without regard for human life. They started a war then conducted with murderous ferocity, and they ended it eating their own swords. Such is the fortune of war; those who live by it, die by it. Too bad.

As a final note, one should remind the nattering nabobs of negativity that the Atomic Bomb was developed specifically as a device to be used against the Germans, not the Japanese. The fact that it was not ready to so deploy is one of the ironies of history. This is a great book, and one that one hopes will end this self-flagellation we seem to be involved in. It's just too bad we didn't have the bomb in 1941. Perhaps then, if we had dropped two on Tokyo Bay and Berlin in mid-December 0f '41, a whole generation of young Americans wouldn't have had to fight and die in the rotting stink-holes of the south Pacific or the foxholes of France to save the world for their soul-searching and self-doubting and perhaps ungrateful grandsons and granddaughters. Read the book, which is bound to become the standard text on the use of the bomb in ending the war.

This book takes you to those days in late 1945, and gives up all of the facts and feelings from both the Japanese and American viewpoints. It is excellently written, fully documented and researched, and finely tuned to keep the readers' interest at all times. While it does slow down, somewhat in places, suffering from conveying too much detail, overall it kept my interest from cover to cover. I thought I knew all about this period in time, and the events that occured then, but I was wrong. I learned a lot that I never knew just from reading this narrative. The author also does a masterful job of conveying the feelings which were in force then, so you feel like you are there also. From a historial viewpoint, this book is far, and above, the best that I have ever read on this subject and period of time. It is a must for every reader of historical facts, and battle periods that have affected our lives ever more. The one single fact that this books deals with is the wide diferences we, and the Japanese felt about conducting the war, and ending it. I highly recommend this book for all serious readers of historial, and military events.

I am an attorney and historical researcher. In my opinion, this is the best book on the subject by far. It is even-handed and all-encompassing.

My mother is an American of Japanese descent (nisei) who was visiting relatives in Hiroshima when the war started and got stranded in Japan. She experienced the horror of the bomb but absolutely believes that it was necessary in order to stop the war. She blames the Japanese militarists for the deaths of her relatives and friends, for not surrendering sooner (and for starting the war in the first place).

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a deep, unbiased and balanced look at this subject.

The merits of "Downfall" have been more than adequately praised here. I think Frank does a great job of contextualizing the decision to use the Bomb.

I'm disturbed, though, by the reader reviews that insist "Frank proves it was moral to drop the Bomb," etc. He does no such thing; this isn't a work of moral philosophy, nor does it try to be. Frank's point is that, given that mass bombing of civilians was an accepted part of WW2 with or without the Bomb, the decision to go nuclear made sense in view of (1)Japan's intractability and (2) the fear of Soviet intervention (even the Japanese, presumably, are grateful that the Russians didn't take Hokkaido for 50 years a la East Germany).

The book begins, appropriately, with the horrors of the firebombing of Tokyo, maybe the single most destructive raid of the entire war. Such mass murder of civilians was not enough to defeat the Japanese; and I agree with the reviewer here who points out that it was the one-two of the Bomb AND the Soviet declaration of war that probably led Hirohito to throw in the towel.

It's possible, perhaps, to justify the wholescale slaughter of civilians through bombing: the Japanese, like the Germans, supported their leaders in waging aggressive war, and paid the price personally. But Frank doesn't tackle that case here. His point, and it's a good one, is that using the Bomb made sense at the time, and "at the time" is the only reasonable way to judge the men who made that decision.

Critics of the decision to drop the bombs often argue that Japan was trying to surrender; you see it in some reviews here! Franks shows things were not as simple as they argue.

They fail to properly understand three things. One, Japan eas not trying to surrender. It was trying to end the war on favorable terms. There is a world of difference here! Japan sought to retain some of its acquired territories, such as Taiwan and Korea, and to retain its military. Imagine if Hitler had offered to end the war in January 1945, as long as he could remain in power, and keep Poland and Austria! Would anyone have argued for this? The argument that Japan wanted peace, and only the US wanted war is absurd for the same reason.

Second, the diplomatic forces seeking a peaceful end to the war (before Japan lost too much overseas territory, that is) had no influence on the forces controlling Japan, the military. Those who controlled the Japanese government wanted the war to continue. Those who wanted a non-military end had no influence. So these "efforts" to end the war, so often cited, are irrelevant.

Third, the same intelligence which revealed ineffectual Japanese efforts to end the war also revealed Japanese efforts to amass ground forces to resist invasion. Since the Japanese had earlier negotiated while amassing forces for attack (in 1941), there is no compelling reason for the decisionmakers of 1945 to have turned their back on their bitter experience with Japanese duplicity and suddenly decided to trust their overtures.

Frank excels at showing the factors involved in quickly ending the war. Critics of Truman's decision invariably cite the Japanese civilian casualties. They never cite the _Allied_ civilian casualties (in China and elsewhere) of waiting for Japan to surrender. Every month the Allies waited for Japan, Frank estimates 100,000 Allied civilians died. Not to mention the barbarism inflicted on Allied POWs and internees. Why do critics of the bombing worry more about enemy civilians (Japanese) than Allied civilians (Chinese and others)? This is one of the great mysteries of this entire debate.

Frank covers the compelxity of the decision well. He brings new perspective and insight to a subject now clouded with politically correct revisionism. Definitely worth reading, and I wish there were an audiobook version!

This fine book is a well written and thoughtful description and analysis of the end of the Second World War. Frank deals particularly with the contentious issue of whether or not use of nuclear weapons was necessary. This book has a number of excellent features. It is based on extensive research, much of it involving documents that became available only recently. Frank brings a scrupulous critical intelligence to his use of primary sources and is excellent at putting the decision to use nuclear weapons in the larger context of the war. He is especially good at reconstructing the actions of Japanese decision makers and emphasizes the autonomy of these individuals. Frank has made a rigorous and successful effort to avoid anachronistic judgements and really shows us what kind of information both American and Japanese decision makers had at the time. Frank shows clearly that the decision to use nuclear weapons was rational and well informed, and was probably the best of a set of horrible alternatives. Frank presents also convincing evidence that the use of nuclear weapons was motivated primarily by a war time considerations and not by an intention to cow the Soviet Union. This book should be the last word on this subject. Only at the end of the book does Frank make a judgement about the character of decision making by Truman and his advisors. Frank points out that Truman and the other American decision makers wished to end the war as quickly as possible, that they wished to minimize the loss of life, especially but not only American lives, that they wished to avoid the wholesale disintegration of Japanese society that might well have followed either blockade or an invasion, and that they wished a durable peace. These men, operating with imperfect information, under tremendous pressures, and faced with a set of horribly unpalatable alternatives, achieved all these goals.

For those of us who were in the Pacific war, the dropping of the atomic bombs and the defeat of Japan was a godsend: no more 14 hours missions to Japan and back for those of us in the 20th Air Force, no landings, as we learned later, on heavily defended beaches on Kyushu by our Marines and Army GIs, no more threats from suicide missions against Navy ships and personnel by the 8,000 or more planes Japan had hoarded to attack the invasion fleet, and for the POWs held by Japan and those in Japanese-controlled territory no more torture, starvation, and death. Yet in recent years revisionist historians have been painting a different story that we need not have dropped the atomic bombs nor, perhaps, conducted bombing raids against the major Japanese cities and their industries. The revisionists posited theories that Japan would have surrended without the bombing had we only pursued more effectively diplomatic channels, that US motives in dropping the A-bombs were more to warn the Soviets, and that after one atomic bomb, the Japanese would have meekly given up.

In a masterful survey of the final six months of the war, Richard B. Frank examines all of these theories and using recently released intercepts and the writings of the major Japanese participants in the last four days of the war, convincingly stands all of the revisionist's theories on their heads. Frank is meticulous in his research, clear in his writing, and with his detailed sourcing and end notes touches every nook and cranny of the climatic last few months of the Pacific war. He brings to light, for example, the great suffering and deaths, primarily in China, caused by the continued Japanese occupation and of the inability of Japan, because of the choking off of their shipping by our Navy and B-29 mining raids, to supply their garrisons or the Japanese homeland with raw materials and food. He also points out that had the war gone on for another month, B-29 planners were going to target the rail system's choke points which, if carried out, would have caused tremendous difficulties to supply food to Japanese urban areas. In short, any person wishing to understand the complex military and political situation that preceded the dropping of the atomic bombs and the ending of the war against Japan needs to have this book on their library shelf.