Sensational, but not sensationalist
Mar. 23rd, 2026 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: The Fall of Japan, by William Craig
I wasn't sure what to expect of this one, but I was impressed. I know only the basics about the Pacific War: Pearl Harbor, the fall of Singapore, the Burma Railway, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Perhaps that's still more than many people.) In some ways this book is reminiscent of Ten Days that Shook the World: the events unfold day by day, even hour by hour, and the author maintains tension throughout, though it's a distant re-telling rather than a real-time first-person narrative.
Whilst I knew that the two atomic bombs were fundamentally different designs, I hadn't known how much difficulty the second mission came under, nor that Kokura was the primary intended target of the bomb that ultimately fell on Nagasaki. Having recently read a collection of essays on the Dresden bombing raid, it's also interesting that the calculus of these bombs also seems strikingly at odds with the use of force in the European war: the Americans had suffered horrific casualty figures as they inched towards the Japanese homelands, and though there were identifiable military targets, there wasn't any concern about collateral damage. In some sense the purpose of the atomic bomb was simply to produce a bigger explosion in scale; the distinction in kind from conventional weapons is in the radioactive fall-out. Perhaps only by its use would we learn that we must never do that again.
But more of Craig's narrative concerns the power struggle at the top of the Japanese hierarchy. Hirohito is given a very sympathetic treatment here, as a constitutional monarch powerless to stop militaristic factions, who were themselves almost fighting each other as well as civilian politicians. I recall the anger emerging from various PoW groups (no doubt with justification) whenever relations with the Japanese came up in the news, well into the 1980s at least. Even once the acceptance of surrender prevailed within the cabinet, and the Emperor broadcast to the nation, no-one was certain the order would be followed, and various plots and insurgencies which fizzled out, could have succeeded. Several at the top levels (and presumably others further down) committed suicide. But, to relief on both sides, MacArthur secured a largely peaceful transfer of power.
A cautionary tale for our times, as well as a history.
I wasn't sure what to expect of this one, but I was impressed. I know only the basics about the Pacific War: Pearl Harbor, the fall of Singapore, the Burma Railway, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Perhaps that's still more than many people.) In some ways this book is reminiscent of Ten Days that Shook the World: the events unfold day by day, even hour by hour, and the author maintains tension throughout, though it's a distant re-telling rather than a real-time first-person narrative.
Whilst I knew that the two atomic bombs were fundamentally different designs, I hadn't known how much difficulty the second mission came under, nor that Kokura was the primary intended target of the bomb that ultimately fell on Nagasaki. Having recently read a collection of essays on the Dresden bombing raid, it's also interesting that the calculus of these bombs also seems strikingly at odds with the use of force in the European war: the Americans had suffered horrific casualty figures as they inched towards the Japanese homelands, and though there were identifiable military targets, there wasn't any concern about collateral damage. In some sense the purpose of the atomic bomb was simply to produce a bigger explosion in scale; the distinction in kind from conventional weapons is in the radioactive fall-out. Perhaps only by its use would we learn that we must never do that again.
But more of Craig's narrative concerns the power struggle at the top of the Japanese hierarchy. Hirohito is given a very sympathetic treatment here, as a constitutional monarch powerless to stop militaristic factions, who were themselves almost fighting each other as well as civilian politicians. I recall the anger emerging from various PoW groups (no doubt with justification) whenever relations with the Japanese came up in the news, well into the 1980s at least. Even once the acceptance of surrender prevailed within the cabinet, and the Emperor broadcast to the nation, no-one was certain the order would be followed, and various plots and insurgencies which fizzled out, could have succeeded. Several at the top levels (and presumably others further down) committed suicide. But, to relief on both sides, MacArthur secured a largely peaceful transfer of power.
A cautionary tale for our times, as well as a history.