A portrayal of how and why Japan waged war from 1931-1945 and what life was like for the Japanese people in a society engaged in total war.

    A landmark text on the greatest land battle of the Pacific War.

    Now, with Into the Rising Sun, O'Donnell tells the story of the brutal Pacific War, based on hundreds of interviews spanning a decade. The men who fought their way across the Pacific during World War II had to possess something more than just courage. They faced a cruel, fanatical enemy in the Japanese, an enemy willing to use anything for victory, from kamikaze flights to human-guided torpedoes. Over the course of the war, Marines, paratroopers, and rangers spearheaded D-Day-sized beach assaults, encountered cannibalism, suffered friendly-fire incidents, and endured torture as prisoners of war. Though they are truly heroes, they claim no glory for themselves. As one soldier put it, "When somebody gets decorated, it's because a lot of other men died." By at last telling their stories, these men present a hard, unvarnished look at the war on the ground, a final gift from aging warriors who have already given so much. Only with these accounts can the true horror of the war in the Pacific be fully known. Together with detailed maps of each battle, Into the Rising Sun offers a complete yet deeply personal account of the war in the Pacific, and a ground-level view of some of history's most brutal combat.

    Though their importance has long been acknowledged, the coastwatchers had received relatively little attention until the publication of this book in 1977. The remarkable band of individualists, operating deep behind Japanese lines in the dark days of 1942-43, lived by their wits alone yet gave the Allies their best intelligence and rescued many a man from downed planes and sinking ships-including John f. Kennedy and his PT-109 crew. To piece their story together, Lord traveled 40,000 miles to interview participants, check archives, and examine private letters and diaries. He even made a three-day hike through the Guadalcanal jungle to inspect the coastwatcher hideout on Gold Ridge so he could successfully put readers in their shoes. The book's varied cast of intriguing characters has attracted readers ever since.

    At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever.In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice. Symonds begins with the arrival of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after the devastating Japanese attack, and describes the key events leading to the climactic battle, including both Coral Sea--the first battle in history against opposing carrier forces--and Jimmy Doolittle's daring raid of Tokyo. He focuses throughout on the people involved, offering telling portraits of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance and numerous other Americans, as well as the leading Japanese figures, including the poker-loving Admiral Yamamoto. Indeed, Symonds sheds much light on the aspects of Japanese culture--such as their single-minded devotion to combat, which led to poorly armored planes and inadequate fire-safety measures on their ships--that contributed to their defeat. The author's account of the battle itself is masterful, weaving together the many disparate threads of attack--attacks which failed in the early going--that ultimately created a five-minute window in which three of the four Japanese carriers were mortally wounded, changing the course of the Pacific war in an eye-blink.Symonds is the first historian to argue that the victory at Midway was not simply a matter of luck, pointing out that Nimitz had equal forces, superior intelligence, and the element of surprise. Nimitz had a strong hand, Symonds concludes, and he rightly expected to win.

    The Japanese had promised that there would be no Dunkirk in Singapore, and its fall led to imprisonment, torture and death for thousands of allied men and women. With much new material from British, Australian, Indian and Japanese sources, Colin Smith has woven together the full and terrifying story of the fall of Singapore and its aftermath. Here, alongside cowardice and incompetence, are forgotten acts of enormous heroism; treachery yet heart-rending loyalty; Japanese compassion as well as brutality from the bravest and most capricious enemy the British ever had to face.

    As an Army staff officer stated simply, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks." In 1944, a year earlier, success seemed near, but squabbling in the military command and the logistical challenges of launching a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland soon took their toll, and by the time of V.E. Day it was questionable whether the United States was up to the task of ending the war in the Pacific. An exhausted American public was calling for troops to come home and for the country to return to manufacturing consumer items instead of arms. Republican politicians called for the Allies to back away from the demand for unconditional surrender. The politically powerful constituency of GIs won legislative victories, allowing soldiers more easily to leave the military and depleting units just as they most needed experienced soldiers. Weaving together analysis of grand strategy with a vivid narrative depicting the brutal, debilitating, and often terrifying experience of combat, Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year in the Pacific. They explore the lives of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines who faced illness, drenching rain, and tenacious Japanese opponents. They also evoke the grand, clashing personalities of Douglas MacArthur and George C. Marshall, who warned of "the agony of enduring battle," and shed light on the views of President Roosevelt, who doubted Americans' understanding of the conflict and worried about a public mood that oscillated between overconfidence and despair. After the bloodletting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the war against Japan seemed more repugnant and less meaningful than the struggle against Germany. It is in this context, of military emergency and patience wearing thin, that a new president, Harry S. Truman, made the decision to deploy the atomic bomb. This remarkable, gripping narrative challenges assumptions about the inevitability of the war's outcome, the consequences of the "Europe first" strategy, and the wisdom of America's leaders.

    In this revelatory portrayal of the lives of the regular infantrymen who struggled to contain the Japanese advance, Eric Bergerud has given us a compelling and chilling record of the incredible hardships endured by these soldiers, and the heroic efforts that resulted in the reversal of the course of the war. Bergerud spent hundreds of hours interviewing the last surviving veterans of this remarkable campaign, and he has placed their personal experiences at the center of his analysis of military strategy."Aspires to do for the ground war in the South Pacific what Keegan achieved in Six Armies in Normandy."--Los Angeles Times

    Bill Sloan, "a master of the combat narrative" (Dallas Morning News), captures the valor, fortitude, and agony of the American defenders of the Philippines. Abandoned by their government, the men and women of the U.S. garrison battled hopeless military odds, rampant disease, and slow starvation to delay the inevitable surrender of the largest American military force ever. For four months they fought toe to toe against overwhelming enemy numbers—and forced the Japanese to pay a heavy cost in blood for every inch of ground they gained on the Bataan peninsula. After the surrender came the infamous Bataan Death March, where up to eighteen thousand American and Filipino prisoners died or were murdered as they marched sixty-five miles under the most hellish conditions imaginable. Rather than picturing these defenders as little more than helpless victims of a powerful and sadistic enemy—as have most previous books about the Philippine campaign—Undefeated tells the full story of the remarkable courage and indomitable will that cost the Japanese invaders thousands of casualties on Bataan and Corregidor. Interwoven throughout this gripping narrative are the harrowing personal experiences of dozens of American soldiers, airmen, and Marines. Sloan also provides vivid portraits of the officers who led the American forces, such as General Douglas MacArthur, who escaped to Australia as the situation on Bataan worsened, and General Jonathan Wainwright, who succeeded him as top U.S. commander in the Philippines and himself became a prisoner of the Japanese. Undefeated chronicles one of the great sagas of World War II—and celebrates a resounding triumph of the human spirit.

    A companion volume to his best-selling Armageddon, Max Hastings' account of the battle for Japan is a masterful military history.Featuring the most remarkable cast of commanders the world has ever seen, the dramatic battle for Japan of 1944-45 was acted out across the vast stage of Asia: Imphal and Kohima, Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Soviet assault on Manchuria.In this gripping narrative, Max Hastings weaves together the complex strands of an epic war, exploring the military tactics behind some of the most triumphant and most horrific scenes of the 20th century. The result is a masterpiece that balances the story of command decisions, rivalries, and follies with the experiences of soldiers, sailors, and airmen of all sides as only Max Hastings can.

    Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II.Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order.

    In this remote Indian village near the border with Burma, a tiny force of British and Indian troops faced the might of the Imperial Japanese Army. Outnumbered ten to one, the defenders fought the Japanese hand to hand in a battle that was amongst the most savage in modern warfare.A garrison of no more than 1,500 fighting men, desperately short of water and with the wounded compelled to lie in the open, faced a force of 15,000 Japanese. They held the pass and prevented a Japanese victory that would have proved disastrous for the British. Another six weeks of bitter fighting followed as British and Indian reinforcements strove to drive the enemy out of India. When the battle was over, a Japanese army that had invaded India on a mission of imperial conquest had suffered the worst defeat in its history. Thousands of men lay dead on a devastated landscape, while tens of thousands more Japanese starved in a catastrophic retreat eastwards. They called the journey back to Burma the ‘Road of Bones’, as friends and comrades committed suicide or dropped dead from hunger along the jungle paths.Fergal Keane has reported for the BBC from conflicts on every continent over the past 25 years, and he brings to this work of history not only rigorous scholarship but a raw understanding of the pitiless nature of war. It is a story filled with vivid characters: the millionaire's son who refused a commission and was awarded a VC for his sacrifice in battle, the Roedean debutante who led a guerrilla band in the jungle, and the General who defied the orders of a hated superior in order to save the lives of his men. Based on original research in Japan, Britain and India, ‘Road of Bones’ is a story about extraordinary courage and the folly of imperial dreams.

    But when the Marines landed, the surviving Japanese poured out of their protective subterranean bunkers--and began one of the most brutal and bloody battles of World War II.For three straight days, attackers and defenders fought over every square inch of sand in a battle with no defined frontlines, and where there was no possibility of retreat--because there was nowhere to retreat to. It was a clash that would leave both sides stunned and exhausted, and prove both the fighting mettle of the Americans and the fanatical devotion of the Japanese.Drawn from new sources, such as participants' letters and diaries and exclusive firsthand interviews with survivors, One Square Mile of Hell is the true story of a battle between two determined foes, neither of whom would ever look at the other in the same way again.

    It is the true story of the man behind Pearl Harbor---Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto---and the courageous young American fliers who flew the million-to-one suicide mission that shot him down.Yamamoto was a cigar-smoking, poker-playing, English-speaking, Harvard-educated expert on America, and that intimate knowledge served him well as architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next sixteen months, this military genius, beloved by the Japanese people, lived up to his prediction that he would run wild in the Pacific Ocean. He was unable, however, to deal the fatal blow needed to knock America out of the war, and the shaken United States began its march to victory on the bloody island of Guadalcanal.Donald A. Davis meticulously tracks Yamamoto's eventual rendezvous with death. After American code-breakers learned that the admiral would be vulnerable for a few hours, a desperate attempt was launched to bring him down. What was essentially a suicide mission fell to a handful of colorful and expendable U.S. Army pilots from Guadalcanal's battered "Cactus Air Force":- Mississippian John Mitchell, after flunking the West Point entrance exam, entered the army as a buck private. Though not a "natural" as an aviator, he eventually became the highest-scoring army ace on Guadalcanal and the leader of the Yamamoto attack. - Rex Barber grew up in the Oregon countryside and was the oldest surviving son in a tightly knit churchgoing family. A few weeks shy of his college graduation in 1940, the quiet Barber enlisted in the U.S. Army. - "I'm going to be President of the United States," Tom Lanphier once told a friend. Lanphier was the son of a legendary fighter squadron commander and a dazzling storyteller. He viewed his chance at hero status as the start of a promising political career.- December 7, 1941, found Besby Holmes on a Pearl Harbor airstrip, firing his .45 handgun at Japanese fighters. He couldn't get airborne in time to make a serious difference, but his chance would come. - Tall and darkly handsome, Ray Hine used the call sign "Heathcliffe" because he resembled the brooding hero of Wuthering Heights. He was transferred to Guadalcanal just in time to participate in the Yamamoto mission---a mission from which he would never return.They flew the longest over-water fighter mission ever and ambushed and killed Yamamoto. After his death, the Japanese never won another major naval battle. But the victorious American pilots seemed cursed by the samurai spirit of the admiral and were tormented for the rest of their lives by what happened that day. Davis paints unforgettable personal portraits of men in combat and unravels a military mystery that has been covered up at the highest levels of government since the end of the war.

    In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito, conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change came about. On the basis of never-before-published interviews with both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls "a powerful, harrowing account of appalling inhumanity...impeccably researched."