Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [377]
8 August: USSR declares war on Japan, invades Manchuria
9 August: Second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki
15 August: VJ-Day: Japan announces its surrender
26 August: Soviet forces declare Hutou fortress secure, completing their campaign in Manchuria
2 September: Japan’s surrender signed in Tokyo Bay
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A book of this kind, three years in the making, has been dependent upon help and goodwill from a host of people. First, I should thank my publishers in London and New York, Richard Johnson and Ash Green, together with my splendid editor, Robert Lacey of HarperCollins. My British and American agents, Michael Sissons and Peter Matson, are always wonderfully supportive.
It is often suggested that academic historians are prey to jealousies. By contrast, I am constantly amazed by the generosity of scholars. Dr. Williamson Murray and Dr. Allan Millett offered many pointers at the outset of this project. Both were kind enough to read and comment upon a draft of my manuscript. Without the advice and personal commitment of Dr. Tim Nenninger, it would be impossible for a researcher to make swift headway in the vastnesses of the U.S. National Archive. Tim’s help was indispensable in pointing me towards relevant and relatively unexplored material. The U.S. Army’s Military History Institute at Carlisle, Penn., is a peerless source of documents and personal narratives, which its staff identified for me. Special thanks are due to Dr. Richard Sommers, together with Dr. Conrad Crane, MHI’s director, himself a notable historian. Con commented upon my chapter about Curtis LeMay’s air campaign. Dear Dr. Tami Biddle, of the neighbouring U.S. Army War College, gave me copies of many USAAF documents which she had unearthed in the course of her own researches.
The U.S. Marine Corps’ historical centre at Quantico, Virginia, is full of good things, and I am grateful especially to Mike Miller for his assistance during my time there. The U.S. Navy’s Historical Center at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., is another treasure house. Jack Green answered my questions, in person and by e-mail, with endless patience. Thereafter, he corrected scores of technical solecisms in my text, for which I am especially grateful. The library and oral history archive provided a mass of published and unpublished material. Dr. Ronald Spector offered some reflections over lunch in Washington. James Controvitch provided a comprehensive formation and unit bibliography. Col. David Glantz read and commented upon the draft of my chapters on the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, about which he is the foremost Western expert. Richard Frank, who in recent years has established himself as a brilliant historian of the Pacific, drew my attention to his unpublished monograph on Leyte Gulf. He also read my manuscript in advance of its U.S. publication, saving me from some egregious errors. The above, of course, bear no responsibility for my errors or judgements, some of which they will dissent from.
In Britain, Professor Sir Michael Howard, OM, CH, MC, and Don Berry were kind enough to read and discuss this manuscript, as they did that of my earlier book Armageddon. The staff at the Imperial War Museum were as splendid as ever, and the museum’s collection of personal memoirs gets better every year. The Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College, London, and the London Library both provided indispensable assistance.
In Japan, Chako Bellamy located survivors of the wartime era for interview, and accompanied me to interpret at meetings with them. Gu Renquan, the enchanting “Maomao,” wife of the distinguished former BBC correspondent and biographer of Mao Zedong, Philip Short, did the same for me in China. Her company was among the foremost pleasures of my travels there. In Russia Dr. Luba Vinogradovna, researcher and interpreter for Armageddon, translated a mass of documents and personal reminiscences, as well as conducting interviews with several Red Army veterans of the Manchurian campaign. I have acknowledged individual contributions from eyewitnesses