Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (Hardcover)

by Max Hastings (Author)
Key Phrases: bomb group, field regiment, zuo yong, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Chiang Kai (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Kai Bird

The British military historian Max Hastings is best known for volumes that insist on recounting World War II from the bottom up. Hastings wants his readers to learn history from the perspective of the army grunts, sailors and airmen who endured the tedium and barbarity of war. His is military history as told from the foxhole -- or, in the case of this narrative of the last year of the Pacific war, as told from the decks of aircraft carriers.

Too often the little actors in history are forgotten in the shadows of the kings, presidents and generals who send them into battle. In Retribution, Hastings does not leave out the big actors, but what is new and original are the personal stories he has extracted from oral histories and his own interviews with veterans of the American, Japanese, Russian, Australian and even Chinese armies. A fine writer, Hastings conveys many heartrending testimonies. He quotes a sailor describing his friend's decapitation during a kamikaze raid: "His head fell off at my feet. I looked down . . . and I believe his mouth was still trying to tell me something." A Japanese soldier observes his starving men cooking the remains of a dead officer. A Marine on Iwo Jima comes across "piles of dead Marines, waiting to be collected."

Hastings's veterans recount numerous firefights, ambushes, massacres and rapes. War crimes are committed by all sides -- but most methodically by the Japanese. When Gen. Douglas MacArthur refuses to bombard Manila's old Spanish district, one of his officers complains: "War is never pretty. I am frank to say I would sacrifice Philipino [sic] lives under such circumstances to save the lives of my men. I feel quite bitter about this tonight."

Hastings draws an array of lessons from these stories. He concludes, unarguably, that war is chaotic, arbitrary and brutal for the people on the frontlines, and that generals often make decisions that needlessly sacrifice their soldiers. He is very tough on MacArthur, criticizing many of the Pacific commander's strategic moves, particularly his decision to waste lives and resources in seizing Manila. Describing the U.S. loss of 8,140 men on Luzon, Hastings observes that "Japanese barbarism rendered the battle for Manila a human catastrophe, but MacArthur's obsession with seizing the city created the circumstances for it. . . . MacArthur presided over the largest ground campaign of America's war in the Pacific in a fashion which satisfied his own ambitions more convincingly than the national purpose of his country."

But when it comes to Retribution's central theme -- that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wholly justified and necessary to persuade a recalcitrant enemy to surrender -- Hastings abandons his critical faculties. He is not content simply to argue that "the fate which befell Japan in 1945" was "retributive justice" for that country's misdeeds. In language reminiscent of the patriotically correct criticism of the Smithsonian's attempt in 1995 to mount an exhibit about the Enola Gay, Hastings asserts, "The myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway has been so comprehensively discredited by modern research that it is astonishing some writers continue to give it credence." He calls these unnamed writers "peddlers of fantasies."

Of course, the American Legion agrees with him. But it is an assertion rather than an argument, and the evidence of ongoing, robust debate is abundant. Numerous historians continue to question one aspect or another of the standard defense of President Harry Truman's decision to use the bomb, in the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "against an enemy that was essentially defeated." Three years ago, the Japanese scholar Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, who teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, published a widely praised book, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan, revealing evidence from Japanese and Russian archives that it was the Soviet entry into the war -- and not the atomic bombings -- that induced surrender. But Hastings does not alert his readers to this new evidence.

Let's clear the deck here: Few, if any, critics of the atomic bombings believe that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been preferable to the use of weapons of mass destruction. But the critics -- and Hastings -- know that this was not the real choice; Hastings admits that an invasion "would almost certainly have been unnecessary." The real question is whether lives could have been saved by following the advice of War Secretary Henry Stimson, Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, the State Department's Joseph Grew, Gen. George Marshall and numerous other advisers to the president. They -- and by the way, The Washington Post at the time -- urged Truman to clarify the terms of unconditional surrender by stipulating that the United States would allow Japan to retain its emperor as a constitutional monarch. There is good evidence -- even in Hastings's book -- that this might have led to an earlier surrender.

But while Hastings devotes two full chapters to these issues, he can't find the space to note that Truman, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Adm. William D. Leahy, the president's chief of staff, all reportedly agreed on Aug. 3, 1945 -- three days before 140,000 civilians were killed in Hiroshima -- that Japan was "looking for peace." Similarly, Hastings says Byrnes advised Truman that Americans would not stand for a clarification of the terms of surrender that appeared to coddle Japan. But Hastings does not tell his readers that the Senate Republican leadership was publicly attacking Truman for prolonging the war by not giving the Japanese what the State Department knew they wanted: a guarantee of the continuation of the emperorship. Rather, Hastings has this to say about Byrnes's judgments: "If there was a strand of triumphalism in American conduct, why should there not have been?"

In the end, I don't quarrel with many of the facts in this book. But I am appalled by the critical evidence left out. This is both unfortunate and unnecessary because Hastings's narrative is fully compatible with a more nuanced interpretation of how the Pacific war ended. He amply demonstrates, for instance, that the Japanese were essentially defeated before the atomic bombs fell. But the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain a hot-button issue, something that can make otherwise responsible historians nose-dive into polemics.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review
"Hastings is a military historian in the grand tradition . . . He is equally adept at analyzing the broad sweep of strategy and creating thrilling set pieces that put the reader in the cockpit of a fighter plane or the conning tower of a submarine."
--Evan Thomas, The New York Times Book Review

"Compelling . . . To the broad sweep of military events Mr. Hastings adds myriad human stories . . . and he does not hesitate to offer his own keen analysis along the way."
--Peter R. Kann, The Wall Street Journal

"The great merit of Max Hastings's many books on war is his skill at bringing the numbers, as it were, down to earth. Through the imaginative power of his writing, we get an inkling . . . of what it must have been like to slog one's way up a cliff at Iwo Jima, or be firebombed in Tokyo."
--Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books

"Hastings has another winner . . . This book is first-rate popular history, stiffened with a strongly stated point of view . . . A close-up and personal look at war as it affected real people, and how it felt to them at the time."--Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Explosive, argumentative, intensely researched . . . Demands to be read. A book of stunning disclosures."--Tom Mackin, Sunday Star-Ledger

"[A] masterful interpretive narrative . . . Hastings is both comprehensive and finely acute."
--Booklist

"Spectacular . . . Searingly powerful. Hastings makes important points about the war in the East that have been all too rarely heard."
--Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Telegraph

"A triumph . . . The key to the book's success lies not in its accessibility, nor in its vivid portraits of the key figures in the drama--although it has both--but in something else entirely: the author's supremely confident ambition."
--Laurence Rees, The Sunday Times--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (March 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307263517
• ISBN-13: 978-0307263513
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #39,582 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

169 of 177 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I may be crazy, but it looks like the Japanese have quit the war..." *, March 18, 2008

By	Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

With age comes a bit of weariness, and I confess that huge books with small print have begun to intimidate me just a bit. But some of them are so well-written and so interesting that page-anxiety drops away after the first couple of chapters. So it was for me with Max Hastings' Retribution.

Retribution, which chronicles the final year of World War II's Pacific Theatre, is a companion to Hasting's Armageddon, a history of the European Theatre's final year. The new volume begins with General MacArthur's plans to retake the Philippines and ends with a quick summary of the war's effects on Japanese society and culture. In between, Hastings examines the infiltration of total warfare into everyday Japanese life; the battle for control of the sea corridors, the Burma campaign and the Aussies who fought it (which I found particularly fascinating, knowing virtually nothing about it); the air campaign over Japan, masterminded by Curtis LeMay (also an especially intriguing chapter, particularly for those who presume that the only big bomb damage in Japan were the nuclear blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki); the unspeakably horrific Japanese treatment of China and Manchuria; the ferocious battles on Iwo Jima (to which Hastings devotes an entire chapter); and the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led up to Japan's final surrender.

Hastings punctuates his history of the Pacific Theatre's final year with dozens of stories about individual people whose lives were affected--GIs, sailors, Japanese infantrymen and pilots, Chinese "comfort girls," generals, admirals, statesmen--and this is part of what makes his book such a fascinating read. Moreover, Hastings doesn't pull any punches in his estimation of the war's leaders. MacArthur, for example, comes off as one of the most overrated military leaders ever produced by the U.S. Hirohito also comes across badly. Despite the post-war efforts to paint him as a pacifist overwhelmed by sabre-rattling generals, Hastings argues that the Emperor advocated war right up to the end.

Three things in particular struck me in reading Hastings. The first was that bushido, the ancient code of honor embraced by the Japanese military, made life hell for ordinary foot soldiers, who could be savagely beaten by superiors for little or no reason. Apparently such abuse was seen as a way of toughening up the fighting spirit. Bushido also encouraged disdain for military technology on the part of Japanese officers. "Why do we need radar?" one of them asked. "Do we not have eyes that see perfectly well?" (p. 47) This attitude led to a constant technological lag throughout the entire war.

The second was that the Kamikaze strategy adopted by the Japanese toward the end of the war not only failed in its aim of striking fear and panic into the hearts of Allied sailors, but actually had the opposite effect. Sailors were so enraged by what they perceived as cowardly attacks that their ferocity against the Japanese intensified. As one seaman wrote, "seeing dead Japanese in the water was like making love to a beautiful girl" (p. 173). This is a point worth considering, given the current war on terrorism.

Finally, I was amazed to discover that Japanese civilians were so physically and psychologically exhausted by the war that the US occupation forces actually had to protect Japanese soldiers from their wrath when the war ended (pp. 547-48). Even before the end came, some Japanese were privately voicing reservations about the culture of bushido (p. 264). But with defeat came a desire to leave behind the old culture--to such an extent that only Japan, out of all the war's Axis powers, has refused to acknowledge any war guilt or offer reparations (p. 549).

Hastings' book is well worth reading, either straight-through or selectively. One better appreciates just how daunting a task the island-by-island Allied strategy was, as well as how hopeless (at least when viewed in hindsight) Japan's imperialistic aims were.
________
* A message to Admiral Nimitz from Admiral Richmond Turner, commander of amphibious forces during the invasion of Okinawa. Nimitz's skeptical reply: "Delete all after 'crazy'" (p. 375).

78 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Pacific War Classic, March 18, 2008

By	Grant Waara (Lusk, Wyoming, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I became aware of this book on the brink of its UK pubication. The UK title is: Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945. I ended up getting the UK edition. I just didn't want to wait for the US edition, so I got it (and I live in Wyoming!). I'm glad I did. Hastings brings forth all his formidable powers, both in research, analysis and in his writing abilities.
Hastings praises the US Navy (especially the Submarine Service), condemns MacArthur (or more correctly, his oversized ego), Bill Slim is seen as one of the war's great captains (though Hastings believes Burma did little to contribute to the defeat of Japan), praises the courage of the Japanese, but damns their cruelty and their leadership's poor decisions.

Retribution is the companion volume to Armageddon. As is typical of Hastings, readers probably won't agree with 100% of his judgements and opinions. But the way he organizes his facts and presents his narrative, he presents a formidable case that's hard to deny.

What sets this book apart from the clear majority of Pacific war books, is that Hastings also has chapters on the war's neglected theaters, China and we see the war as both the Communists and Kuomintang, the Australians and of course, the Soviets. It's not just about the Americans, Japanese and to a lesser extent, the British. American readers may not agree with everything Mr. Hastings writes, but part of what makes him so interesting is that he's brilliantly provocative.

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Last Year Against Japan, Bogs Down On Surrender vs Atomic Bomb Issue, August 29, 2008

By	David M. Dougherty (Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The British author Max Hastings normally a creditable job in covering his campaign de june, but this time as with "Armageddon" he attempts to cover larger campaigns and issues of WWII and doesn't succeed. The British slant is present as usual, this time playing up the British campaigns in the CBI theater as important to Japan's defeat. Well, hardly. The fastest the British moved was in steaming to Hong Kong to re-occupy their former colony at war's end before the Americans got there, an item Hastings doesn't mention. Siam was lost to them due the OSS support of the "Black Thais", and that couldn't be allowed to happen again.

The strong points have been covered well in other reviews, but allow me to add a few facts into the debate over the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs. Yes, the Japanese Foreign Office had made an offer (in response to a query) to surrender through the Soviet Union in early July but it was clearly unacceptable to the US. These cables and their decoding through Magic were discussed at length (see Richard B. Frank, "Downfall"), and although the clear Japanese text is sometimes seized upon to prove the revisionists' case that Japan would have surrendered without the atomic bombs being dropped or suffering an invasion, the analysis made at the time clearly held such a possibility to be highly improbable. Nonetheless, we see it again and again by those, often from the now-defunct British Empire, who wish to vilify the US. You can see some of this in the other reviews, including the one done by the Washington Post writer. As Hastings said, "The myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway (without the atomic bombs being dropped) has been so comprehensively discredited by modern research that it is astonishing some writers continue to give it credence."

On the other hand, Hastings said, "It is now widely acknowledged that Olympic (the invasion of Japan) would almost certainly have been unnecessary." Maybe, but incorrectly. Yes, Japan was facing declining food availability, but had been for some time. A greater question was whether the American public would be willing to accept the casualties an invasion would would bring. If not, then a negotiated peace would be necessary, and in this respect is it noteworthy that post-war Japan has successfully fought off almost all attempts to assign war guilt to Japan or even to accept responsibility for their aggression and murderous occupation policies. US citizens blithely purchase Mitsubishi products even though the company employed slave labor during the war. Mitsubishi even sought to question whether Japan had invaded China, but somehow its automobiles are purchased by Americans who are willing to give Japan a pass on its crimes. Perhaps Mitsubishi should use the slogan, "From the Company that gave you the Japanese Zero with slave labor."

It is also interesting to note that none of the capitulation initiatives until after the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb originated in Japan. The Japanese Foreign office only responded to initiatives from other countries during June and July. In addition, the Potsdam Declaration issued on July 26th, effectively spelled out the Allied terms of surrender that were unacceptable to the Japanese military. Their only hope was to make American casualties so unacceptable to the American public that they could obtain better terms. The validity of such a strategy would later be proven by the Chinese in Korea and the North Vietnamese in Vietnam.

The reader should also consider that Togo's message to Sato on July 17th requesting he continue contacting the Soviets said, "Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender." An historian can easily understand what this meant.

The intelligence estimate generated for the Combined Chiefs of Staff at Potsdam concluded, "... for a surrender to be acceptable to the Japanese Army it would be necessary for the military leaders to believe that it would not entail discrediting the warrior tradition and that it would permit the ultimate resurgance of a military in Japan." Neither the Combined Chiefs nor Truman were willing to discuss terms on that basis. And there has been no evidence since that time to contradict that intelligence estimate. One must remember that the Foreign Office did not rule Japan -- the military did with the silent consent of Hirohito. It was only when Hirohito finally issued his rescript that the war could be brought to an end, and first he needed to be convinced to take such action. He was looking at possibly negotiating a peace in October or later after the Americans started taking unacceptable casualties (for them) as reported by Bergamini and supported by his later statement to MacArthur that the atomic bombs gave him an excuse to surrender earlier than that. Note: he needed an excuse, and losing a few million of his subjects was not sufficient for him to ensure compliance from his military.

The reader must also note the chronology. The Hiroshima bomb was dropped on August 6th, but that didn't catalyze much surrender activity. The Russians declared war on Japan on August 8th, and opened their attack on Manchuria on August 9th, the same day the Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Towards midnight on the 9th, Hirohito called a meeting of the Supreme Council and attempted to get them to accept capitulation. The most that came out of that meeting was a cautious sending of peace feelers through Sweden and Switzerland. On the 10th, Japan suggested it would surrender "... on the understanding that it (the surrender) does not comprise any demand which prejudices the perogatives of the Emperor as soverign ruler." On August 14th, Hirohito decided to issue his rescript by radio announcing the cessation of hostilities. The Americans took this as a surrender, although in the Japanese language version they simply "Ceased to Fight" rather than surrendering. Fighting continued at various locations through August 25th, and the final instrument of capitulation was signed on September 2nd.

With respect to the Soviet attack on Manchuria on August 9th, no doubt that helped Hirohito make up his mind, but it is folly to say that the Soviet attack was the deciding factor. There has been an enormous amount of Monday-morning quarterbacking based on a few statements that were and are still open to interpretation, and the opinions of high officials in the Truman administration who did not understand what was going on in Japan are hardly proof of Japan's intention to surrender without the military's concurrence. In this situation, Hastings is not kow-towing to the American Legion -- he is presenting the most likely case.

The negatives of the book are many, and it is riddled with mistakes. Major Archimedes Patti is listed as Sebastian Patti as an example, and I could fill the review with like errors. It is as if Hastings's researchers were incompetent, but Hastings took their information unquestioningly because small mistakes would not invalidate his arguments and points of view. Maybe not, but the book as is cannot be considered definitive history. One should be warned that many historical details are inaccurate so the reader will not use this book's details as points of reference.

With respect to Hastings's arguments, his constant use of disparaging adjectives to describe MacArthur was jarring. Perhaps Hastings overlooked the fact that MacArthur's forces suffered the lowest casualty rates of any major allied commander. And if MacArthur was wrong in not bypassing the Philippines, what rationale on earth was there for the British campaign to retake Burma? Had Slim's army never moved an inch after Imphal, the war's outcome would have been the same. More tellingly, MacArthur can be faulted for fighting the South Pacific campaign at all. The case can be made that the decision came in the Central Pacific, and the US should have bypassed everything to the south and west of the Marianas and gone straight to Japan. But MacArthur fought the enemy in front of him as he was told to do, initially to defend Australia, then to take the fight to the enemy.

In conclusion, this is an interesting book that will add to discussions of US Pacific strategy and Japan's demise. Please read past the "the British were the experts, the Americans bumbling amateurs with a gift in economic production" attitude. Depictions such as, "Hurley (US General Patrick Hurley) was a buffoon, loud-mouthed and verging on senility" when Secretary Stimson characterized Hurley as "...loyal, intelligent and extremely energetic ... pleasant and diplomatic in his manner..." and a "very fortunate" choice (by General Marshall), seem woefully out of place and should be ignored. The question then becomes, what does the reader ignore? The answer only comes after reading more books by other authors on the subject.