'Retribution' by Max Hastings (book review)

(C) 2007 Random House/Vintage

In 2007, three years after the publication of Max Hastings’ “Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945,” the British imprint HarperPress published a companion volume about the end of World War II in the Pacific, “Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.” Like its predecessor set in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), “Nemesis” is an examination of the various military and political maneuvers that led to the Allied (primarily American) victory against the Japanese Empire during the war’s closing months. When Knopf, Hastings’ U.S. publisher, released the book for the American market as “Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.”

In this highly readable 688-page tome, Hastings depicts the earthshaking events that led to Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War in vivid prose and clear-eyed analysis of the various campaigns and battles that culminated with the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hastings sets up his Pacific War chessboard by using the same narrative techniques he uses in “Armageddon.” He describes the various strategies used by Japan and its main antagonist, the United States, after the summer of 1944. With most of her carrier force destroyed in a series of disastrous naval battles and the balance of power clearly on the Americans’ side, Japan’s leaders had only two alternatives. They could either surrender, which was a concept alien to Japanese culture, or they could fight tenaciously for every miserable island they occupied till a war-weary America sought a negotiated peace.

The author also analyzes the flaws in the American chain of command in the Pacific. Unlike in the ETO, where Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the sole supreme commander of the Allied coalition, the Pacific Theater was divided into various geographical areas. There were at least five such command areas, but the Pacific Ocean Area, commanded by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, and the Southwest Pacific, commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, were the most important.

During World War II, the public was told that such a divided command was necessary due to the size of the huge ocean areas in which the war against Japan was fought. In reality, this flawed command setup was the result of the rivalry between the vain and ambitious MacArthur and the competent and cool Nimitz. MacArthur was a flamboyant and arrogant Army officer who sought glory in the final invasion of Japan and redemption for his defeat in the Philippines in the dark days of 1941 and 1942.  In sharp contrast, the Texas-born Nimitz was a calm but shrewd Navy officer who had restored the Pacific Fleet’s confidence and fighting spirit after the disaster at Pearl Harbor.

“Retribution” makes a serious case for criticizing the infamous twin drives across the Pacific once America began offensive operations against Japan in 1942. Even though by 1943 the U.S. was the predominant industrial and military power in the world, it was fighting a global war against two major enemies (Fascist Italy was by then a mere appendage to Hitler’s Nazi Germany) and its resources were not limited. Hastings persuasively argues that if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had curbed the ambitions of Gen. MacArthur, one major drive across the Central Pacific under Navy command may have successfully defeated Japan before August of 1945.

But MacArthur had an ace card: in 1942, he had promised the Filipinos that he, and not just the U.S. as a whole, would return to liberate the Philippines from their Japanese occupiers. And since 1944 was a Presidential election year, he made it clear to FDR that it would be political suicide if he did not approve MacArthur’s plan to invade the Philippines at Leyte later that fall.

“Retribution” covers the major land and naval battles that followed the first landings on Leyte in October 1944. Hastings writes about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the subsequent liberation of the Philippines, and the B-29 bombing raids on Japan’s cities (including the March 9, 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, which did as much damage as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and killed nearly 70,000 people). “Retribution” also delves into the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, two bloody and savage campaigns which pushed the U.S. into using two atomic bombs to shock Japan into surrender.

Regarding the use of the A-bombs, Hastings has this to say:

“One further military point should be made. From August 1945 onwards Truman and other contemporary apologists for the bomb advanced the simple argument, readily understood by the wartime generation of Americans, that it rendered redundant a bloody invasion of Japan. It is now widely acknowledged that Olympic would almost certainly have been unnecessary. Japan was tottering and would soon have starved, with the aerial destruction of its means of food distribution. 

"Richard Frank, author of an outstanding modern study of the fall of the Japanese empire, goes further. He finds it unthinkable that the United States would have accepted the blood-cost of invading the mainland.

“Like any ‘counter-factual’, it is hard to accept this proposition as an absolute. The prospect of the Kyushu landings was wholly unwelcome to America’s military and political leadership. Yet in the summer of 1945 Marshall, for one, was committed to keeping open the invasion option, partly because he questioned whether the bomb’s impact would be conclusive. The US chief of staff recognised the supreme wisdom of Churchill’s view that ‘all things are always on the move simultaneously . . . One has to do the best one can, but he is an unwise man who thinks there is any certain way of winning this war . . . The only plan is to persevere.’ So much that is today apparent was then opaque. So many forces were in play, the exact impacts of which were unclear.”

Hastings reminds the reader that though the Pacific War was essentially a struggle between Japan and the U.S., other countries contributed to the Allied victory. China’s sufferings under the Japanese yoke are still seldom discussed in the West even though over 15 million Chinese lost their lives during World War II. China’s role in the war and the internal divisions that led to its civil war are covered in “Retribution” in greater scope than in most histories of the Pacific struggle.

Hastings also devotes some space to the Soviet Union’s belated entry into the war and its impact on Japan’s decision to surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s decision to keep his promise to join the fight against Japan three months after Victory in Europe is carefully examined in the book’s final chapters, especially in the context of America’s decision to use nuclear weapons to end the war.

There are other topics for readers to discover in this fascinating and highly illuminating work, including the contributions made by the Royal Navy and the Australian armed forces to the Allied victory. Hastings also gives readers a detailed look at the Japanese perspective from the viewpoint of civilians and military veterans. It is a fair and balanced book; nevertheless, it clearly pins responsibility for the war’s sufferings on the ruthless ambitions of Japan’s leaders, including the late Emperor Hirohito. It is a masterful tour de force by one of Britain’s best historians, and it should appeal to both the casual reader and the dedicated World War II buff.

Publication Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (March 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307275361
• ISBN-13: 978-0307275363