The Second World War In The East (Cassell History of Warfare) [Hardcover]

H.P. Willmott (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cassell History of Warfare | Publication Date: June 30, 1999

Until its loss in World War II, Japan had not known failure in centuries of warfare. This record of the conflict goes beyond mere description to illuminate why Japan instigated a conflict with the only nation--the United States--capable of defeating her, as well as the crucial shifts in the nature of naval power and strategy that occurred during the fighting. Set off on the road to war, analyzing the effects of the first world conflict; Japan's policies in China; the first victories, as Japan surges through Asia; the great battles of Midway and Guadacanal; and the final defeat, with the devastating launch of the first nuclear weapons. 224 pages, 70 color illus., 80 b/w illus., 7 3/4 x 10 3/8.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you're looking for an event that symbolizes what both unites and divides Britain and the United States, search no further than the Second World War. Britain and the U.S. fought on the same side, but as far as the British are concerned, the war started in 1939 and was, to all intents and Purposes, over in May 1945 with the fall of Berlin. The Americans see things a little differently. They reckon it started in 1941 with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and ended in August 1945 with the atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This summary is a little simplistic, of course. The Americans did play a major part in the European War from D-Day onward, though not perhaps as much as films like Saving Private Ryan might suggest. (Watching Steven Spielberg's epic, you'd be hard-pushed to know there was a single Brit in Normandy in 1944.) And the Brits were involved in the Far East; first with the fall of Singapore, then with the Chindit campaign in Burma. No one should ignore, either, the suffering of the British POWs in the Japanese labor camps. Yet the fact remains that for most Eurocentric Brits, the war in the Far East is largely a forgotten war. We remember the odd vivid image--Pearl Harbor, the raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, and the mushroom clouds over Japan--but that is just about it. So H.P. Willmott's book, part of Cassell's excellent History of Warfare series, comes as a salutary jolt to our conscience. We may have lived through hell in Europe, but some of the nastiest, most brutal hand-to-hand fighting was taking place nearly 10,000 miles away.

As with the other books in this series, Willmott conjures an Alice in Wonderland effect; there is far more in here than you would imagine the space allowed. Detailed maps, period photos, helpful chronologies are all included, along with a substantial political and military overview. Above all, what you get is context. We don't wade in with Pearl Harbor. Instead, we start with Japan's imperialistic expansionist policies of the 1920s and '30s with its ongoing secret war with China, from which Pearl Harbor became a logical, opportunistic extension. And Japan almost got away with it. For a year they cleaned up everything that stood in their way, and by 1942 were in possession of the East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Philippines. But then the fight back began; first at the Midway Islands and then slowly, slowly through the Solomon Islands and the Philippines, until it became a battle for Japan itself. If you're looking for quibbles, Willmott misses a trick or two on the involvement of the Japanese Imperial Family in the war effort; everything the generals did had the blessing of Hirohito. But all in all, this is a robust and thoughtful book. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk

From Kirkus Reviews

British military historian Willmott (Naval Historical Branch/Ministry of Defence) employs myriad illustrations and lucid prose to explain the Allied victory in the Pacific. Endeavoring to ``avoid mere description,'' Willmott swiftly surveys the principal battles and strategies of Japan and the United States and concludes that Japans defeat was inevitable in the face of the ``tsunami of high explosive hatred that reached across the whole of the Pacific'' following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He declares meaningless the concepts of ``turning points'' and ``decisive battles'' that characterize other accounts and asserts that ``the battles in this war were milestones, not signposts, on the road.'' The volume is lushly illustrated with graphs, charts, maps, and photographs: among the most illuminating are the maps showing the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Iwo Jima; among the most disturbing are pictures of dead combatants strewn across the beaches of Tarawa andin a two-page color layoutof the destruction of Nagasaki. The brevity of the volume often forces Willmott into handling quickly events of great interest (the Battle of Midway consumes merely two paragraphs), but he nonetheless manages to include a vast amount of information, sometimes in his text, sometimes in captions. He reminds us that the US had to fight to regain Alaskas Aleutian Islands, and he establishes that in 1915 a Japanese naval officer named Nakajima Chikuhei was ``the first person to have committed to paper the idea of breaking an enemys will to resist by a bombing campaign directed against a civilian population.'' In captions that we learn that Australia was the only country to use all-volunteer forces, that in 1944 US factories produced one military aircraft every 294 seconds, and that kamikaze attacks sank 70 ships. A curious juxtaposition occurs near the end: following the photograph of the destruction of Nagasaki (which claimed tens of thousands of lives) are four pages of pie-charts and bar graphs depicting Japans economic losses. An enlightening fusion of meticulous scholarship and graphic art. (70 color, 80 b&w illustrations)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cassell; 1st UK edition (June 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0304352470
• ISBN-13: 978-0304352470
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,592,113 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An introductory read, March 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Second World War In The East (Cassell History of Warfare) (Hardcover)

Right at the beginning, the author states that there are many other books written about WWII. Hence, he is trying to write this book from a different perspective, by analysing the reasons for the way the Pacific War unfolded rather than to give a straightforward chronological account.
The end result is the same - a chronological account of events as they unfolded.
The analysis is partially successful. Willmott has a rather engaging style of writing and claims to write from an objective perspective with hindsight. The problem here is that he selects his own objectivity.
An example is the following. Nothing about the WWII Pacific campaign was straightforward, even its beginnings. The WWII European campaign's was - the invasion of Poland. Period. The author grudgingly admits that we may trace its roots politically back to the Versailles Treaty. However for the Pacific campaign, he thinks that it started at the Sino-Japanese war 1937, or better still, it started at the Japanese Manchurian war 1931 or even when Japan first emerged as a modern industrialised power.
Furthermore, he would propose a viewpoint and raise a few facts in defending it. The problem is that he sometimes does not state his facts clearly.
There are also a few brouhahas as per the following examples:
Willmott thinks that the Japanese sense of superiority was due to their "mandate from heaven". This concept and term is only associated with Chinese dynastic history and is out of context here.
He believes that many accounts of WWII focus too much on the little things. One example cited was that he thinks that ULTRA's contribution to the Allied success in the Atlantic campaign has been over exaggerated in far too many books. Thus, he completely fails to mention here that breaking the Japanese code led largely to success at Midway as well as other Allied campaigns. In an about twist, he credits the minor contribution of the Allies in Burma as being important to the whole Pacific campaign. The bombing of Pearl Harbour was insignificant militarily, except in propaganda value and in delaying the American naval build up by a few months. Yet the book devotes two large map spreads on four pages, one for each wave of Japanese aircraft.
He spells the town names Selangor as Segolar and the Kokoda Trail is perverted thruout as the Kakoda Trail.
Some of the accompanying maps are oversimplified. Some are beautiful. Therein lies the problem - these series of books attempt too much - a structured text with numerous illustrations to appeal to the general public. The problem is that there is a perceived imbalance between text and illustrations.
There is no space for thoughtful analysis nor revisionist thinking which might be better served elsewhere.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pictorial history of the Pacific Campaign with Surprisingly Insightful Analysis, December 22, 2006

By 

George Coppedge (Czech Republic) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Second World War In The East (Cassell History of Warfare) (Hardcover)

Besides being a visual treasure with numerous black and white photos, the book is complemented with many maps and diagrams along with a few color photos. Even the pages are made of thick high-quality stock. The very high production values are what initially attracted me to this book. But, I was surprised to find that even the writing was of an unexpected caliber, full of thoughtful analysis on why Japan went to war with China, the US, and almost every other major power during World War II.

Beyond that the author, H.P. Willmot, goes into real depth in explaining Japan's apparent invincibility during the opening months of the war only to face total, utter defeat by August 1945. The most crucial Japanese mistake was an underestimation of wrathful American vengeance unleashed at Pearl Harbor. Unlike what the Japanese planners had imagined, this desire for vengeance would not fade and disappear after 18 months of attritional warfare. Instead the US would not cease until Japan was soundly defeated and militarily occupied.

Willmott goes on to examine Japan's precarious position regarding its industrial base versus the US. Whereas great losses in American naval and merchant shipping could be rapidly and easily replaced, each Japanese vessel lost could never be totally replaced. As Japan's shipping losses mounted with increased American submarine campaigns and carrier raids, the raw materials needed for its war machine were left permanently stranded in far-off Southeast Asian ports.

The author does an excellent job of investigating both the material and doctrinal weaknesses of the Japanese versus the US. What the Japanese had envisaged as a limited war turned into a nightmare of total war with the world's first superpower. The US's resources were so great that even though it didn't give the Pacific Campaign top priority it still produced an overwhelming and convincing victory against smaller, less technologically advanced Japanese forces. Indeed, had the military regime in Tokyo been realistic and morally capable of suing for peace it probably should have done so after the Midway battle before American predominance began to convincingly assert itself.

Finally, the book has data on naval battle losses, new ship commissionings, combined shipping losses, and short biographies of the leading personalities in the campaign. I enjoyed both the pictures and the text and had the book read in just a few short days. I highly recommend it.