Naval War College Review Volume 71 Article 12 Number 4 Autumn

2018 Hell to Pay: and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947 Gina Granados Palmer

D. M. Giangreco

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Recommended Citation Palmer, Gina Granados and Giangreco, D. M. (2018) "Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947," Naval War College Review: Vol. 71 : No. 4 , Article 12. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol71/iss4/12

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BOOK REVIEWS

THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY

Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947, by D. M. Giangreco. Annapo- lis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. 584 pages. $35.

Since , historians have dates, facts, and figures, including with debated President Harry S. Truman’s regard to troop movements, Selective controversial decision to use the atom Service needs, and medical supplies. bomb—a catastrophic new military Both the and Japan technology—to force Japan’s Em- scrambled to organize land, sea, and air peror to surrender and avoid resources, drawing inexorably toward a costly Allied invasion of the Japan a hellish, last-ditch fight to the finish. home islands. In his well-researched Hell to Pay’s seventeen chapters flow Hell to Pay (first published in 2009, chronologically from 1944 through but newly updated and expanded the end of in 1945, then in October 2017), D. M. Giangreco continue with events up to 1947. In this weighs in on the traditional side of the revised edition, Giangreco adds two debate, arguing that Truman based his new chapters (chapter 11, “To Break decision on reasonable casualty estima- Japan’s Spine,” and chapter 17, “The tions and sound military planning. Myth”) and an appendix Two schools of thought have framed that provide facts pertinent to the the debate. Traditionalists maintain that Soviet entry into the war. In addition Truman’s claims were justified, while to these new chapters, several others revisionists argue that use of atomic stand out as especially noteworthy. force was unnecessary because Japan’s In chapter 2, “Spinning the Casualty sea, land, and air forces were largely Numbers,” Giangreco gives details on destroyed and Soviet entry into the war how U.S. military leaders calculated against Japan tipped the scales toward total casualty numbers and how, when, inevitable defeat. Giangreco, however, and why they chose to publish them. disagrees with revisionist historians The U.S. government wanted public such as Bernard Bernstein who contend support for Selective Service, but also that Truman exaggerated casualty did not want to reveal its deployment projections. Giangreco provides readers plans to the enemy. Although many with a rich stream of lesser-known

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strategists argued at the time that the One of the most significant chapters in number of replacements needed that the book is chapter 6, “The Decision,” U.S. leaders published was inflated, the referring to Truman’s decision to drop author argues that strategists actually the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. intentionally underinflated the numbers, Giangreco traces factors from the sum- using mostly conservative estimates. U.S. mer of 1944 to August 1945 that affected troops, for example, were familiar with the decision, including the casualty repeated announcements that at least surge from the earlier ratio of more than five hundred thousand replacements 4.5 Japanese casualties to every U.S. ca- were needed to continue the war in sualty to a more even ratio of 2 : 1 or even Japan, whereas on March 9, 1945, Yank 1 .2 : 1 in recent campaigns, such as Iwo magazine published figures for U.S. Jima. This surge was one of Truman’s losses from the beginning of World War considerations when he requested that II through February 7, 1945, of “782,180, the (JCS) provide including 693,342 for the Army alone” a projection of casualties that would (p. 20). In addition to exploring the vari- result from an invasion of Kyushu. ous methods of estimation, Giangreco The aforementioned new chapters 11 gives evidence that Truman based his and 17 contribute facts and research decision to avoid invasion on conserva- regarding Soviet entry and participa- tive, not inflated, casualty estimates. tion. Giangreco provides evidence In his fifth chapter, “Not the Recipe for that MacArthur and other military Victory,” Giangreco documents U.S. and advisers supported Soviet entry into Japanese reallocations of troops among the war against Japan soon after Pearl various areas of operation. Despite Al- Harbor. Accordingly, the author reasons lied attempts to deceive the enemy with that Truman did not drop the bombs misleading communications campaigns, to minimize Soviet participation; Japanese military leaders correctly contrary to such a narrative, U.S.-Soviet anticipated the time and location for cooperation in defeating Japan was an the planned initial Allied invasion of extension of Lend-Lease arrangements Japan’s home islands: October 1945 and planning. Although Giangreco in Kyushu, southern Japan. Accord- argues that it always had been the intent ingly, the Japanese transferred thirteen of the JCS to incorporate the Soviets divisions to Kyushu before the end of into U.S. war-termination plans in the the war in August, whereas General Pacific, his research aligns in at least Douglas MacArthur and U.S. planners one instance with revisionists who expected only six to ten Japanese argue that Truman wanted to minimize divisions. MacArthur anticipated Soviet participation as much as possible: outnumbering Japanese troops by a while MacArthur always argued for comfortable margin, but the thirteen Soviet entry as the best plan, other JCS divisions transferred made the probable advisers, such as Admiral Ernest J. King, ratio closer to 1 : 1. Giangreco empha- told Truman that the United States sizes that, since “planned superiority” could defeat Japan without Stalin’s help. was no longer likely, Truman’s assertion Contemplation of the locations, par- that five hundred thousand lives would ticipants, and numbers involved in this be lost probably was too conservative. story can be daunting, but a dedicated

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reader gains a nuanced mental picture currents that the naval officer of the moving parts on both sides of debated during this period marked a the conflict. Scholars and researchers pivotal shift in ideas on naval profes- who desire in-depth information will sionalism and strategic thinking. benefit from Giangreco’s research, The Gilded Age Navy, in relation to and the appendices and bibliography its time, was not an anachronistic include numerous primary sources that organization wedded to outdated ideas, have received little or no attention in as it often is portrayed. Indeed, in many past traditionalist-versus-revisionist ways, the Navy of the 1870s and 1880s debates. This work is a must-read for preceded the national Progressive those interested in U.S. and Japanese movement. Even as the Navy addressed military and political historiography and the massive challenges involved in strategy in the final year of World War incorporating emerging technology II and the critical factors contributing into an organization steeped in tradi- to war termination in the Pacific. tion, the service simultaneously had GINA GRANADOS PALMER to deal with the emergence of national strategic thought. The idea that America should maintain a navy for war during peacetime ran counter to a century of tradition. Mobley asserts that this Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, change in strategic focus drove the American Empire, and the Transformation of cultural shift in the Navy officer corps. U.S. Naval Identity, 1873–1898, by Scott Mobley. In this he challenges previous scholars Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018. 432 “who attribute the Navy’s revival to pages. $34.95. a mix of commercial expansionism, Judging Scott Mobley’s Progressives in hegemonic aspirations, and imperial am- Navy Blue by its cover, it might seem bition” (p. 12). Progressives in Navy Blue a bit esoteric. The parallels with the adds to the scholarship by considering modern U.S. Navy, however, quickly the “influence of strategic ideas, beliefs, become apparent in this well-written values, and practices upon the Navy’s and -researched history of the transition professional culture and identity” (p. 14). of our Navy from sail to steam and from With the marked exception of the Civil constabulary force to national fleet. This War, within the service’s first century is Mobley’s first book, but in a thirty- “decades of overseas service, policing, year career as a nuclear-trained surface and promoting America’s maritime warfare officer, including command of empire fundamentally shaped the U.S. two ships, he lived the same “warrior- Navy as a constabulary force led by engineer” dichotomy that was central to mariner-warriors” (p. 37). The post– the late-nineteenth-century American Civil War American navy emphasized naval culture around which this book single-ship operations, with limited to revolves. The U.S. Navy between the no opportunity for multiship training. Civil and Spanish-American Wars Naval officers and civilian leaders engenders limited historical discourse saw no need to dedicate resources to owing to the lack of naval combat, but homeland defense, believing that the Mobley asserts that the progressive frigate-and-coastal-fort system in place

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