[/floatl]The Wall Street Journal carries a lengthy excerpt from 'Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944 – 1945' by British journalist Max Hastings. It is about to be released in the US.Our understanding of the events of 1939–45 might be improved by adding a plural and calling them the Second World Wars...President Roosevelt and Gen. George Marshall, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, resisted the demands of Admiral Ernest King, the U.S. Navy's C-in-C, and of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander in the south-west Pacific, for the eastern theatre to become the principal focus of America's war effort. In 1943 and 1944, America's vast industrial mobilisation made it possible to send large forces of warships and planes east as well as west. Most U.S. ground troops, however, were dispatched across the Atlantic, to fight the Germans. Once Japan's onslaught was checked, the Allies' eastern commanders were given enough forces progressively to push back the enemy, but insufficient to pursue a swift victory. The second-class status of the Japanese war was a source of resentment to those who had to fight it, but represented strategic wisdom...To soldiers, sailors and airmen, any battlefield beyond their own compass seemed remote. "What was happening in Europe really didn't matter to us," said Lt. John Cameron-Hayes of 23rd Indian Mountain Artillery, fighting in Burma. More surprising was the failure of Germany and Japan to coordinate their war efforts, even to the limited extent that geographical separation might have permitted...Only in January 1943, towards the end of the disaster of Stalingrad, did Hitler made a belated and unsuccessful attempt to persuade Japan to join his Russian war. By then, the moment had passed at which such an intervention might have altered history...continued...
The book was released in Britain last year under the title "Nemesis". Hastings angered some Australian veterans for underplaying their role in the closing months of the war and writing of mutiny in their ranks. Others didn't like his attacks on the competency of Lord Mountbatten and General MacArthur. In general, though, it seems to have received good reviews.
