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Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

Author: Max Hastings
Publisher: HarperPress
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

10 reviews
Sales Rank: 2143

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 2.3

ISBN: 0007219822
EAN: 9780007219827
ASIN: 0007219822

Publication Date: October 1, 2007
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Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today March 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

"When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today," is inscribed on the War Memorial at Kohima. It commemorates a forgotten battle fought by forgotten soldiers of a forgotten army of a forgotten empire for a forgotten cause against a forgotten foe - I exaggerate only slightly, for what school child in any of the great democracies (assisted only at its denouement by the dreadful Soviet dictatorship of 'Uncle' Joe Stalin) that eventually triumphed over a monstrous and militarist enemy can tell today of Kohima, of Imphal, of Leyte Gulf, of Iwo Jima, of Okinawa? Not many, I guess. I am deeply regretful that so few of our young know anything of the above. Max Hastings has performed a first-class service for those who know little or nothing of what happened then or of the need to destroy that 'monstrous and militarist enemy,' the Japan of Hirohito. Those of us who know of the need must never forget, nor permit others so to do. Read this book in order to know why!

1 out of 5 stars

Not history, but rather slapdash journalism February 26, 2008
12 out of 29 found this review helpful

If you like your history personalised and trivialised, enjoy 'knocking copy' but are not much interested in facts nor concerned with accuracy, this is your book. Do not be bluffed by its bulk and the plethora of end-notes; it lacks a bibliography, making it impossible to decide which howlers stem from ignorance of sources and which from misusing them.
I bought 'Nemesis' because I learned that Hastings quotes from my uncle's book 'War Bush: 81 (West African) Division in Burma 1943-1945' by J.A.L.Hamilton (Norwich: Michael Russell, 2001) in his first chapter on the war in Burma. He quotes from it with acknowledgement four times, each time with one or more errors, and uses it in six more without acknowledgement. My uncle's book closes with the opinion of the Japanese Arakan army, that of the troops opposed to them for more than a year the Africans were 'undoubtedly (the Allies') best jungle fighters'. Hastings, who was not there, knows better: 'The War Office was seized by a belief that jungle warfare would suit Africans; this though most had never seen such terrain.' He backs this up by quoting a British general's views that 'The African has not a fighting history' and 'The African....cannot react quickly....due to an inherent....lack of intelligence', and considers it relevant to cite a Gurkha officer's report of his men gazing with awe, when snooping on Africans bathing, at the 'extravagant proportion of their black comrades' private parts', as if this titbit of schoolboy smut affected their performance as soldiers. It is typical that they are said to be West Africans, though in the Kabaw Valley, where 11 (East African) Division campaigned. He thinks there were only two African divisions, and only one from West Africa, which sent two, making three. He tries to belittle the share of British troops in the Burma fighting - 'only a fraction....two divisions....one in thirteen of the ground troops'. There were three, one broken up to form Chindit brigades, and in addition one-third of the infantry and half or more of the artillery in an 'Indian' division were British units. On numbers the British were 100,000 out of 605,000, almost one in six. He quotes figures without a source, and overestimates the Japanese killed in Burma after the invasion by subtracting the number killed then from the total of all Japanese casualties (KIA, wounded and missing).
The narrative is bulked out by personal reminiscences and anecdotes, many used as a basis for sweeping, often dubious, generalisations; there is an evident relish for horror stories. Hard facts are scanty, and many incorrect even though well-known - wrong dates for the start of Operation Thursday and the death of Wingate, the wrong division landing at Rangoon, on the wrong day. Sources are mis-quoted, not acknowledged, their evidence distorted. How can one trust the rest of the book? This is not history, but rather slapdash journalism; as Kipling wrote, 'Once a journalist, always and forever a journalist'.

4 out of 5 stars

A Very Good Lucid Overview of the Subject January 27, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

This book gives a good overview of the campaign against Japan during the years 1944 to 1945. Hastings' fluid style and excellent layout of the book make the somewhat daunting 600 page narrative a reasonably easy read. Many interviews have been conducted with combatants of all the nations involved in the campaign and these add an insight into what some of the terrible battles were actually like for the participants. The experiences of the occupied and imprisoned are also included. Hastings is excellent at drawing character sketches of all the leading figures, military and civilian, who played a part and these add much to the interest of the story. The familiar actions in Burma, the US naval war, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa are covered. A critical appraisal of LeMay's B29 devastation of Japanese cities versus the less well known American submarine blockade of Japan will be new to many readers. The war in China is also covered to some extent as are the roles of the Chinese Nationalist and Communist armies, again perhaps, unfamiliar ground. Surprisingly the least well handled section is that on the use of the atomic bombs where the narrative thrust becomes lost in a web of argument and counter-argument as Hastings clearly tries to cover all points. Although not a definitive account of the subject this is, nevertheless, a very good book.

5 out of 5 stars

A masterpiece January 12, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

There can be few, even knowledgeable, students of the Second World War who will not learn much from this really impressive book. Max Hastings has already contributed some masterly WW2 histories but this must be his finest. It is one of the best histories of the War that I have ever read.

What impresses most is the scope and breadth of this book. All the major campaigns are covered and their relative importance made clear. The British campaign in Burma was never much more than a side-show, no matter how that fact must pain the dogged combatants under Bill Slim who drove the Japanese out. The relatively little known but hugely successful American submarine war against Japan's shipping is given its proper due.

None of the combatants fought a very clean war (if there can be such a thing). The Americans slaughtered many Japanese civilians and prisoners and their campaign seems to have been fuelled by a hatred of Japanese that they did not feel towards the Germans. However, upon reading of the many and hideous atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese - many denied or overlooked by Japan even today - the hatred of them by their opponents seems all too understandable. The last-minute declaration of war against Japan by Stalin, that cynical opportunist, unleashed the Red Army upon Manchuria, in the full plunder and rape mode that made them dreaded for decades to come.

Even today the dropping of atomic bombs by the United States upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains perhaps the most controversial act of the War and some think the greatest atrocity. Hastings gives much of the detail of the attacks themselves and the thinking behind them. He also reveals that the planned November 1945 invasion of Kyushu, Japan's southern island, by the Americans was not that likely to be undertaken. The Americans were coming round more to a strategy of bombing and starving the Japanese into submission, rather than suffer the appalling casualties that an invasion of Kyushu would produce. It also seems to have been conventional wisdom up to now that the two atomic weapons dropped on Japan on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 were the only ones in the American armoury and that no more would be available for several months at least. However, it seems that a third weapon would have been available by 19th August and that the target could have been Tokyo.

Fortunately, the third atomic bomb was not necessary. The Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, who had allowed, on the most charitable view, the military to take over the running of the country and plunge it into a war dominated by Japanese atrocities, at last partially redeemed himself and ordered them to surrender unconditionally. The atomic bombs had definitely changed Japanese thinking and brought the War to a premature end - there seems little doubt that the countless lives saved more than outweighed the casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In many ways this is a sickening book to read. The ruinous potential for Man's inhumanity to Man comes over with great force. It should be compulsory reading for all the World's leaders. The desperate problems posed to Civilisation by the Axis were solved by going to war but the cost was prohibitive and atomic weapons raised that cost to insupportable levels. There can only ever be one more War like it - the last.

Max Hastings has done a considerable service by writing this book and reminding present generations of the truly appalling costs in blood and treasure of the last World War. It does help to give a better perspective on the different, and I suggest less difficult, problems that we face today.

5 out of 5 stars

Superb counterpart to Armegeddon January 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

For those of you who thought the Pacific War was largely limited to the island hopping campaign then dropping two atomic bombs to finish the war - this book explodes the myths in a superbly readable style.

I;m not sure I can justice to a 700 page volume in a short review but there are some highlights

Japanese brutality in China and Manchuria
The mindset that permitted kamakasi attacks
The explanation of what McArthur was like - but how he came into his own after the war ended
The huge destruction wrought by the US air force on Japan - made Bomber Harris look a bit ineffectual (and thats not the atomic bombs either..)
The Germans U-boats may have tried to blockade the UK - the US boats did it for Japan
The inter ally rivalries - Stalin in particular and how the US were determined that they would be pereived to have finished off Japan
The refusal of the Japanese to acknowledge what they had done to the civilan populations
The credit given to General Slim for the campaign to recapture Burma

emminently readable and well worth it