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The Fall of Japan: The Final Weeks of World War II In the Pacific

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Told from both Japanese and American perspectives, this thrilling account of the final weeks of World War II in the Pacific has been heralded by the New York Times Book Review as “virtually faultless.”

By midsummer 1945, Japan had long since lost the war in the Pacific. The people were not told the truth, and neither was the emperor. Japanese generals, admirals, and statesmen knew, but only a handful of leaders were willing to accept defeat. Most were bent on fighting the Allies until the last Japanese soldier died and the last city burned to the ground.

Exhaustively researched and vividly told, The Fall of Japan masterfully chronicles the dramatic events that brought an end to the Pacific War and forced a once-mighty military nation to surrender unconditionally. From the ferocious fighting on Okinawa to the all-but-impossible mission to drop the second atom bomb, and from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House to the Tokyo bunker where tearful Japanese leaders first told the emperor the truth, William Craig captures the pivotal events of the war with spellbinding authority. The Fall of Japan brings to life both celebrated and lesser-known historical figures, including Admiral Takijiro Onishi, the brash commander who drew up the Yamamoto plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor and inspired the death cult of kamikaze pilots. This astonishing account ranks alongside Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day and John Toland’s The Rising Sun as a masterpiece of World War II history.

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3 thoughts on “The Fall of Japan: The Final Weeks of World War II In the Pacific

  1. Gripping story of final days Excellent book chronicling the last days of Japan’s resistance in WW II. Since it covers such a small span of time (not the whole war) , the details are something I have never learned before. 

  2. Surrender was not certain This is an excellent account of the the weeks leading up to the surrender of Japan in World War II, told from the perspective of both the United States and Japan. I was particularly intrigued by the culture of the Japanese military at the time and its pervasive control of the government. But by the summer of 1945, the military’s influence, although still considerable, had begun to wane. Surrender, even after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, was not a foregone conclusion. Many…

  3. Very mixed Overall this is an important book because of the detailed history that the author provides about this period–the end of the war with Japan. I like that he gave some information about both atomic bombs and the aftermath in Nagasaki. He included details about the war in the Philippines. At times, however, the author provided too much detail, such as Tojo’s botched suicide and his lingering and eventual recovery, or the OSS operation in Manchuria. I began to wonder how he got detailed…

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