Customer Reviews

Rising Sun Victorious

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These books have got to be a bear to write. Although certainly there are a fair number of pivot points in history there are darn few major things that could have been dramatically different. That means, for these books, that there is always a certain amount of hand-waving away of inconvenient facts to allow an alternate ending. Although much of this book is not as strained as the invasion of Britain volume (which completely glosses over the fact that Germany had no means to cross the channel and no navy to contest the channel with the Royal Navy) it does have the requisite hand-waving. The only real alternative is the invasion of the Soviet Union instead of an attack on Pearl Harbor which leads to some interesting and well explored speculation. There is the requisite rewriting of the Pearl Harbor attack which, while including the blocking of the channel by the Nevada which is a good idea, has the requisite attack on the oil farms which, sadly for the author, were not nearly as easy to destroy as portrayed and would have required a third attack wave into rapidly stiffening resistance. Most of the scenarios are like this, requiring careful ommision of inconvenient facts to allow the Japanese to win. This is not a condemnation of the authors, simply a statement that the Japanese had a poor army, a decent but over-extended navy, poor resource-management and availability and were against a huge wealthy power. The Japanese were overextended just taking what they had in the Pacific, no invasion of the US was seriously contemplated or possible. No resources for the landing craft, no capability to refuel at sea, no way to transport the troops, etc. They were destined to lose unless the US simply said "to hell with it". Even in that instance, the British and Australians would have fought on and perhaps done the job themselves.

That said, the book is quite readable, very well researched (even the ommissions are done in such a way that you realize the authors knew of them and danced around them), interesting, and very well put together with fictional charts, OBs, etc. It's an excellent effort marred only by the lack of an epilog describing what inconvenient facts were ommitted for the scenarios to work. This ommission can make the reader think that a victorious Japan was quite possible had they been more savvy, when it was not.

Matt

Title notwithstanding, this collection of essays offers for, the most part, a look not so much at how the Japanese might have won the Pacific War, but rather how the war might have gone differently as a result of different strategic or tactical decisions. Most of the authors conclude that while these decisions, and resulting successes for the Japanese, might have prolonged the war, or made it much costlier for the US, in the end the result would have been much the same as reality. For instance, one essay examines what might have happened had the American divebombers been unsuccessful in finding the Japanese carriers at Midway. As is well known, it was almost sheer luck that they were able to make the decisive attack on the carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu before low fuel forced them to return to their own carriers. Had they not done this, about 30 minutes later, it would likely have been the American carriers attacked in their most vulnerable state, with flight decks full of re-fueling and re-arming aircraft, and the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown dispatched to the bottom of the Pacific. As a result, Midway Island would have been lost, and the Japanese might even have been bold enough to launch subsequent attacks on the Hawaii and/or the West Coast of the US. In the long run, however, the author concludes that American industrial might and greater population would still have carried the day.

Other well-known aspects of the Pacific War that turned on the decisions of one or two key individuals are also examined. What, for instance, if Admiral Nagumo had launched a third strike at Pearl Harbor, destroying the fuel tank farms and the dry dock facilities? Even if he had lost some of his own fleet as a result, this action would have rendered Pearl Harbor useless as a forward base, the American fleet would have found it impossible to react to Japanese advances in the Coral Sea and at Midway, and the Hawaiian Islands themselves might have been lost to Japanese invasion. Another essay asks: what if Admiral Kurita had kept his nerve and pressed on to attack the American transports at Leyte Gulf, when only escort carriers and their lightly armed escorts stood in his way? Result: perhaps the greatest disaster in American military history. This, incidentally, is one of the most plausible essays in the book. There's no question Bull Halsey almost got caught with his pants down on that one. Given that the giant battleship Yamato, which would have led this charge, was fated to be expended in a futile suicide attack just six months later, one can only wonder what Kurita thought he was gaining by withdrawing to fight another day. For the Japanese Empire, there was no other day - that was their last, best chance.

Perhaps the most interesting essay examines what might have happened had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor at all - if their December 7 sneak attack had instead been directed solely at the Philippines and other US, British, and Dutch possessions throughout the Pacific. The result would have been the execution of "War Plan Orange" - a sortie by the US Pacific Fleet to relieve the Philippines. Had the Japanese, with their fleet at a much higher level of training and readiness, and with their vastly superior night fighting skills, been able to lure our fleet of old battleships into a night engagement in the confined waters near the Philippines: well, it's a pretty scary thought. Think of the Battle of Savo Island writ large. This is the one essay, by the way, that actually has the Japanese winning outright, although a few others do end with them winning at least an armistice or the right to hang on to some of their captured territory, as opposed to the actual reality of unconditional surrender.

Altogether, this is an interesting book sure to be enjoyed by students of the Pacific War. With one or two exceptions, the essays are detailed enough to be realistic, yet well-written enough to be entertaining.

The field of "counterfactual" history or Alternate History is divided into fictional accounts, written up as novels, and pseudo documentaries, written up as history books might be done in the alternate future caused by the changed events.

The more challenging task is the latter because in fiction one can mix fact and fantasy without having to explain the choices... after all, it's a novel. However the essay format requires some hard thinking and deep research, because even a fake history has to be footnoted.

This counterfactual collection of essays on might-have-been wars in the Pacific does not disappoint. Many of the entries utilize fake references which are supposedly written in that rearranged future. The fake notes are distinguished from the real by an asterisk. It's a measure of the verisimilitude of the accounts that many of these fake references could be accepted as real, though some, such as court martials of Douglas MacArthur and victorious Japanese generals' memoirs are more self-evident.

Just because these alternate histories are cast as essays does not mean they are colorless didactic prose. The reading is lively and provocative, just as good military history should be.

Some discussions with a few of the contributors at a book signing convinced me that these authors had considered most of the pitfalls of their thesis in advance. This book is not simply another variant of that old Saturday Night Live gag about a television show that answers adolescent inquiries such as "what if Napoleon had B-52s at Waterloo" or "What if Margaret Truman could fly" (she lead a wing of B-24s in a raid over Germany).

None of these conjectural essays depend on "magic"....such as wonder weapons concocted from thin air, or giving allies or axis forces that could not have been possibly available. Nor are there dramatic personality changes. The key commanders and political leaders all stay "in character" reacting to each changed situation as one might expect.

This book broadens horizons and, miracle of miracles, finds something new to say about WW II.

Highly recommended.

In general, counterfactual (aka "alternate") history tend s to revolve around military engagements, and thus military history. This can range from over-the-top novels in which time-travelers go back to help the Confederacy win the Civil War, to obscure technical monographs by experts delving into the most obscure corners of the past. The best of these reimaginings tend to fall somewhere in between, for example the collection "What If: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been." Given that most of the authors of this particular volume are current or former military personnel, it understandably resides more in the specialist's camp. The essays all seek to examine alternate Japanese strategies in the Pacific, while maintaining as much similarity to reality as possible, in terms of weather, personalities, available forces, etc. Unfortunately, the writing is often a shade too technical to be of interest to the general reader, and when the authors do try and break out of the dry history mode, the prose gets rather hackneyed. The most interesting scenarios were editor Tsouras's look at what might have occurred had the Japanese focused on attacking the Soviet Union instead of the U.S., and Frank Shirer's look as the ramifications of a third wave attack on Pearl Harbor. A number of the other essays were too technical in a maritime sense for me to get into. All in all, if you're deep into naval military history, it's definitely worth a read, but for the general reader, it's probably too detailed a collection.

It's hard to know what to make of 'counterfactuals' like the ones in this collection. The best alternative histories are the ones that run closest to what actually happened -- until the point where the author chooses the path untaken. From that standpoint, the ten stories in 'Rising Sun Victorious' are quite well done. Written by skilled military historians, none of these counterfactuals presume anything outside the realm of possibility (no aliens or time travel here).

Like scientists testing different theories, historians can use counterfactuals to shine new light on personalities and events. But not all historians start from the same premises. For example, Wade G. Dudley, one of the authors in this collection, notes 'it is difficult to imagine any simple set of circumstances that would have allowed Japan to win any form of victory in World War II' -- America's population and industrial strength inevitably would prevail eventually. On the other hand, James R. Arnold, another contributor, points out that if the bomb that struck USS Yorktown at Coral Sea had hit just twenty feet closer to her centerline, her flight deck would have been out of action for Midway -- with dire consequences for the US Navy. Counterfactuals are interesting; not just for the light they bring to history, but also for the way they illuminate the workings of historians' minds.

As in any collection, the quality of the chapters in 'Rising Sun Victorious' vary from author to author. I didn't find any of the submissions to be outright bad, but some were better written than others, some more plausible than others. As another reviewer notes, a few of the writers base their counterfactuals on obscure points in history. A general reader unfamiliar with the war in the Pacific may well not be able to tell where history and fiction part company. The specialist, however, can find between these covers much food for thought.

One of the games authors of counterfactuals play is inventing alternate biographies for real individuals. Attentive readers will note references to President Elmo Zumwalt, obscure naval memoirist 'G. Bush,' and a biography of Admiral Halsey by Dr John P. Ryan of the US Naval Academy, among others.

This collection of alternative histories of the Pacific War, superbly edited by Peter G. Tsouras, is at once enlightening and entertaining. In ten essays, the various authors provide much intellectual fodder on how various changes might have influenced the outcome of the war. This book will particularly appeal to military professionals or those readers interested in military history, but the general public will find many of the essays too technical. However, the reader should be aware that the alternative nature of this history tends toward the one-sided in Japan's favor (it would have been more interesting if their were at least some chapters that favored the US side, like what if the US defenses at Pearl Harbor had been alerted prior to the Japanese attack.) and this can be annoying at times. Most soldiers know that war is the realm of chance and that luck favors each side sooner or later; to presume that only one side enjoys all the luck in a war seems to violate one of the basic laws of human conflict. The other issue is that virtually all the essays suggest that victory could have hinged on one "winner-take-all battle," and had Japan fought its "decisive battle" on its terms the outcome could have been different. The idea of single, decisive battles swinging on chance is a favorite for alternate histories and is mostly nonsense; throughout military history, there are few examples of single battles like Hastings in 1066 that decide major wars. Thus, all the changes in this anthology hinge on operational or strategic decisions that Japan could have made differently, not on anything involving diplomacy or technical innovation.

The approach of this anthology, which focuses very heavily on the purely military level, tends to avoid any examination of the Japanese centers of gravity. At the strategic level, the Bushido warrior code among the Japanese military elite and its acceptance by the general populace provided the Japanese with intense motivation and tenacity (take Bushido out of the equation and there would have been kamikazes or suicidal island defenses) and this center of gravity was not broken until the atomic bomb raids of 1945. However, the Japanese operational center of gravity was their mobile carrier fleet which - while powerful - was also very fragile. The Japanese never had more than six fleet carriers with 430 aircraft available, with very little ability to replace losses quickly. In the essay "Nagumo's Luck," where the Japanese win the Battle of Midway (in itself a plausible event), the author posits an outcome where the Japanese sink all three US carriers at virtually no cost to themselves. This is not alternate history, but bunk. In all four carrier-vs-carrier battles in 1942, both sides were always able to inflict significant damage on each other, despite quantitative and qualitative imbalances. By the end of 1942, virtually all the pre-war US or Japanese fleet carriers had been sunk or damaged. Thus even if Japan had won at Midway - a distinct possibility - they would have lost carriers and aircraft that they could not easily replace. No author here mentions that the US commissioned 13 capital ships in 1942-3, against only 3 Japanese capital ships. Once the Japanese operational center of gravity was eroded - as it surely must if they maintained protracted offensive operations - Japan would be forced into a relatively static defense. Furthermore, no author in this collection addresses the twin nemeses for the Japanese: US submarines and long-range bombers. After a slow start, both US subs and bombers inflicted enormous military and economic damage on the Japanese war machine and the Japanese were never able to effectively counter these threats. An interesting essay might have been, what if the Japanese had invested more in ASW or air defense technology prior to the war and adapted quicker. Bottom line: no matter how much better Nagumo's carriers did, attrition was more of a threat to Japan than the US and Japan lacked the resources to pose multiple operational threats to the USA.

Japan fought the war mostly on the emotional level, the Americans primarily on the industrial level. These essays tend to ignore that dichotomy and downplay American material resources, as well as the will to use it. Probably the worst essays are the last two, which suggest that a Japanese "victory" at Leyte Gulf (in which they still lose half their remaining fleet) or a repulse of Operation Olympic could have led to cease fires rather than unconditional surrender. Incredibly, the last author seems to feel that the US could not replace 29,000 combat casualties in a defeat on Japan's shore - what about the millions of troops just freed up in Europe? The idea that the United States could not accept large casualties seems a post-Vietnam anachronism that would be inappropriate for 1944-1945. Furthermore, all the author's ignore the value of the United States fighting in a coalition; unlike the too-distant, self-centered Axis alliance, the Anglo-American alliance was capable of reacting to setbacks and providing a common response. For example, after the heavy American carrier losses in 1942, the British "loaned" the US Pacific fleet the new carrier HMS Victorious for ten months. While hard-pressed itself in 1942-1943, Britain could and did share resources with the US and greater Japanese successes in the Pacific in 1942 would probably have resulted in greater Allied cooperation.

All these points are not meant to denigrate what is in many respects a fine book. However these points are made to highlight the essentially one-dimensional (i.e. operational) nature of most of the essays and the lack of a true combat dynamic. Clausewitz said that war was an action-reaction dynamic, where each fighter attempts to disarm the other. If you must write alternate history, this dynamic should be included, rather than one-sided scenarios wherein one side is bold and wise, and the other side are little more than fish in a barrel.

Peter Tsouras is one of a handful of writers and editors who are not satisfied with the way America's historical wars turned out. Such alternate historians usually begin their contribution with a 'what if' question that focuses on one small string of a much larger fabric of historical truth that we now call Accepted History. In RISING SUN VICTORIOUS, Tsouris edits ten essays (one of which is his own) all of which purport to demonstrate that the difference between the Accepted History and its alternate version is a lot smaller than we would like to think. The list of essays range from Japan's decision to war on Russia rather than attack Pearl Harbor to a third attack wave that completes the destruction on Pearl Harbor that the first two waves did not. Other essays focus on Japan's assaults on India, Australia, and bombing attacks on Hollywood. As I read these various alternate histories of how the war in the Pacific could have turned out differently, I reached the following conclusions:

First: Even for those who like their alternate histories in novelized form (Harry Tutrledove's novels come to mind), such dry renderings come across as hard reading at best and astoundingly dull at worst. Each of the ten essays reminded me of Tsouras' other A-H book, DISASTER AT D-DAY. Such works are replete with a staggering array of names, dates, places, battles, army and navy military groupings. After a dozen or so pages, the reader gets lost in a sea of data that screams out for some unifying element. Novelized A-H stories can provide this needed human interaction between 'what if' and 'who cares.'

Second: Some elements of A-H are simply more interesting than are other elements. In RISING SUN VICTORIOUS, the essay on the Kamikaze suicide bombers was simpy neither inherently interesting nor believable for me to swallow. The essays that really caught my eye involved areas that combined reader interest with reasonable probability: the third wave attack on Pearl Harbor and the conquest of India, for example. Perhaps future A-H military writers might couch their tales with less miltary data and more human interaction.

Third: Most A-H tales involving the Second World War posit scenarios ranging from the total defeat and occupation of the United States by Axis powers (THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Phillip K. Dick) to histories that suggest that the Japanese/Nazi axis might have won a partial victory that could have permitted them a conditional peace with America. Critics of RISING SUN VICTORIOUS and others of its ilk dryly point out what they deem an inherent flaw in such scenarios, namely that the overwhelming industrial might of the United States must, at some point, have proven decisive in the long run. Yet, each of the contributors to this book acknowledges this very limitation on their fantasies. Clearly, no coalition of Japanese and/or German armies could have brought America to its knees. What emerges in most of these scenarios is a world that is not vastly different from the one which we now inhabit. In fact, most of the contributors go to great pains to suggest that any victory in the Pacific would be ephemeral, and that events, even in this alternate timeline, would sooner or later 'catch up' to their real world counterparts.

So where do readers go if they want to ponder other timelines? Books like RISING SUN VICTORIOUS ought to carry a label that might read: Caution--Intended for mature (and patiently erudite) readers only. All others might find more enjoyment in novelized versions that give readers the chance to interact with history through the perceptions of a novel's all too human characters whose failings and strengths may not be very different from his own.

"Rising Sun Victorious" explores a number of alternative paths that might -- or might not -- have allowed the Japanese to "win" against the United States. Anyone interested in reflecting on the vagaries of choices and happenstance in modern military conflict would find this an enjoyable read -- every author is qualified to write the actual history and most have written quite engaging alternatives.

From my perspective, perhaps the most intriquing is Wade Dudley's "Plan Orange Disaster". In this case, the Japanese decide to create a massive trap for the U.S. execution of the planned move across the Pacific with the entire battle fleet in the opening months of the war to rescue the Philippines. As Dudley writes this, the disaster is so great that Roosevelt must agree to a peace with Japan to allow the war against Hitler to proceed. If we think this way, the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor might be well viewed as facilitating victory in several ways (not new to this review) -- from the wakening of the slumbering giant of the United States to the forcing of the U.S. Navy / military to adapt the prewar plans to the reality of the Pacific in 1941.

I found this a worthwhile diversion that left me thinking differently than when I opened the book. From my perspective, that is the mark of a very worthwhile read!

Just to correct another reviewer, Peter Tsouras didn't just edited this book he also contributed 1 of the 10 stories contained. I read and enjoyed Third Reich Victorious and have Dixie Victorious waiting to be read. The problem with Rising Sun is that the stories really don't contain a victorious Japan scenario. Most stories within are slightly different paths in history with the same Japanese defeat at the end. Sometimes defeat comes with better terms for them other than unconditional surrender, but there is no outright victory for Japan in this book. It certainly makes it more historically accurate since anyone with detailed knowledge of WWII history will realize that based on manpower, logistics and vital supplies, Japan could not conquer and hold all that they desired. This book does raise interesting scenarios such as war with the Soviets, invasions of India and Australia, and stronger follow ups to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Alternative history is all the rage these days, largely fueled by Harry Turtledove's books supposing a Confederate victory in the Civil War. The present book is a more scholarly collection of essays on the premise of the Japanese winning parts of the Second World War that they actually lost.

The format of the book is interesting. Each chapter (there are ten altogether) is a look at a different part of the War in the Pacific, and supposes that the Japanese somehow did better in that portion of the war than they actually did. The first interesting part of this is that just because the authors of the various scenarios in the book have the Japanese win another battle doesn't mean that they're allowed to win the whole conflict. Instead, the authors seem more interested in what effect the Japanese victory would have on the course of the war. The individual scenarios examine everything from possible Japanese attacks on Siberia, California, India, and Australia, all around to the revelation that their codes were broken, and defeats in the battles of Leyte Gulf or even the invasion of Japan itself.

While the idea for each scenario is similar, the format of the articles differs somewhat from one to the next. The last one, for instance, purports to be a recounting of a conference at the Naval War College where various admirals and generals discuss what went wrong with the invasion of Japan. Amusingly, each of the authors provides footnotes to his essay, and some of them are concocted for the essay itself. Japanese authors who actually wrote books about their participation in the Japanese defeat instead write about their victory. It's rather amusing.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. I will agree to an extent with the reviewers who complained about the technical nature of the narrative. I will also point out however that the book doesn't pretend to be anything other than an alternative *history*. It's not Turtledove, and no one said it was. Great fun if you're into military history.