• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1398 0

also inspired by letters received from a number of Marines, who were quite vocal that “ignoring” their story was altogether inappropriate. It’s hard to disagree.) Some have written to me, expressing frustration that I am not attempting to tell the entire story of the Pacific campaigns through another complete trilogy. There are reasons for that, which include the requirements of my publisher. My choice was to follow No Less Than Victory in rough chronological order, and move through the spring and summer of 1945, to the final collapse of Japan. Thus this story deals with the extraordinary fight on Okinawa, and then, an event unique in world history, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The points of view vary considerably. Some are familiar: Admiral Chester Nimitz, President Harry Truman. Others are perhaps less well known: Colonel Paul Tibbets, General Mitsuru Ushijima, General Curtis LeMay. And then there are the unknown: Marine Private Clay Adams, Dr. Okiro Hamishita, whose voices have carried me far deeper into this story than I expected to go.

If you are looking for either a strident argument in favor of the atomic bomb, or an apology for American immorality, you will find neither here. This story is told through the eyes of the participants, whose perspectives and decisions and experiences reflected what was happening around them. There is no judgment in hindsight, no moral verdict on my part. That just isn’t my job (and never will be). Libraries are filled with volumes that pursue an agenda, political or otherwise, about our role in ending the war. I am merely a storyteller, and this story is as accurate historically as I could make it, told by the voices of the men who made the decisions, who gave the orders, and who took their fight to the enemy. There was only one world for them, a world in which the enemy had to be defeated at all costs. That’s why I wanted to tell this story.

Every day, we lose countless numbers of those who participated in this fight. In every case, when I have spoken with veterans, they remind me that once they are gone, their memories will go with them. Unless, as one GI said, someone tells the damn tale. Fair enough. This is my attempt.

JEFF SHAARA

April 2011

CONTENTS

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

TO THE READER

LIST OF MAPS

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

1. THE SUBMARINER

2. NIMITZ

3. ADAMS

4. USHIJIMA

5. NIMITZ

6. ADAMS

7. ADAMS

8. ADAMS

9. ADAMS

10. USHIJIMA

11. ADAMS

12. ADAMS

13. NIMITZ

14. ADAMS

PART TWO

15. USHIJIMA

16. ADAMS

17. ADAMS

18. ADAMS

19. PORTER

20. ADAMS

21. USHIJIMA

22. ADAMS

23. ADAMS

24. USHIJIMA

25. ADAMS

PART THREE

26. TRUMAN

27. TIBBETS

28. HAMISHITA

29. TIBBETS

30. TIBBETS

31. HAMISHITA

32. TRUMAN

33. ADAMS

AFTERWORD

About the Author

LIST OF MAPS

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

THE INVASION OF OKINAWA—APRIL 1, 1945

NORTHERN OKINAWA: THE MARINES SWEEP NORTHWARD—APRIL 1945

MARINES ASSAULT SUGAR LOAF HILL—MAY 1945

MARINES CAPTURE SUGAR LOAF HILL—MAY 20, 1945

USHIJIMA WITHDRAWS FROM SHURI LINE—MAY 29, 1945

MARINES OBLITERATE JAPANESE NAVAL FORCES ON OROKU PENINSULA

AMERICANS DRIVE SOUTHWARD: USHIJIMA’S “LAST STAND”—JUNE 1945

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The following is a partial list of those original sources who provided voices for this story:

THE JAPANESE

Dr. Michihiko Hachiya

Saburo Ienaga

Prime Minister Hideki Tojo

Colonel Hiromichi Yahara

THE AMERICANS

Private First Class George J. Baird, USMC

Jim Boan, Sixth Division, USMC

General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., USA

Sergeant George R. Caron, 509th Composite Group, USAAF

Lieutenant General James V. Edmundson, USAAF

David E. Frederick, USN

Dr. Jack Gennaria, USN

Captain Hank Harmeling, 106th Infantry Division

Sergeant Andrew Hettinga, 164th Regimental Combat Team

Private First Class Irvine Johnson, Second Infantry Division, USA

Sergeant Mack Johnson, 501st Anti-Aircraft Battalion, USA

General Curtis LeMay, USAAF

Sergeant Bill Lorton, Eleventh Field Artillery,