Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [1]
Launching a Hellcat. (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington)
Commander David McCampbell. (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington)
U.S. soldiers taking cover on Leyte in November 1944. (© Associated Press/PA Photos)
U.S. soldiers fighting through the wreckage of Manila in February 1945. (© Associated Press/PA Photos)
The Marines land on Iwo Jima. (U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
Japanese surrendering on Iwo Jima. (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington)
Gen. Douglas MacArthur. (© U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
Lt. Bill Bradlee.
Lt. Philip True. (Courtesy of Philip True)
Emory Jernigan. (Courtesy of Vandamere Press)
Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague. (© U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
British survivor at Nakhon Pathom, Siam, in 1945. (Imperial War Museum, London: HU 4569)
Four Australians drag themselves to the U.S. submarine Pampanito, which had sunk the transport taking them to Japan. (Australian War Memorial: PO3651.009)
INSERT TWO
A Japanese pilot prepares for his final mission. (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A suicide plane narrowly misses the U.S. carrier Sangamon off Okinawa. (© U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
USS Franklin afire. (© Associated Press/PA Photos)
Marines in one of the innumerable bloody assaults on Okinawa. (© W. Eugene Smith/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Civilians on Okinawa await their fate. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
A Marine helps a woman and her baby to safety. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
Yoshihiro Minamoto.
Haruki Iki.
Toshio Hijikata.
Renichi Sugano.
Harunori Ohkoshi.
Toshihara Konada.
Kisai Ebisawa.
Yoshiko Hashimoto with her family, who paid a terrible price for the 9 March 1945 USAAF firebombing of Tokyo.
Hachiro Miyashita.
One of Miyashita’s photographs of a sombre young pilot watching fuelling for his plane’s last flight.
USAAF B-29s release incendiaries over Japan in May 1945. (© U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
Bai Jingfan, her husband and other guerrillas.
Li Guilin.
Zhuan Fengxiang and her husband.
Liu Danhua.
Weng Shan.
Li Dongguan.
Australians search enemy corpses for documents in northern Borneo, June 1945. (Australian War Memorial: 109317)
Mountbatten addresses British troops in Burma. (Imperial War Museum, London: SE 3484)
John Randle. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books Ltd.)
Brian Aldiss. (Courtesy of Brian Aldiss)
Derek Horsford.
The Big Three at Potsdam. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
Henry Stimson. (© CORBIS)
Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer. (© CORBIS)
Hirohito. (© Associated Press/PA Photos)
Anami. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
Marquis Kido. (© Kyodo News)
The aftermath of the Tokyo firebomb attacks. (© Kyodo News)
Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb. (© U.S. National Archives/CORBIS)
Distraught Japanese hear the emperor’s broadcast on 15 August 1945. (© Kyodo News)
The surrender ceremony aboard the battleship Missouri. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)
American sailors celebrate victory on board the USS Bougainville. (Naval Historical Foundation, Washington)
MAPS
The Pacific Theatre
The American campaign on Leyte, October–December 1944
The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23–25 October 1944
The Japanese occupation of China, 1937–45
The American invasion of Luzon, January–June 1945
Iwo Jima, February–March 1945
Fourteenth Army’s advance on Mandalay, November 1944–February 1945
Slim’s drive on Rangoon, April–May 1945
Okinawa, April–May 1945
The Russian invasion of China, August 1945
INTRODUCTION
Sir Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower’s deputy supreme commander in Europe in 1944–45, suggested that warriors educating themselves for future conflicts should study the early phases of past ones: “There are no big battalions1 or blank cheques then,” he wrote ruefully. In the first campaigns, nations which are victims rather than initiators of aggression enjoy scanty choices. They strive for survival with inadequate resources, often unsuitable commanders, all the handicaps of fighting on an enemy’s terms. Later, if they are granted time fully to mobilise, they may achieve the luxury of options, of might equal