Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

Excellent. It is a detailed breakdown of opposing forces after Okinawa and the events leading up to the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. There is also an analysis of whether there was any alternative to the dropping of the Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For what it is worth, after having read a few books on the subject, viz Rising Sun by John Toland, The Fleet at Flood Tide by James Hornfischer, and Twighlight of the Gods by Ian Toll, as well as this one by Richard Frank, all superb history books, I think that both President Truman and Emperor Hirohito, and the people advising them, as well as Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur, by and large took the right decisions during those final moments of World War II in the Pacific and its immediate aftermath.As a criminal defence lawyer used to seeing plenty of lying and sifting through the evidence, I, personally, would quibble with the analysis that it was the Atomic Bombs that ended the war. The account and time-line given by Ian Toll in Twighlight of the Gods is worth looking at. On 6 August 1945 Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima. It was an absolutely flawless operation. At 11.00 PM on 8 August 1945 the Soviet Union declares war on Japan. On or around the first minutes of 9 August 1945 Soviet forces attack on all fronts and are often very successful. For months Soviet forces had been transferred from Europe to the Far East, and had been massing on the frontiers of Japan / Sakhalin / the Kurile Islands and Japanese occupied China / Manchuria.At a normal time for holding a meeting, in the morning of 9 August 1945 there is a meeting of the Japanese Supreme War Direction Council. The Big Six, were split evenly between those who wanted to accept the Potsdam Declaration with the sole condition that the institution of the Emperor remain and those who wanted a negotiated peace in effect similar to the Armistice of 1918. At 11.30 AM they are told that a second Atom Bomb had been dropped on Japan, this time on Nagasaki. This piece of news changed nothing. The view appears to me to be that the first wave of Americans hitting the beaches can be held and American casualties in the ensuing battle for Kyushu would be so high that American morale would crack and a negotiated peace a la 1918 could be achieved. On what I have read, particularly in Downfall by Richard Frank, this analysis by the Japanese military is almost certainly correct.At some point on 9 August 1945 Prime Minister Suzuki and Foreign Minister Togo, both members of the Supreme War Council, find out about the Soviet invasion. It seems likely to me that it was after that first meeting in the morning by the Supreme Council. Communications in 1945 will have been slow.That first meeting breaks up and Imperial Headquarters is abuzz with the news from China. Presumably, it is in the early part of the afternoon on 9 August 1945 that all the members of the Supreme War Council find out about the Soviet attack.I find it hard to believe that Emperor Hirohito and Marquis Kido were not informed of the Soviet attack. Any records saying otherwise are, I think, wrong. In this I am much more sceptical than Richard Frank, who thinks that the ensuing discussions of the Supreme War Council did not include a really detailed discussion of the Soviet entry into the war and what its effect would be on Japan. Of course they discussed it. Yes, it was decided to blame the Atom Bombs for the need to surrender, but the results of the early morning meeting belie the analysis that Japan surrendered because of the Atom Bombs. The decision to surrender was unanimous and it was taken late at night on the ninth of August 1945 / early hours of 10 August 1945, in effect some 24 hours after the Soviet attack had started and well after it was clear to Prime Minister Suzuki, and, presumably, the other members of the Supreme War Council, plus Emperor Hirohito and Marquis Kido, that "the game was up" for Japan, with potentially severe adverse consequences for Japan. They will of course have known that all the best troops from China were now on Kyushu facing the Americans. Japan was wide open to invasion from the north by the Soviets.Credit where credit is due. Emperor Hirohito was, I think, superb. He was intelligent and humane and courageous. There is no way Japan would or could have surrendered any earlier. They had a tiny window of opportunity in which to surrender, and Emperor Hirohito got it absolutely spot on.Ian Toll appears to me to suggest that the dropping of the second Atom Bomb on Nagasaki was not necessary, whilst Richard Frank says it was. I am inclined to agree with those who think that Nagasaki added nothing to the strategic situation and if the mission had been aborted or, indeed, never started, it might have been better for everybody, not least for those Japanese who were killed, but also for USA - Japanese relations in the future.On page 118 Richard Frank writes that the third and fifth fleets, operating jointly for the first time, would support Olympic [the invation to invade Kyushu on 1 November 1945]. I think that is a mistake. There was just the one Pacific Fleet called the Third Fleet when Admiral Halsey commanded it and the Fifth Fleet when Admiral Spruance commanded it. The two admirals and their respective teams rotated in their command of that one and the same fleet throughout the war in the Pacific.To sum up, Downfall by Richard Frank is excellent, definitely worth buying and reading.

This is ONE of the THE VERY BEST books I have ever read on the End of the Pacific War ( along with ' Hell to Pay' by D.M. Giangreco )In this book you read that the Japanese Military by NO MEANS considered themselves beating in August 1945 - and to the horror of planners and invasion commanders for the Invasion of Kyushu in Novemeber 1945 , Magic indicated in June and July that the Japanese were sending massive reinforcements to Kyushu, from Honshu, Hokkaido, Korea, and elsewhere. By the end of July the number of Japanese troops defending the island had risen to 535,000. Moreover, the identification of two army headquarters in the south—only one in the north—indicated the Japanese expected the invasion to come at the exact place where American planners had targeted the amphibious landings to occur.As one of the foremost historians of the Pacific War, Edward J. Drea, described the situation by the end of July: "From the U.S. point of view, the odds were swinging against them: the defenders would soon equal or outnumber the attackers. This was, as[MacArthur's chief of intelligence, Major General Charles A.] Willoughby candidly put it, 'hardly a recipe for success.'"I would recommend this book highly to anyone .

This book by no means settles the debate over whether or not it was wrong ethically or strategically for the United States to use atomic weapons (they had not yet graduated to being called nuclear weapons at this period) near the end of the war with Japan in 1945.Frank's contribution draws heavily on facts and details known at the time -- to help render a judgement without benefit of hindsight. His research into military strengths and weaknesses, production capabilities, longer-range plans is thorough and far more engaging that one would normally think a presentation of large amounts of statistical data would be. His use of sources from both the Japanese and American sides, as well as his analysis of diplomatic versus military concerns and strategies is well done. His analysis of cabinet-level thinking on both sides deserves to be carefully studied, as it draws upon contemporary documents and, where those conflict with hindsight recollections, he lays the controversy bare and lets the readers decide for themselves. His analysis of the role of the emperor in particular deserves special consideration, for it neither paints Hirohito as a puppet or a warmonger, but as a human leader with internal and external considerations to weigh in decision making.Frank begins with a description of the firebombing of Tokyo, a tactic in itself probably as horrific as an atomic blast, with similar resulting damage and casualty counts (remember, the early atomic weapons were quite a bit less powerful than todays models).I would have welcomed more maps, in particular showing Japanese and American forces at the end of the war. Frank does have maps showing planned invasion routes of the southern islands, both from American contemporary intelligence and from a Japanese actual-strength perspective -- this difference alone is best seen in a side-by-side comparison; anyone who thinks American and Allied forces wouldn't have undertaken the worst battle in the history of the world to that point is deceiving themselves, and the casualty rates on both sides would have far exceeded the Hiroshima and Nagasaki totals.A clear, detailed yet concise history of the final days of World War II.