Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire

by Richard B. Frank

Book Overview

In a riveting narrative that includes information from newly declassified documents, acclaimed historian Richard B. Frank gives a scrupulously detailed explanation of the critical months leading up to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141001461
• ISBN13: 9780141001463
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

how the war ended, and why it ended that way

Was Hiroshima necessary? What about Nagasaki? Would the invasion of Japan really have cost the lives of a million American soldiers, or were the Japanese eager to give up? And hey, what about those Russians?People know amazingly little about the Pacific War, compared to the epic conflict between the white nations in Europe. Indeed, the first two weeks of August 1945 loom larger for the chattering classes than do the four years that preceded them--eight years if you date the war from the invasion of China proper--fourteen years if you consider that it started with Japan's annexation of Manchuria. I've been reading about the events of August 1945 for a decade, and I have to say that the analysis gets better as the years go by. Richard Frank's book is the best yet.Olympic: First off, Frank gives a good capsule description of Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu planned for November 1, and Ketsu-go, the preparations being made to destroy the American invasion force at the beaches. Frank then brings up evidence that during the summer of 1945, the Japanese reinforcement of Kyushu was so fearsome that American planners were beginning to turn against the invasion. By October 15, they now believed, 625,000 troops would be defending Kyushu. On Luzon, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, the Japanese had shown their willingness to fight almost to the last man, with death tolls running as high as 97 or 98 percent. Meanwhile, they inflicted casualties at the rate of one American for every one or two defenders. To me, that suggests 600,000 Japanese soldiers dead on Kyushu, and upwards of 300,000 Americans killed, wounded, or missing. No wonder Truman wanted the Russians in the war, and no wonder he dropped the atomic bombs.The Russians are coming! After stringing Japan along for several weeks--the Japanese foolishly hoped that the Soviet Union would broker a negotiated peace with the Allies--the Russians attacked on August 9. So poor were the communications that neither Tokyo nor the Japanese armies on the mainland were aware of how massive the onslaught would be. The battles continued to August 22 in Manchuria--a week after the Japanese surrender--and in Korea the Russians continued to advance until they reached the 38th parallel at the end of the month.The third object of the Russian attack was Japanese-occupied Sakhalin, and from there an amphibious landing on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. As might be expected, the Japanese fought more ferociously in defense of the homeland than they did for their mainland possessions, and the Russian advance was slow. That resistance, plus an equally stubborn reaction by President Truman, prevented the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold on Hokkaido and thus a voice in the occupation of Japan. On August 22, Stalin halted operations in this area.Frank estimates that 2.6 million overseas Japanese were captured by the Russians and sent into slave labor. Of this number, about 350,000 died or disappeared into the Gulag--a loss t

The End and The Beginning

It is an overworked cliche but still true: the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan is one of those crucial, pivotal events in human history. Richard Frank's "Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire" is undoubtedly the finest history written about the end of World War II and, thus, the beginning of the post-war tribulations. Using many Japanese primary sources as well as new American information, he provides a view into the events, emotions, and intentions nowhere previously available. He succeeds at showing us what people thought and felt and believed in addition to what they did. The insights into the Japanese plans and deliberations are especially illuminating and are essential to understanding the unfolding of events. I don't believe that Mr. Frank will put to rest the argument over the efficacy of using atomic weapons but he has provided the best narrative and explication of the analysis, plans, and decision to use them against Japan. My sole quibble with the writing in "Downfall" is that Mr. Frank breaks Barbara Tuchman's dictum never to argue the sources in the midst of the narrative. If ever there is a book to be an exception to that rule, this one is it.

A tremedous narrative to read.

This book takes you to those days in late 1945, and gives up all of the facts and feelings from both the Japanese and American viewpoints. It is excellently written, fully documented and researched, and finely tuned to keep the readers' interest at all times. While it does slow down, somewhat in places, suffering from conveying too much detail, overall it kept my interest from cover to cover. I thought I knew all about this period in time, and the events that occured then, but I was wrong. I learned a lot that I never knew just from reading this narrative. The author also does a masterful job of conveying the feelings which were in force then, so you feel like you are there also. From a historial viewpoint, this book is far, and above, the best that I have ever read on this subject and period of time. It is a must for every reader of historical facts, and battle periods that have affected our lives ever more. The one single fact that this books deals with is the wide diferences we, and the Japanese felt about conducting the war, and ending it. I highly recommend this book for all serious readers of historial, and military events.

The Definite Account

This book will become the standard against which all future study of the use of atomic bombs against Japan is judged. The author describes in detail the continuous flow of new information to both the military and government bureaucracies of Japan and the United States. That information, mixed with prevailing ideology on both sides, helped determine the course of the World War II in the Pacific during the summer of 1945. Among pieces of the whole picture which I was not aware of before reading this book are:1. While the United States was intercepting diplomatic messages sent from Japan to the USSR attempting to achieve a negotiated peace through Russian intervention, it was also intercepting many more messages planning for the last ditch battle against the expected American invasion of Japan. An invasion that the Japanese - including the Emperor - expected to end in a Japanese victory followed by a relatively favorable peace for Japan. (In fact, by August of 1945, Admirals Nimitz and King of the United States Navy worried that the planned invasion would end in a Japanese victory!)2. The fire-bombing of Japanese cities was just as horrendous as the use of the atomic bomb, causing more deaths when done "correctly," and causing many more deaths in total than were caused by the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Plus, if General LeMay hadn't figured out how to "do it" right using B-29s and "conventional" weapons, he would have almost certainly been replaced by someone else, almost as fast as he replaced his predecessor. (His predecessor having failed to get much obvious destruction in Japan out of the B-29s at his command.) 3. About 100,000 civilians in Japanese occupied territory, including the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, China, French Indochina, and the Philippines, were dying because of the war each month the war lasted. Needless to say, given the facts above, and many others presented in the book, the author of Downfall believes that the decision to use atomic bombs against Japan was almost inevitable, and morally defensible.