Pacific theater unlike Europe

RETRIBUTION

THE BATTLE FOR JAPAN, 1944-45

By Max Hastings Alfred A. Knopf, $35 615 pages, illustrated

Few contemporary historians are more qualified to write on World War II than Briton Max Hastings, however controversial some of his findings. In “Overlord,” a book on D-Day and its aftermath, Mr. Hastings concluded that the German soldier, day in day out, was the most effective soldier on the battlefield. In “Armageddon,” the story of the last year of the war in Europe, the author demonstrated little respect for the senior commanders, German, British or American.

Now, in “Retribution,” Mr. Hastings has turned his attention to the last year of the Pacific war, which was, of course, largely an American affair. In contrast to the European theater, however, there was no supreme commander in the Pacific.

Such was the mystique surrounding Gen. Douglas MacArthur that President Roosevelt felt obliged to give him an independent command in the South Pacific, leaving the rest of that vast ocean to Admiral Chester Nimitz and the U.S. Navy. He quotes a senior British officer as recalling, “The violence of inter-service rivalry … in those days had to be seen to be believed.”

Whereas in Europe, the Allies had been committed to a ground war to subjugate the enemy, Mr. Hastings finds the strategic thinking in the Pacific more equivocal. Only in Burma and the Philippines did the Allies encounter and eventually destroy Japanese armies. Elsewhere, the U.S. Navy and the Army Air Corps sought to demonstrate that air bombardment and naval blockade would render an invasion of Japan´s home islands unnecessary.

Although Mr. Hastings accepts the morality of area bombing, with its attendant civilian casualties, he believes that America´s naval blockade might have ended the war without an invasion. In 1944, U.S. submarines sank more than 600 ships, causing Japan´s bulk imports, including oil, to fall by 40 percent. He quotes from a U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946 that concluded, “The war against shipping was the most decisive single factor in the collapse of the Japanese economy.”

The author admires the courage of the Americans who assaulted Japanese strongholds like Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but contends that many enemy-held islands could have been bypassed, and many lives saved, by a more selective choice of island targets.

In Washington, there was consensus that an invasion of Japan´s home islands should be avoided if possible. Subjected to the most rigorous discipline, the men who fought for Japan displayed a courage and capacity for suffering that bewildered their opponents. The author states that for every four tons of supplies that the United States shipped to its ground forces in the Pacific, Japan was able to provide its men with just two pounds.

The Japanese soldiers and sailors had a skill in night fighting that required adjustments on the part of the Americans. But Mr. Hastings concludes that the Japanese were more formidable on defense than when attacking.

The author emphasizes the importance of “technological determination” - that is, how a country fights a war is often determined by the weapons available. With respect to the B-29, he writes, “It was asking far too much of the U.S. to forgo the use of these aircraft, at a time when the enemy was still resisting fiercely and killing many Americans.”

Noting that the contention that Japan was prepared to surrender before Hiroshima has been thoroughly discredited, Mr. Hastings concludes, “If the conflict had continued for even a few weeks longer, more people of all nations - and especially Japan - would have lost their lives than perished at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Two themes dominate this impressive book. The first is the massive U.S. air and naval buildup in terms of sheer numbers. By late 1943, for instance, the United States had under construction seven battleships, 28 carriers, 72 escort carriers and 72 cruisers. Warships were coming off the ways faster than crews could be mustered and trained.

The second theme is that of Japanese brutality. Mr. Hastings writes that in Europe, 4 percent of British and American POWs died in German hands. Yet 27 percent of Westerners died while prisoners of the Japanese. Japanese soldiers sent their families photographs of beheadings and executions by bayonet. The author concludes, “The casual sadism of the Japanese towards their prisoners was so widespread, indeed almost universal, that it must be considered institutional.”

Historian and biographer John M. Taylor lives in McLean, Va.