2. General Kenji Doihara is the opium-addicted commander who led the invasion of Manchuria and the subsequent subjugation of the Chinese people; General Iwane Matsui is charged with leading the Rape of Nanking; General Akira Muto was responsible for inhumane activities in China, Sumatra, and the Philippines; and Hideki Tojo was the Japanese prime minister responsible for leading Japan into war.
3. General Seishiro Itakagi was convicted on eight counts of war crimes, including inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Former prime minister Koki Hirota was in power when Japan invaded China and was sentenced for the attack and subsequent proliferation of the war. General Heitaro Kimura was an assistant to Tojo and also went on to commands throughout Asia; he was charged with allowing the barbaric treatment of Allied POWs to proliferate.
4. Like the bodies of the six other men executed on December 23, 1948, Tojo’s body was cremated. Despite the best efforts of the Americans, his ashes were split between a Tokyo cemetery and the Yasukuni Shrine, a still-controversial memorial to the glorious Japanese war dead. Displays at the nearby Yushukan military museum espouse a revisionist history claiming that the United States was the racist aggressor in the Greater East Asia War, as the Pacific theater of the Second World War is known in Japan. Shortly before his sentence was carried out, Tojo gave his military ribbons to one of his American jailers.
POSTSCRIPT
1. Truman’s feelings about MacArthur’s defiance are stated in a letter written by Truman and owned by Bill O’Reilly, which is reprinted in this book.
SOURCES
A great deal of the joy in writing a work of history comes from the detective investigation required to flesh out an episode or a subject and make it rise up off the page. Travel, archival searches, governmental databases, websites, and the works of other authors are just a few of the resources that we rely upon. The authors wish to thank James Zobel at the MacArthur Memorial Foundation in Norfolk, Virginia, for his tireless help in tracking down obscure documents pertaining to the general and his life. Visitors to Norfolk are encouraged to pay this underappreciated museum a visit, for it offers an abundance of information about MacArthur’s life as well as a vast number of his personal effects.
Head Archivist Dara Baker at the Naval War College was most helpful in tracking down the movements of Admiral Nimitz through the document known as the Nimitz Graybook. David Clark at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, was also very helpful in finding some of the more obscure details of the late president’s life. As with all presidential libraries, the Truman Library’s website offers exhaustive detail about his presidency and lifelong habit of letter writing. The papers of a great number of lesser Truman administration officials can also be found there. Visit www.trumanlibrary.org to have a look.
The US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, should be a required stop for anyone with even a passing interest in history, showcasing the United States Navy—and so much more. The exhibits visitors can view include the spur belonging to John Wilkes Booth that caught on patriotic bunting as he leaped from the presidential box after shooting President Abraham Lincoln and the tomb of the legendary John Paul Jones. For this book, we were interested in the displays detailing the navy’s impact on the Pacific war as well as a large number of artifacts, including the pen Admiral Chester Nimitz used to sign the Japanese surrender documents and a sword surrendered by the Japanese delegation to the Allies on the morning of September 2, 1945. Also on display at the Naval Academy Museum are a number of flags that have played prominent roles in American naval history, including the Stars and Stripes flown by Commodore Matthew Perry when he sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 and later displayed on board the USS Missouri on the morning of the Japanese surrender. The USNA museum is also in possession of the other American flag that flew aboard the Missouri, but it is not currently on display. Thank you to archivist Jim Cheevers for his assistance.
There is a fine Pearl Harbor display and film at the USNA museum, but for the greatest effect, readers are encouraged to visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to looking around a detailed museum and watching a vivid film detailing the attack and its aftereffects, visitors can travel by boat to the spot in the harbor where the Arizona still rests. Many of the men who died when she exploded and sank that Sunday morning are still entombed inside the ship. Many of those who survived the attack have requested that upon their deaths, their ashes would be placed within the Arizona so that they might be laid to rest with their former shipmates.
On display nearby, positioned so that its guns symbolically protect the memorial and the men of the Arizona, is the USS Missouri. The Mighty Mo is a museum ship now, and visitors can come aboard to see the precise spot on which the Japanese surrender documents were signed.
The authors would also like to thank the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and distinguished World War II writer and researcher Brian Sobel.
* * *
What follows are other resources utilized in this writing. This list is by no means exhaustive but will provide the readers with a road map to use in their own historical investigations.
Websites, Newspapers, and Archives: General Background Information
News Sources: New York Times, Life magazine, Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, Spokane Daily Chronicle, Australian, Wall Street Journal, Times of India, Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, New Yorker, Japan Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Marine Corps Chevron, Fox News, PBS, BBC.
Websites: Architect of the Capitol (www.aoc.gov); Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives (www.clerk.house.gov); National Archives (www.archives.gov), especially dated February 26, 1945, entitled “Captured Japanese Instructions Regarding the Killing of POW”; Battle of Manila Online (www.battleofmanila.org); Congressional Medal of Honor Society (www.cmohs.org); Supreme Court of the United States (www.supremecourt.gov); FBI Records—The Vault (https://vault.fbi.gov); Office of the Historian (history.state.gov); Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov); USS Indianapolis (www.ussindianapolis.org); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (www.thebulletin.org), especially Ellen Bradbury and Sandra Blakeslee, “The Harrowing Story of the Nagasaki Bombing Mission.”
Archives: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; United States National Archives; Princeton University Library, The Manhattan Project—US Department of Energy; The George C. Marshall Foundation; US Department of State—Office of the Historian; Library of Congress—Carl Spaatz Papers; Congressional Record, V. 145, Pt. 8, May 24, 1999, to June 8, 1999; Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 15, October 6, 2000, to October 12, 2000; National Library of Australia—Trove (archives of the Argus); US Naval War College (especially the Nimitz Gray book); Harry S. Truman Library and Museum; Records of the United States Marine Corps; US Naval Institute Naval History Archive; US Army Center of Military History Combat Chronicles of US Army Divisions in World War II.
Peleliu
Adam Makos with Marcus Brotherton, Voices of the Pacific; E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed; John C. McManus, Grunts; John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945; Major Frank O. Hough, USMC, The Assault on Peleliu.
MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences; Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 13: The Liberation of the Philippines—Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944–1945; Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines (United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific); Gavin Long, MacArthur.
Truman
Jon Taylor, Harry Truman’s Independence: The Center of the World; Sean J. Savage, Truman and the Democratic Party; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944; Jules Witcover, No Way to Pick a President; Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman; Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettman, FDR’s Deadly Secret; Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project; Thomas Fleming, Truman; David McCullough, Truman; Margaret Trum
an, Bess W. Truman; Steve Neal, ed., Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman; J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan.
Hirohito and Japan
Arne Markland, Black Ships to Mushroom Clouds: A Story of Japan’s Stormy Century 1853–1945; Francis Pike, Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War, 1941–1945; Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan; Michael Kort, The Columbia Guide to Hiroshima and the Bomb; D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947; Douglas J. MacEachin, The Final Months of the War with Japan; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Hutton Webster, Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes; Edward J. Drea, In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army; Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War; Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific; E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945; David M. Glantz, Soviet Operational and Tactical Combat in Manchuria, 1945: “August Storm”; Stephen Harding, Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the Last American Killed in World War II.
Air Corps
Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960; Samuel Russ Harris Jr., B-29s Over Japan, 1944–1945: A Group Commander’s Diary; James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara; Edwin P. Hoyt, Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9–August 15, 1945; Graham M. Simons, B-29: Superfortress: Giant Bomber of World War 2 and Korea; Robert O. Harder, The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War.
Trinity and Atomic Bombs
Everett M. Rogers and Nancy R. Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II; Robert James Maddox, ed., Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism; Gar Alperovitz et al., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb; Robert Cowley, ed., The Cold War: A Military History; Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb; Michael D. Gordin, Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War; Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima; John Hersey, Hiroshima; Paul Ham, Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath; Al Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb; Charles Pellegrino, To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima; Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed., The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals; Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 1945; Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center; Samuel Glasstone, ed., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.
USS Indianapolis and US Navy
Richard F. Newcomb, Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster; Doug Stanton, In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors; Edwyn Gray, Captains of War: They Fought Beneath the Sea; Christopher Chant, The Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II; Raymond B. Lech, The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Disaster at Sea; Walter R. Borneman, The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—the Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea; Kit Bonner and Carolyn Bonner, USS Missouri at War.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Maps by Gene Thorp
Everett Collection
Everett Collection
Associated Press
Pictures from History
Pictures from History
Pictures from History
Everett Collection
Everett Collection
© Atlas Archive/The Image Works
Bernard Hoffman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
AFP/Getty Images
Schultz Reinhard/Prisma/Superstock
Everett Collection
Everett Collection
From the collection of Bill O’Reilly
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Aioi Bridge
Akatsuki Corps
Akira, Hosaka
Albert T. Harris, USS
Albury, Donald
Allison, Sam
Alvarez, Luis
Anami, Korechika
Arcadia Conference
Arizona, USS
battle for Manila
Leyte invasion
Okinawa
Peleliu
in Philippines
in postwar Japan
Army Air Forces, US
Dresden bombings
firebombing of Japan
Hiroshima attack
Nagasaki attack
planned invasion of Japan
preparations for atomic bomb launch
Arnold, Henry H. “Hap”
Ashworth, Frederick
Associated Press
atomic bomb
aftermath of
American reaction to
casualties
criticism of
explosion of Fat Man
explosion of Little Boy
Germany and
Hiroshima attack
Japanese reaction to
Manhattan Project
morality of
Nagasaki attack
order for deployment
radiation poisoning
Roosevelt policy
Soviet Union and
survivors
transport and preparations for launch
Trinity test
Truman policy
see also Fat Man; Little Boy
Atsugi Airfield
Augusta, USS
Australia
Awaya, Senkichi
Bacall, Lauren
Baldwin, Hanson
Bard, Ralph A.
Barnes, Philip M.
base camp (Alamogordo, NM)
Basilone, John
Bataan Death March
Bataan Peninsula
Battleship Row
Bausell, Lewis
Beahan, Kermit
Berlin
Bismarck Sea, USS
Bockscar
Nagasaki attack
Bogart, Humphrey
Bohlen, Charles
Borneo
Bowden, William
Bradlee, Ben
Bricker, John W.
Brines, Russell
British Malaya
B-29 bombers
Bockscar
crews
Enola Gay
firebombing of Japan
Hiroshima attack
Nagasaki attack
preparations for atomic bomb launch
Buckley, Edward K.
Bulge, Battle of the
Burgin, R. V.
Burke, Francis T.
Burma
Burma-Siam Railway
Bush, George H. W.
Bush, George W.
Bush, Vannevar
Bushido
Byrnes, James F.
California, USS
Caroline Islands
Carter, Jimmy
Cavert, Samuel McCrea
Cecil J. Doyle, USS
Chiang Kai-shek
China
civil war
Soviet invasion of Manchuria
war with Japan
Churchill, Winston
Potsdam Conference
Yalta Conference
civil rights
Civil War, American
codebooks, Japanese
comfort women
communism
Conant, James B.
Congress, US
Corregidor
Cousins, Norman
Czechoslovakia
daimyo
Dai Nippon
D-Day invasion
DeBernardi, Louie
Dehart, Albert “Pappy”
Depression
Dewey, Thomas
Doihara, Kenji
Doolittle, Jimmy
Doolittle Raid
Doss, Desmond
Dresden bombings
Dumbo
Early, Steve
Eastern Europe
Eatherly, Claude
81st Infantry Division
Einstein, Albert
Eisenhower, Dwight
views on atomic bomb
Enola Gay
Hiroshima attack
ENORMOZ
Enterprise, USS
European war
Battle of the Bulge
D-Day invasion
Dresden bombings
end of
German invasion of Poland
Executive Order 9066
Faillace, Gaetano
Farrell, Thomas F.
Fat Man
arming of
casualties
explosion of
Nagasaki attack
preparations for launch
survivors
FBI
Ferebee, Thomas W.
Fields, Alonzo
Fifth Fleet
Fifth Marine Division
fire balloons
firebombing of Japan
First Marine Division
509th Composite Group
flamethrowers
Flynn, Joseph
Formosa
Forrestal, James
France
D-Day invasion
World War II
Frankfurter, Felix
Fuchs, Klaus
fukkaku strategy
Full House
Geibi Bank
Geneva Conventions
Germany
atomic bomb and
“Blitz” of London
Dresden bombings
invasion of Poland
Nazi
Nuremberg trials
postwar
submarines
surrender of
war crimes
World War II
Gornto, Cecil
Gorry, Charlie
Graham, Frank H.