Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (Vintage)
by Max Hastings
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Book Summary Information
Author: Max HastingsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-10
ISBN: 0307275361
Number of pages: 688
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (Vintage)
Book Review: Last Spasms of the Evil Empire
Summary: 5 Stars
Fifteen million Chinese, 5 million South-East Asian (around 1 million from starvation in Occupied Vietnam, alone), 2.69 million Japanese (military and civilian). These grim mortality statistics, for Asians alone, are the unique responsibility of the Imperial Japanese government and a significant proportion of them needlessly occurred in the final year of the War. The grim and nasty stories of the concluding segment of the Pacific Theater are the subject of Max Hastings' magnificent book, "Retribution".
The book does not begin at the beginning (that is, with the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria). It is a comprehensive study of Japan's imperialist and surprisingly racist marauding aggression undertaken in a quest for natural resources, slave labor, markets and hegemony in the Dutch East Indies, the Phillippenes, Korea, Singapore, Burma, Indochina, etc, etc, ad nauseum. "Retribution", as the title implies, focuses on the final year of the conflict and provides the detail required to place the denouement into its proper historical context. As is the recent fashion (following a technique popularized and perhaps introduced by Sir Martin Gilbert), extensive use of anecdotes, culled from interviews and archives, are used in this book, along with a comprehensive array of reference sources.
Unlike many of his recent contemporaries, Hastings does not shirk his historical responsibilities. His lacerating commentary pegs the Japanese wartime program as not only rankly hypocritical in its contemporary justification (propagandized as an "Asian liberation movement" ; "Asia for the Asians", as the slogan went) and imperialistic but he also assesses the Japanese conduct of the war as being motivated by uncompromisingly racist policies. The catalogue of atrocities rivals those of the Nazis and Hastings compares Japanese Army elements to the SS. He buttresses his allegations with detailed and specific facts which attest to the ugly comportment of the wartime Japanese who lorded their superiority over Koreans, Chinese, Phillippene nationals, Burmese, U.S. POWs, Western civilian internees and so on. In other words, Japanese abuses were not, as some contend, isolated aberrations; rather, they were systematically applied atrocities, perpetrated under the aegis of the Imperial High Command and entirely derivative of the warped ideology of the mythologized "samurai" code (bushido).
Hastings, without hesitation or equivocation, lays the blame for the war and its insane perpetuation, even when the specter of defeat was staring all but the most ideologically deluded squarely in the face, on the Imperial Japanese Army, the Japanese government, its officers, its rank-and-file members; just where it should lie, in other words. He brooks no element of revisionism, as he courageously pillories contemporary Japanese, confining his condemnation not only to revanchist members of the Japanese government who pander to the basest aspects of misguided patriotism. He also acknowledges that similar sentiments are widely scattered through the civilian population to the extent that wartime conduct is absent from contemporary school texts. The result is that modern Japan continues to not only deny that crimes took place and to deny that compensation and apology is due, but also, in a display of the most egregious effrontery, to deny that Imperial Japan and its modern successor state have anything to be sorry for at all. Americans are largely ignorant of the echos of the war and its consequences, but they figure prominently into modern Asian relations. This denial of responsibility, of course, is in stark contrast to the behavior of the German government which has, by and large, owned up to its moral consequences of wartime actions and to acknowledge its obligations to the dead and to the survivors.
Additionally, Hastings is refreshing in his candor about the use of atomic weapons. He correctly observes that death by conventional explosives and/or incendiary devices is no less horrific than one incurred by thermal immolation, explosive shock wave or even radiation sickness. He acerbically remarks on the "politically correct" manipulation of the bombing starting immediately after the event by cynical elements of the Japanese leadership, who hypocritically invoked the bombing as if it happened in the absence of any sort of precedent and entirely out of context. This sort of cant is (and was) a deliberate attempt to contemporaneously re-write history and establish a myth of innocence (or at least moral equivalence) by the aggressors. It was propaganda, in other words and both was and is perverting in its efforts to warp understanding of wartime attitudes, policies, decisions and their implications. If all this seems to "harsh" by contemporary standards, Hastings offers many, many convincing examples to justify his posture. He also (correctly) applies the "standard of the time": what would any responsible Allied government do in a similar setting? How would an Allied government deal with the rage of its own citizens, many of whose sons, fathers, brothers (and sometimes sisters) were fighting and dying on remote Pacific islands? Yes, the Empire was teetering on the brink of the abyss, but how could a policy of continued incendiary bombings, maritime blockades and potential amphibious invasions be justified over the longer term future? Indeed, had the Japanese access to these weapons, they most certainly would have used them; witness the government's willingness to sacrifice men in suicide actions by plane (kamikaze attacks), demands to "fight to the last man" and exhortations to Japanese civilians to follow similar courses of action.
Hastings extends his biting candor to the principals involved on all sides of the conflict, especially the redoubtable General Douglas MacArthur. The General's manifest shortcomings as a commander are starkly presented. His towering egotism is emphasized. His "redemption" as the Supreme Allied Commander in Occupied Japan is also acknowledged. Ever contentious, Hastings' assessment, in glaring contrast to that of MacArthur's pre-eminent biographer, William Manchester, seems vindicated by the record and less influenced by temporal proximity to the myth. Similarly lucid assessments of Stalin (the supreme realist), Truman (a naive "prisoner" of circumstances), Churchill, Mao, Chiang, Stilwell, Halsey, Lemay, Hirohito and others is, as far as I know, uniquely perceptive. Almost the only commander to escape unscathed is the redoubtable General Slim, whose masterful campaign in Burma was nonetheless dismissed as a needless sacrifice for the British Empire, rather than a meaningful contribution to the demolition of Japan. Even alone, the pithy observations on this amazing historical cast of characters and the Theater's concluding campaigns justifies the time investment required to read the book.
"Retribution's" shortcomings? The author, in a somewhat coy maneuver, refuses to list a reference "reading list" (bizarrely and contemptuously dismissing it as a "peacock" list). He extensively quotes George MacDonald Frasier (author of the "Flashman" series), but only mentions his relatively obscure wartime biography, "Quartered Safe Out Here" in the introduction by way of context. Despite extensive coverage and commentary on the Burma campaign, he overlooks its possibly greatest living British participant, Lt. Col. John Philip Cross (still physically/mentally agile at 88 years old and living in Nepal, at the time of this writing). These are very minor quibbles and are noted only for completeness.
The accolades given in this review do not do justice to the magnificence of Hastings' work. The clarity of exposition, the fine synthesis of complex events, the acid commentaries all demand attention. But there is one over-riding reason for reading the book and that can best be stated by the author himself in the concluding paragraph: "It seems to me that dismay indeed repugnance, should instead concentrate upon the refusal of the Japanese people, including their political, educational, and corporate leaders, honestly to acknowledge their history. They still seek to excuse, and even to ennoble, the actions of their parents and grandparents, so many of whom forsook humanity in favour of a perversion of honour and an aggressive nationalism which should properly be recalled with shame. As long as such denial persists, it will remain impossible for the world to believe that Japan has come to terms with the horrors which it inflicted upon Asia almost two-thirds of a century ago." For the contemporary reader to understand and appreciate the significance of Hastings' concluding paragraph, that's why "Retribution" should be carefully studied.
Summary of Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (Vintage)
By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan's defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained unclear. The ensuing drama?that ended in Japan's utter devastation?was acted out across the vast theater of Asia in massive clashes between army, air, and naval forces.In recounting these extraordinary events, Max Hastings draws incisive portraits of MacArthur, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and other key figures of the war in the East. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors caught in the bloodiest of campaigns.
With its piercing and convincing analysis, Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.
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