Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945

by Waldo Heinrichs, Marc Gallicchio

Overview

May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day—shortened to "V.E. Day"—brought with it the demise of Nazi Germany. But for the Allies, the war was only half-won. Exhausted but exuberant American soldiers, ready to return home, were sent to join the fighting in the Pacific, which by the spring and summer of 1945 had turned into a grueling campaign of bloody attrition against an enemy determined to fight to the last man. Germany had surrendered unconditionally. The Japanese would clearly make the conditions of victory extraordinarily high.

Following V-E Day, American citizens understandably clamored for their young men to be shipped back from Europe and longed for a return to a peacetime economy. Politics intruded upon military policy while a new and untested president struggled to control policy. The challenge of defeating the Japanese had come to seem nearly insurmountable. American casualty rates during the previous eighteen months led Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall to warn of the toll that "the agony of enduring battle" would likely take. General Douglas MacArthur clashed with Marshall and Admiral Chester Nimitz over strategy. Meanwhile, under pressure, the Army began a program of partial demobilization of troops in Europe, which depleted units at a time when combat-tested soldiers were most needed. In this context of military emergency, the fearsome projections of the human cost of invading the Japanese homeland, and weakening social and political will in the American homeland, seemed to make victory, unconditional or otherwise, an increasingly distant prospect.

In Implacable Foes, award-winning historians Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio bring to life the final year and a half of World War II in the Pacific, combining grand strategy and ground-level account, taking readers from the island-hopping campaigns in the spring of 1944—New Guinea to the Philippines to Okinawa and Iwo Jima—right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Heinrichs and Gallicchio reveal more fully than ever before not only the Japanese policies of desperate defense, but also the sometimes rancorous debates on the home front, and in the process deliver a gripping battle narrative integrated with a provocative and revisionist discussion of American decision-making. The result is a masterful work of military history, one that illuminates both the calculus of global war and the incalculable part played by individual sacrifice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190616755
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2017
Pages:	744
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.40(d)

About the Author

Waldo Heinrichs is Dwight E. Stanford Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University. He is the author of American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition, which won the Allan Nevins Prize. Heinrichs served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army's 86th Division, one of the last two divisions to be deployed to Europe in World War II and the first to be redeployed to the Pacific in preparation for the invasion of Japan. He and his wife live in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Marc Gallicchio is a Professor of History at Villanova University and was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in Japan, 1998 - 1999 and 2004 - 2005. He is the author of The African American Encounter with Japan and China: Black Internationalism in Asia, 1895 - 1945, which won the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations Robert H. Ferrell book prize.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Reckoning
1. Gaining Momentum
2. Moving Ahead on New Guinea, April-July 1944
3. The Marianas Campaign, June-August 1944
4. Accelerating the Advance, August-October 1944
5. Leyte to Manila, October 1944-March 1945
6. Iwo Jima, February-March 1945
7. Recovering Luzon, February-June 1945
8. Beyond Human Endurance: Taking All of the Philippines, February-June 1945
9. Okinawa
10. Two Down and One to Go: The Home Front, March-June 1945
10. Potsdam, July-August 1945
11. Surrender at Last, August 1945
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"Two great historians have produced this stellar and extremely important book, adding critical new layers to the decision-making process of American leaders approaching the controversial end of the Asia-Pacific War. This is a thoroughly researched, judicious, and very sobering reminder of the complexity and uncertainty of events surrounding the final acts of World War II." - Richard Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire and Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle

"A masterful history destined to be the definitive account of the final two years of America's war with Japan. The authors' comprehensive, original, and highly readable narrative sets new standards for understanding the political, military, and social pressures on U.S. leaders as they simultaneously fought a determined foe, demobilized American armed forces, and prepared for the complex transition to America's postwar domestic economy." - Edward Drea, author of Japan's Imperial Army

"A valuable and revealing study...For readers familiar with the military campaigns, the book is essential reading for its lucid treatment of the pressures that imperiled critical operations in a truly global war...the contribution of this vital book is its portrait of history as lived desperately in the moment; of the varied troubles that beset planners and commanders in the war's horrific last year; and of the mettle and vision of an American president whom history should underrate no longer. "Implacable Foes" shows war operations as a human ordeal even at the highest level, fueled by the exhaustible human spirit." - Wall Street Journal

"This book is a superb piece of military and naval history. It blends the particular and the general, the battlefront and the homefront, the broader political and international and the militarily particular into an eminently readable narrative. It should be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the history of the Second World War." - Journal of Military History

"This book brings to life those final years of World War II right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, evoking not only Japanese policies of desperate defence, but the sometimes spiteful debates on the home-front. Heinrichs and Gallicchio deliver a gripping and provocative narrative that challenges the decision—making of US leaders and explains the consequences of prioritising the European front." - The Wavell Room: Contemporary British Military Thought

From the Publisher

2017-04-23
An in-depth account of the denouement of the Pacific phase of World War II.WWII veteran and historian Heinrichs (Emeritus, History/San Diego State Univ.; Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II, 1988, etc.) and Gallicchio (History/Villanova Univ.; The Scramble for Asia: U.S. Military Power in the Aftermath of the Pacific War, 2008, etc.) begin in early 1944, as American forces began to shift from containment of Japanese advance to a sustained offensive. The goals were twofold: recovering territory lost in the initial Japanese expansion and forcing a Japanese capitulation. Several factors complicated the process: the determination of the Japanese to fight to the last man; the continuing war on the European front; rivalries between the Army and Navy; and the political situation at home. The authors give each due consideration. Descriptions of the battles make it clear how high the cost of the Japanese strategy was. In most of the battles, the Americans faced well-sited defensive positions designed to extract as many casualties as possible. Only toward the end of the war did significant numbers of Japanese troops surrender, but at the same time, the kamikaze attacks were causing enormous damage to the American fleet. Meanwhile, the European war's demands for personnel and supplies limited the resources available to the U.S. commanders in the Pacific, who were already at odds over how best to prepare for the apparently inevitable invasion of Japan. Back in the U.S., much energy was being expended on the questions of how to quickly return to a peacetime economy and how to return the veterans of Europe's war to their civilian lives. Harry Truman and his new administration wrestled with these issues, which were exacerbated by a sense that the population would not support a drawn-out siege of Japan. The authors' handling of these questions, which ultimately led to the atomic bombing of Japan, is more interesting than their sometimes-ponderous coverage of the battles. Substantial documentation, much of it from Japanese sources, adds value. A useful resource for serious students of World War II.

Kirkus Reviews