By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama--that ended in Japan's utter devastation--was acted out across the vast stage of Asia. In recounting the saga of this time and place, Max Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the theater's key figures--MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors--American, British, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese--caught in some of the war's bloodiest campaigns. With unprecedented insight, Hastings discusses Japan's war against China, now all but forgotten in the West, MacArthur's follies in the Philippines, the Marines at Iwo...

I just finished reading Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944…by Max Hastings. I am going to give it five stars, with reservations and an explanation.

This book and Flags of Our Fathers by James D. Bradley, Ron Powers are my major reading about the Pacific Theater of WW II. It was tough reading both because of the amount of detail and internal contradictions. For example, he spills much ink on the argument that the British re-conquest of Burma (now Myanmar) and MacArthur's re-conquest of the Philippines were wastes of time and blood. The argument runs that more or less bankrupt Britain did nothing to advance Allied objectives by the fighting in Burma. Similarly he argues that MacArthur was almost madly obsessed with retaking the Philippines. He details how wasteful and costly the naval Battle of Leyte Gulf was deadly and useless. He makes great cases for both propositions, as well as the idea that MacArthur was a vain showboater. I am speculating that the author's British roots may have motivated him to build up Slim, an underrated British general and give a less sympathetic presentation to MacArthur. He does, however, hold Admiral Nimitz in very high regard.

Spoiler alert: in the last two chapters he somewhat repudiates his those arguments, but seems to adhere to his argument that an ultra-costly invasion of the "home islands" of Kyushu, Honshu and Hokkaido would never have been necessary because of economic strangulation. He does hint that no one would have had patience for waiting out a siege of that kind.

Like most serious writers and historians, he does acknowledge that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary, but seems not to want to reach this conclusion. The writer also asserts, without support, that President Truman had little or no role in authorizing the actions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Given President Truman's subsequent pattern of making bold decisions, I do not agree with these unsupported assertions.

Another quibble; Flags of Our Fathers does a much better job analyzing bushido, of the ancient Samurai code of honor. Nowhere does the author lay out that bushido 1944 and 1945 style was a far cry from that of the ancient warriors.

The books earns its five stars because it pulls no punches in both illustrating the brutality and inhumanity of the war in the Pacific, and finding that most of the fault lies with the Japanese. There is less moral equivalency than with most modern authors. This is a five-star review, with serious reservations.

This was a 22 disc audio book, which is about 26 hours of listening. That exceeds my normal tolerance limit, and while I did find sections which I thought could have been eliminated to keep the length more reasonable, I never did think about putting the book aside. That alone is an endorsement in my mind.
We all know who ultimately wins the war, so there's no suspense in that regard. However, there were many insights and new details which I had never known or forgotten which were very informative. In addition to the descriptions of many battles on many fronts, the author also makes clear the mindset of the Japanese society, and of the Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen. It was those attitudes which pervaded the society which lead to an unquestioned fight-to-the-death / never surrender and suicidal policy. That of course played a part in justifying the decision of using the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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