Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
Thomas Allen and Norman Polmar. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. 351 pp. Append. Bib. Illus. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. Tables. $25.00 ($22.05).
Reviewed by Edward S. Miller
For decades before World War II, the U.S. design for defeating Japan—War Plan Orange—had anticipated victory through blockade and bombardment. By 1945, strategists had grown frustrated with Japanese refusal to surrender anywhere and worried that the American people would not tolerate an endless war of attrition and had come to believe that only conquest would guarantee unconditional surrender. Therefore, the U.S. military produced a plan for invading Japan in late 1945: Operation Downfall. As envisaged by the planners, there would be two invasions— the Olympic landing on Kyushu on 1 November 1945 and the Coronet landing on the Tokyo Plain on 1 March 1946—each of which would have been vaster than Normandy. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan—mercifully aborted the operation.
This short, readable overview by two prominent military historians is a collage of the related cataclysmic events, both actual and anticipated. In contrast to more detailed recent works—notably Ray Skates’s The Invasion of Japan (University of South Carolina Press, 1994) and Richard Rhodes’s The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon & Schuster, 1986)—the result is impressionistic rather than encyclopedic.
The authors serve up a workmanlike account of plans and order of battle of both sides, the U.S. redeployment from Europe, and the Soviet attack. A skeptical look at elaborate and often nonsensical U.S. deception schemes suggests they were unlikely to fool anyone given the few good beaches in Japan as well as the brief weather windows.
Allen and Polmar excel in explaining political events overlooked by narrowly focused military histories. Surely Harry Truman’s role is transcendent. We learn that he became Vice President because of Democratic Party squabbles and about his psychological turmoil upon becoming President after Franklin Roosevelt’s death. Reflections on Italy’s surrender of 1943, supposedly unconditional but in fact allowing some sovereignty, sadly failed to stimulate a deal allowing the Japanese to retain their emperor. Ambiguity about Hirohito’s status caused Japan to balk at the Potsdam Declaration of 26 July 1945 and brought down upon it the atomic tragedy two weeks later. Japan’s feckless attempts to negotiate with Moscow rather than Washington are well described. An intriguing factoid is Japan’s refusal to accommodate a Nazi government-in-exile. Also on the U.S. side, the authors explain the rarely mentioned reasons why scientists disdained a bloodless demonstration shot of the atomic bomb.
The authors’ information is drawn largely from official documents of both sides and footnoted in innovative sequential numbering. The maps, however, are seriously deficient: there are only two and they don’t show most of the places named in the text. The first 100 pages of the book needlessly recount the entire war and profile some U.S. prewar visionaries. Readers with a passing knowledge of World War II can skip them.
The most gripping theme is the incredibly brutal combat that the invasion would have triggered. Some horrors already had been used: napalm, fire bombing, and gasoline pumped into caves by the Americans; and by the Japanese, kamikazes in the form of airplanes, rockets, midget submarines, and even battleships. Both sides were preparing to use poison gas and, within the U.S. military, there was serious thought given to using atomic bombs as tactical weapons.
Yet, other weapons the Japanese devised seem even more ghastly than the kamikazes. Japanese propaganda of 20 million civilians dying gloriously fighting with bamboo spears has become a cliché. Nevertheless, children strapped with explosives were to hurl themselves under tanks. Another gut-wrenching idea was the human mine. Japanese suicide swimmers in crude scuba gear were to lie on the bottom in four lines. As amphibious craft reached the five-fathom line, those in the first row would release anchored mines. The men in the inner rows—some emerging from underwater bunkers—would swim to landing craft and strike them with explosive charges mounted on sticks. The most nauseating plan was the one that called for soldiers to be infected with anthrax-type plagues and then sent forward to be slaughtered in banzai attacks. Their bodies then would become, as the authors put it, “bacteriological booby traps.”
Avoidance of casualties—500,000 to 1 million men, according to some estimates—was the U.S. leaders’ public rationale for using the atomic bomb and, then and now, has prompted intense debate. General Douglas MacArthur, keen for a last hurrah, minimized the bloody toll; officers opposing invasion put forth inflated numbers. Polmar and Allen wisely eschew the well-trod arguments about casualty tallies slanted by their advocates, past and present. Instead, they offer unbiased data—e.g., the number of hospital beds listed in the plans—that confirm a huge butcher’s bill. The Purple Hearts manufactured for Operation Downfall lasted through Korea and Vietnam—with plenty left over.
I finished Code-Name Downfall wishing, however, that the authors had pursued the “what if’ question: would there have been an invasion, absent the atomic bombs and the Soviets? They offhandedly mention that the landing would have proceeded (p. 259). Yet, wartime planning files are strewn with the ghosts of campaigns never launched and the names of islands never assaulted. It is not convincing to argue that, because the shell-shocked Japanese government dithered eight days from Hiroshima to surrender, the invasion would have been inevitable three months later. More likely, events would have moderated all parties’ attitudes: the obliteration of countless Japanese towns and villages, the destruction wrought by hordes of kamikazes, and war weariness in America and the British Commonwealth. The postwar Strategic Bombing Survey opined that, in all likelihood, Japan would have surrendered unconditionally before X-Day. If that assumption is correct, then Operation Downfall is memorable mainly as the motivator for history’s only nuclear attacks. That alone separates it from other hypothetical campaigns and merits serious retrospection. Allen and Polmar have provided an impressionistic handbook that stops just short of exploring the final judgment.
Edward S. Miller is author of War Plan Orange: The VS. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945 (Naval Institute Press, 1991).
Nelson: A Personal History
Christopher Hibbert. New York: Addison- Wesley, 1994. 472 pp. Bib. Illus. Ind. Notes. Photos. $30.00 ($26.10).
Reviewed by Nathan Miller
Horatio Nelson and the Duke of Wellington met only once, unexpectedly encountering each other in the anteroom of a government official. No two men could have been more different than these Iwo heroes of Great Britain’s long war against Napoleon. The stern and rather plain-spoken general, then Sir Arthur Wellesley and not yet famous, was put off immediately by Nelson, who seemed “so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me,” he later told a friend.
But the great Duke observed that he must have said something to cause Nelson to surmise he was “somebody.” The admiral left the room, no doubt to inquire about his companion’s identity. Upon his return, he seemed a different man. The “charlatan style” had vanished and Nelson “talked of the state of the country and of . . . affairs on the Continent with a good sense and knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad,” Wellington related. “I don’t know that I have ever had a conversation that interested me more.”
Wellington had discovered that there were two distinct Nelsons. One was Nelson the public idol—careless, vain, tinged with scandal, seeker of notoriety, and covetous of decorations and honors. The other was the private Nelson—courageous, tireless, brave, generous, a masterful naval tactician, and a fighting seaman who won a maritime supremacy for his nation that endured for a century.
Christopher Hibbert, who over the years has written widely and well in British history and biography, presents both sides of Nelson’s complex and contradictory character in this highly readable book. It is a perfect introduction for those coming under the spell of the Nelson legend for the first time.
Those who know the Nelson story well may feel let down, however. Mr. Hibbert’s main interest—in keeping with his book’s subtitle—is Nelson’s personality rather than his professional accomplishments. The spirit is more of the ballroom and salon than the quarterdeck of a ship-of-the line cleared for action. Consequently, more space is allotted to Nelson’s infatuation with Emma Hamilton than the Trafalgar campaign that is the foundation of his reputation. Nelson’s involvement through Emma in the intrigues and corruption of the Neapolitan court and the rather odd menage a trois they maintained with her cuckolded husband, Sir William Hamilton, take precedence over what distinguished Nelson from other admirals and his introduction of a new concept of naval warfare: the total destruction of an enemy’s fleet.
Nevertheless, Mr. Hibbert is a careful writer and all the basic facts are here: the origins of the Nelson family and its connections with the aristocratic Walpoles; Nelson’s boyhood at the vicarage of Burnham Thorpe; his steady rise in the Royal Navy; his marriage to Frances Nisbet while on the rebound from an affair with a married woman; the victories at the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, the last climaxed by the hero’s death he long had sought. Everyone—Nelson, Lady Nelson, Emma, and Sir William Hamilton—is treated with understanding and compassion.
With his follies and frailty, the Nelson presented here would be surprisingly at home in our age of instant celebrities. Only a small leap of the imagination is required to think of him being featured in a spread in People or being interviewed on television by Barbara Walters or David Frost.
While many readers may quibble with Christopher Hibbert over what he has chosen to emphasize, it must be acknowledged he has accomplished the task he set for himself with flying colors. He has cast a perceptive and sympathetic eye over Horatio Nelson and brought him to life for a new generation of readers.
Mr. Miller is the author of many works of biography and history. His newest book is War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II (Charles Scribner’s Sons/Drew, 1995).
Tension Between Opposites: Reflections on the Practice and Theory of Politics
Paul H. Nitze. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. 212 pp. $22.00.
Reviewed by I)r. George Sviatov
During the past 50 years, Paul Nitze served his country as Secretary of the Navy, Deputy Secretary of Defense. Director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and chief U.S. negotiator for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty arms-control talks.
Throughout the international relations community. Ambassador Nitze is best known as the author of National Security Council Memorandum-68 (NSC-68). In that document, written in early 1950, he proposed doubling (at least) the size of the U.S. military. In other words, at a time when many saw atomic warfare between the superpowers as the only form of future conflict, Paul Nitze recommended the strategy of “flexible response.” The North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950—and the U.S. response to it—demonstrated the wisdom of Nitze’s thinking. Thus, along with George Kennan's famous “Long Telegram,” NSC-68 embodied the core of U.S. foreign and defense policy for more than four decades.
During the Eisenhower administration. Ambassador Nitze headed the Foreign Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. It developed the concept of “crisis stability” on which the development and deployment of the U.S. strategic nuclear forces—especially ballistic missile submarines—was based then and, to a large extent, is based today.
Not content to rest on his well-earned laurels, in Tension Between Opposites, Ambassador Nitze attempts to promulgate a theory of politics that will be useful in the post-Cold War world. He suggests that four principal elements are essential to any useful theory of politics.
The first is the political structure of the world whose politics are being considered. Is it dominated by ideological alliances or by nation-states? In other words, in a given era, who is included in the common “we” and who is included in the pronoun “they”?
The second principal element is the concept of value system or, more succinctly, “Purpose.” What are the values shared by “our” group? What gives us a collective sense of identity and of purpose? For example, Nitze asserts that it makes sense to talk about “common American values” although not all in the United States share them.
The third is situation. Any analysis of politics requires one to consider the environment in which political events take place. They may include facts of geography, demography, economic development, availability of natural resources, and the power of given weapon systems.
The final element is viewpoint. According to Ambassador Nitze, a general theory of politics must be broad enough to permit one to observe a relevant political structure and political action as it evolves from a multiplicity of viewpoints or perspectives.
Taken together, these four abstract, interacting elements, writes Nitze, “form a simple, yet useful structure upon which we can build a theory of politics. The problem remains in applying these abstractions to the world of practice.”
He proposes that the most hopeful approach is using a careful and comprehensive study of history to winnow out and eliminate those value systems that, in the past, have encouraged repellent results and, then, attempt to find systems of values that promise to encourage or produce more generally satisfactory results. The problem, however, is that history repeats itself only broadly and a new integration of general concepts of purpose and direction with the concrete dangers and possibilities of the present then becomes necessary.
An ethical framework plays an important role in Paul Nitze’s theory of politics. He believes that the foundation of political theory and political practice must be objective, universal, and, in part, altruistic if it is to offer lasting practical guidance.
Ambassador Nitze’s observations and recommendations are remarkably resilient. In the chapter “Russia, the Soviet Union, and Value Systems,” he applies his general methodology to a case study. He concludes that, instead of encouraging Russians to adopt an alien American political and economic culture, it would be wiser to help the Russians recover a Russian culture with its own brand of democratic politics and market economics. In the epilogue—“The United States and the Future Practice of Politics”—he concludes that the shift from a world dominated by one large, but relatively stable problem—the superpower confrontation—to one in which we face many problems of lesser individual import but greater unpredictability will frustrate hopes for a more peaceful world. Finally, those pondering the future of U.S. policy in the Balkans would do well to read the author’s proposal for U.S. action there—articulated in a 1992 lecture.
Are there some deficiencies in the book? It seems that as a former Deputy Secretary of Defense and a Navy Secretary, the author could have applied his theory to future U.S. defense and naval policies. Also, it is difficult to agree with Ambassador Nitze that, in the Soviet Union, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev was a suppressed individual. Concerning the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the author asserts that, “[there] remained some doubt as to whether Mao or Khrushchev had more vigorously promoted and backed the attack.” The Soviet leader at the time was Stalin, not Khrushchev.
But these are minor points, to be sure. Tension Between Opposites is the distilled wisdom of a distinguished economist, diplomat, political scientist, historian, philosopher, and public servant. As such, Paul Nitze’s ideas deserve serious attention from those studying and those making foreign and defense policy in our extremely complex and challenging contemporary political situation.
A former Soviet Navy officer, Dr. Sviatov currently is the president of the Transoceanic Joint-Stock Company in Bethesda, Maryland.
Books of Interest
By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Clash of Titans: World War II at Sea
Walter J. Boyne. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. 380 pp. Bib. Ind. Notes. Photos. $27.50 ($24.30).
The author of the well-received Clash of Wings—which focuses on the air battles of World War II—now turns his attention to the naval campaigns of that war. Covering all the participating navies, this one-volume history is both compact and comprehensive as in reviews the strategy, tactics, and personalities of this six-year global war.
The Commodore
Patrick O'Brian. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. 282 PP- $22.50 ($20.25).
This latest (the 17th) in the Aubrey/Maturin series of novels—books described by The New York Times as “the best historical novels ever written”—spends some time on land but, in the fine tradition of these books, there is still Plenty of action on the high seas. The protagonists wrestle with personal problems in England even as duty calls them to the far-off Gulf of Guinea and the waters off Ireland where a major battle with the French looms.
The Dollars and Sense of Command and Control
Raymond C. Bjorklund. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1995. 310 pp. Append, Bib. Figs. Ind. Notes. Tables. $12.00 ($11.40). Paper.
This technical treatise “includes a timely and mstructive treatment of the fundamental elements of command and control and its historical usage; a solid description of command and control in operational warfare applications; and a practical approach to analyzing its contribution to creating the right balance in combining fighting elements and command and control elements into a combat force structure.”
The Encyclopedia of the Sword
Nick Evangelista. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. 720 pp. Append. Gloss. Illus. Ind. Photos. $79.50 ($75.53).
Arranged alphabetically is everything one could possibly want to know about the sword. The many variations of this ancient weapon, the various schools, terms and tactics, myths, films in which swords have played a significant role, swordmasters through the centuries, and much more make this a reference work that also invites general reading.
From Dry Dock to D-Day: The Return Voyage of the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien
Michael Emery. San Francisco: Lens Boy Press, 1994. 80 pp. Photos. $23.95 ($22.75). Paper.
This mood-inducing book of black-and-white Photography is a visual record of the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien's return to the Normandy beaches 50 years after she was part of that great historic moment known to history as D-Day. This Liberty Ship, hastily built “to be expendable, good for a single voyage, or five years at the outside," survived five decades to enjoy a singular honor: “Of all the vessels in that grand armada on D-Day, the O’Brien was the only one to return on the same day, 50 years later.”
Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy
Craig L. Symonds. Cariography by William J. Clipson. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. 250 pp. Ulus. Ind. Maps. Photos. $39.95 ($31.96).
Detailed maps are coupled with an informative and well-written narrative to capture the facts and the essence of U.S. naval history. Dr. Symonds and Mr. Clipson have collaborated before to create excellent battlefield atlases of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Gettysburg campaign, and that tradition is maintained in this work. From the earliest days of the Continental Navy to the U.S. Navy’s participation in the Persian Gulf War, individual battles and campaigns are graphically, analytically, and descriptively depicted. Seventy photographs accompany more than 90 maps to highlight the important moments in U.S. naval history.
Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King
Cdr. Thomas B. Buell, USN (Ret.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995. 638 pp. Append. Bib. Ind. Notes. Photos. $32.95 ($26.36).
The latest volume in the Naval Institute Press’s Classics of Naval Literature series is this award-winning biography of one of the Navy's most powerful—and controversial—admirals of World War II. Meticulously researched and superbly written, Commander Buell's book is a stunning portrait of the man who led the U.S. Navy through its greatest conflict as well as a vivid portrayal of the service itself as it faced the challenges of peace and war.
Naval Shipboard Communications Systems
John C. Kim and Eugene 1. Muehldorf. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 1995. 525 pp. Append. Bib. Figs. Gloss. Illus. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. Tables. $80.00 ($72.00).
“Intended as a reference textbook for engineers who understand communications and need to
become familiar with Navy communications methods and procedures,” this comprehensive work should be useful for serious shipboard communication officers as well. Not for the armchair reader, this book delves deeply into the technology and procedures of naval communications through the use of mathematical formulae, revealing photographs, fact-filled tables, and detailed diagrams to cover the many technical aspects of modern shipboard communications.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army
David Chandler and Ian Beckett, Editors. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 493 pp. Append. Bib. Illus. Ind. Maps. Photos. $45 00 ($40.50).
In terms of battlefield performance, the British Army has been remarkably successful and, as one of the engines of the British Empire, its officers and men have served all over the world. This army’s fascinating and colorful story—from its medieval antecedents to the battles for a colonial empire to the mighty endeavors of the two World Wars to the present day—is brilliantly told in this lavishly illustrated book written by some of the world’s top military historians.
Pirates: Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend
Jan Rogozinski. New York: Facts on File, 1995. 414 pp. Append. Bib. Gloss. Illus. Ind. Maps. Photos. $50.00 ($47.50).
Contrary to popular belief, pirates never buried their treasure, forced people to “walk the plank,” or mistreated women. They rarely tried to sink other vessels and—except in the realm of fiction—never used the expression “shiver my timbers.” So states this authoritative encyclopedia focusing on the outlaws of the sea. In fact, it claims that “[r]eal pirates were actually not different from other sailors.” Much of the history of piracy—real and imagined—is presented with quotations; nearly 100 drawings and photographs add to the effectiveness of this readable reference work.
Savage Peace: Americans at War in the 1990s
David P. Bolger. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1995. 448 pp. Gloss. Illus. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. $27.95 ($25.15).
“When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, many imagined that world peace had finally arrived. Yet it wasn’t the dawn of global concord at the horizon, but the blaze of internecine conflagration as long-suppressed tribal hatreds flared to the surface.” Bolger confronts the controversial subject of peacekeeping in this look at U.S. military operations in the 1990s. Examining the historical perspective and analyzing the political and military context of current operations, Bolger projects his concept of what the near future will bring. Operations in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, the Sinai, and Beirut are scrutinized for lessons for policymakers and military planners.
Submarines
RAdm. John Hervey, RN (Ret.). McLean, VA: Brassey’s, 1994. 289 pp. Gloss. Illus. Maps. Notes. Photos. Tables. $50.00 ($45.00).
An experienced submariner, Rear Admiral Hervey has produced an authoritative and exhaustive treatment of submarines and submarine warfare. No stone is left unturned by the author; every aspect of these underwater warships and their operations is covered—from construction to navigation, from sonars to weapons, from communications to support facilities. Rich in technical detail and amply provided with diagrams, illustrations, and tables, this book is certain to be of interest to the general reader as well as the naval professional.
This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History
T. R. Fehrenbach. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994. 496 pp. Append. Gloss. Ind. $28.00 ($25.15).
First published 30 years ago, this reissue brings back an enduring account and analysis of the Korean Conflict. When first published, this book was described by The New York Times as “immensely readable,” and Life called it, “the lesson of the Korean War as it has not yet been told by anyone . . . terse, machine-gun bursts of common sense.” Although extensive use of official records, operations journals, and command histories is made, this account relies most heavily upon the personal narratives of officers and men at the small-unit level. Adding to the book’s credibility is the fact that the author commanded troops in Korea at the platoon, company, and battalion levels.
Turning Point: The Gulf War and U.S. Military Strategy
Benjamin Ederington and Michael J. Mazarr. Editors. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. 304 pp. Figs. Ind. Notes. $32.95 ($22.50).
Bringing together the thoughts of noted experts in their fields—such as military historians John Keegan and Edward Luttwak—the editors have compiled a strong set of analyses of the strategy employed by U.S. during the Persian Gulf War and its effect upon current and future operations. Broad in scope yet detailed in its analysis, this book is intelligent and insightful, and written in a jargon-free and readable style.
Victory at Sea: World War II in the Pacific
James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi. New York: William Morrow, 1995. 625 pp. Append. Bib. Gloss. Ind. $25.00 ($22.50).
A comprehensive and readable approach make this one-volume encyclopedia of the Pacific
War a welcome addition to the ever-growing library of World War II books. Battles are recounted and examined but such topics as “The Really Important Stuff: Production and Logistics” and “The Boring Stuff: Policy, Politics, and Strategy” are addressed as well. Also provided is a “Chronolog” which recounts, day-by-day, the major events in the Pacific theater. Chapters also cover "The Ships,” “The Aircraft,” “Who Was Who in the Pacific War,” and “What Was Where.”