Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

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).