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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Battle of Iwo Jima From the Japanese Perspective, May 1, 2007
Freelance Japanese writer Kumiko Kakehashi has done a masterful job in describing the battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldier; more precisely, from the perspective of Lt. Gen. Tadamachi Kuribayashi, the commander of the Japanese garrison based on Iwo Jima.
Throughout the book, the author describes Kuribayashi as a caring man who was devoted not only to his family, but to his fellow soldiers as well. His deep-seeded feelings for his family's well-being are brought to life by the letters he sent to them from the front. Kuribayashi was in his 50's when he was called to lead the Japanese forces on Iwo Jima. he left a wife and three young children at home in Tokyo. Despite being given a virtual death sentence by his assignment, he still maintained contact with his family through his numerous letters.
Kuribayashi's feelings about his family are evident throughout his letters. His concern shows regarding even small, insignificant events. For example, one letter describes his concern over his family's drafty house and his regret that he was unable to fix the problem before leaving. He always told his children to obey their mother, and he told his wife to remain strong and not to worry about what others think.
As a military commander, Kuribayashi was different from other Japanese generals. He had a genuine concern for his men, and he refused to think of them as being expendable. Rather, he refused to allow them to use the banzai charge in battle. He also insisted on forgoing any special treatment his rank may have brought him. Instead, he ate the same food rations as his soldiers did, and he lived in an underground bunker. He also walked all over Iwo Jima to coordinate the building of defensive positions.
Kuribayashi was a brilliant strategist. He believed that the best defense was to construct miles and miles of underground, interlocking tunnels rather than beach defenses. When the American invasion came in February, 1945, the Americans met little resistance on the beach, but, once they began to push inland, the Japanese sprang from their concealed positions. The battle for Iwo Jima became the costliest in history for the United States Marines, and General Kuribayashi's unique style of defense was the cause.
The author also describes the hardships faced by the Japanese. Water was virtually unattainable, except what could be collected from rainstorms. Food was on short supply as well. One particular passage in the book states that the while the Japanese were forced to huddle, starving and thirsty, in their bunkers, the Americans were able to drink hot coffee and take hot showers. Despite these hardships, Kuribayashi's men fought with a tenacity never before seen in the Pacific war.
Kuribayashi met his death doing as he had wished; leading his men in a surprise attack against the American lines. Upon his death, he was given a posthumous promotion to full general. American General Holland Smith called Kuribayashi America's most feared and respected foe.
I found this to be an interesting and moving book. The general's letters showed compassion and caring. He definitely did not fit the mode of the prototypical Japanese general. Rather than being brutal and uncaring, Kuribayashi was respectful and humane. Despite these characteristics, he was still a ferocious fighter and a capable commander.
I give this book my highest recommendation. The letters give the book a personal feeling, and the reader gets a true sense of what general Kuribayashi was really like. Kuribayashi was called one of America's most worthy adversaries. Read this book and find out why he attained such praise.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Such that the Gods did weep, April 24, 2007
Reading So Sad to Fall in Battle, one grasps that Kumiko Kakehashi is not a military historian. This however, is no weakness but rather a strength on her part as she chronicles the thoughts, feelings and ideas of the Imperial Japanese Army commander and some of his men who fought and fell on a twenty-two kilometers squared patch of hell on earth named Iwo Jima. Orders of battle and which army corps was staffed by what division appear only as necessary as it may be to tell the book's tragic story: that of a brilliant general who led an extraordinary group of soldiers in a hopelessly merciless battle that they never had a chance of winning.
Kakehashi has instead focused on one of the great unknowns of the Second World War: the thoughts and feelings of the Japanese soldiers who fought in one of the war's last apocalyptic struggles. She narrows that focus even more to shed light on a further and perhaps greater unknown, the man who was Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi.
Before Ken Watanabe's sublime portrayal of LTG Kuribayashi in Clint Eastwood's heartbreaking "Letters From Iwo Jima" (the book was an inspiration for the film), this figure was probably little known outside of history circles or the family, friends and former soldiers this man left behind. In the author's work this maverick tactician is brought back through the letters he penned to his family before the battle that claimed his life. What one learns is that besides being extremely unorthodox in his battle planning it was not just his realist military mind that set him apart from his peers, but his sense of duty and heartfelt compassion towards the men serving under him and the overflowing love he had for his wife and children. Kuribayashi himself knew that the letters he wrote from Iwo Jima would be his last. Reading the lines he wrote his wife, his son Taro and young daughter Takako in preparation for his coming death is doubly heartbreaking when woven with the larger story of the horrific battle and the decision to abandon the forlorn island decided by the Imperial Japanese hierarchy.
The battle itself is not covered in minute detail. The book's focus is on the humanity tied to the battle and the island, particularly the commanding general but also the soldiers and drafted, middle-aged conscripts serving under his command. This book may well for the first time bring to life the Japanese soldier of World War Two, and readers may discover that many of the stereotypes simply don't hold up.
LTG Kuribayashi, one cannot help but admire this "soldier's soldier" and unabashedly label him a "good man," was a commander who prepared for a brutal battle of attrition but a husband who worried about how his wife would get on after his death. The Japanese defenders of Iwo Jima were composed of a jumble of units that consisted of many draftees. Many of these men were older and well-established in careers, not the banzai fanatics of Hollywood (though that character existed too). They were men like the banker Egawa Mitsue, a loving husband and beaming father drafted as a lieutenant for the battle, who left a wife with no news of his death because his battalion was wiped out to the last man. The widows, many still alive for the author's interviews, retell the often devastating grief of the loss of their loved ones. Not all Japanese were soldiers ready to kill themselves for the Emperor, though they did understand the importance of their battle against the Americans on and in Iwo Jima.
So Sad to Fall in Battle illustrates once again that so many fighting men, despite different uniforms, customs and language often shared the same hopes and dreams. LTG Kuribayashi fulfilled his soldier's duty along with his men, and the gods did weep for them. A moving and heartrending book.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
General's powerful story told in letters home, February 19, 2007
So Sad To Fall In Battle is a historical portrayal of one of the most respected adversaries who fought in the Pacific War on Iwo Jimo against the United States--General Tadamichi Kuribayashi.
Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith (Howlin' Mad Smith) considered Gen. Kuribayashi's ground organization far more superior to the one he had seen in France in WWI and observers said it excelled German ground organization in WWII.
General Smith went on to say that most Japanese commanders were just names and disappeared in anonymity. However Gen. Kuribayashi's personality was written deep in the underground defenses he devised for Iwo Jimo. The American military and other POWs regarded prisoners from the Iwo Jima conflict with a mixture of fear and respect for how fiercely they fought.
Yet none knew these valiant fighters had been abandoned by the Imperial General Headquarters to face the enemy alone. As the American invasion grew nearer to Japan, Iwo Jima was suddenly labeled worthless and all naval and air support was cut off. When Headquarters changed their overall strategy, they sacrificed General Kuribayashi and his soldiers.
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's letters from Iwo Jima reveal a man who foresaw his imminent death yet encouraged his wife and children to be strong, positive and live life through all of its joys and tragedies. He went on to tell his wife Yoshii, to not worry about keeping up appearances or what other people may say about her. It was more important that she believe in herself and life her life to the fullest.
Throughout the 41 letters he sent to his family, General Kuribayashi revealed that this assignment to defend Iwo Jima was an honor because it was considered to be the most crucial territory to protect for Japan. They also revealed his agony of what would happen to them in his absence. Every letter started out with an assurance of his safety and concluded with the phrase "there's no need to worry about me." However Ms. Kumiko Kaheshshi noticed that he continued to worry about the cold draft that came up from under the kitchen, which he forgot
to fix before he left.
Ms. Kaheshshi reveals the gulf between the men who risked their lives on the front and the top brass who were responsible for the overall direction of this battle and their reluctance to apply the word "soldier" to both groups. Yet General Kuribayashi refused safety and chose instead to do his duty to defend Iwo Jima and fight shoulder to shoulder with his men in this formidable conflict against the United States of America.
When General Kuribayashi's children invited Ms. Kumiko Kaheshshi to read his letters for her book, they allowed the world to see a faithful father and husband and a man loyal to his country behind the one-dimensional personification of Japan's military and casualties of this brutal battle.
FYI: Movie Director Clint Eastwood used this book to develop the 2007 movie, "Letters From Iwo Jima."
Armchair Interviews says: Along with the words of his son and daughter, which offer unique insight into the private man, Kuribayashi's own letters cited extensively in this book paint a stirring portrait of the circumstances that shaped him.
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