BOOKS: Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945

In WWII 103,000 Americans sacrificed their lives to defeat Japan. In 1944 and 1945 the Americans crept slowly across the Pacific in a series of costly battles that brought them ever closer to the Japanese mainland. But the Japanese simply would not surrender and invasion "Downfall" of the Japanese mainland was planned. Estimates were that there would be 1 million America casualties. In this book, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945, British historian Max Hastings takes a look at whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to achieve a Japanese surrender. New evidence suggests that the Japanese may have surrendered if they were given assurances that the emperor and monarchy could remain. Hasting's concludes otherwise: "The myth that the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway has been so comprehensively discredited by modern research it's astonishing that some writers continue to give it credence." But much else can be draw from this book. It takes a unique perspective. Hastings is a writer that tells the story from the ground up, giving a soldiers view of the war and combining this with thoughts and plans of the generals. The result a much fuller picture of what the war in the Pacific was like. In 1945 my father waited on the island of New Guinea to be apart of that invasion. I am glad he wasn't.