Retribution: A Classic Western Crime Novel

Simon: Only Max Hastings could make the colossally inhumane conglomeration of violent and barbaric acts that were the war against Japan into a well rounded, considered and unbiased narrative. Using the words of the people at all levels of both military and civilian life, from all the participating belligerent nations and peoples, he weaves a compelling and informative story of one of the most cataclysmic times in modern history.
Instead of being continuously repulsed or repelled by this, however, one feels drawn in and, sometimes a bit morbidly, fascinated and enthralled but always informed.
Yet another masterpiece of history from one of the masters of the genre, it’s a must-read, or listen if you us the audiobook version.
Simply brilliant.

Australia on Sep 18, 2023

Kindle Customer: Brilliantly written war book, good depictions of battles and strategy. Looking forward to the next Max Hastings book about WW2.

Spain on Jul 09, 2023

Jonathan Summers: Covers a number of areas very rarely covered in many ww 2 books particularly Manchuria so worth exploring this imo

United Kingdom on Jun 23, 2023

Carrosio Roberto: This book is the counterpart of "Armageddon", dedicated to the European theatre.
After a long introduction, dedicated, for the most part to the war in Burma and to the final Japanese try to invade India, at Kohima and Imphal on March 1944, the book begins with the huge naval battle of the Leyte Gulf and the subsequent invasion of the Philippines and then continues with a chapter dedicated to the war in China , a very often missing subject in the books about WWII, above all because it underlines the dificult situation between the chinese nationalist Chiang-Kai-Shek and General Stilwell, the chief of the US Mission in China. Another very interesting chapter is dedicated to the air bombings on Japan (his title: " burning a nation", it makes understand which had been the real effect of aerial terrorism. Then the book follows all the american campaign of the sea landings in the Pacific (Iwo Jima, Okinawa). Another interesting chapter is dedicated to a war inside the main war , the Mao's war against the nationalist Chiang-Kai-Shek , in China.
Then the book ends with the chapters dedicated to the A-Bombs and the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet troops.
Concluding the book is...

United Kingdom on Apr 01, 2013

Alan Lenton: This account of the 1944-45 World War II battles against Japan is something of a tour de force by Max Hastings. Drawn from interviews and the papers of those who participated, it presents both sides of the story, but without falling in to moral ambivalence. Even more importantly, it does not look at the decisions made at the time solely from hind sight - it looks at them within the context in which they were made.

Many of the things that happened then become more explicable - not necessarily condonable, but certainly explicable, include Japanese actrocities against those they conquered, and the much debated decision to drop the atom bomb.

Two things which I hadn't previously understood became clear from a reading of this book. The first was that all of the people involved at a high level with the dropping of the bomb failed to understand the qualitative difference between conventional and nuclear explosive. They all thought it was just a biggesr and better version of what the B-29 bombers were already doing to Japanese cities. The second was the extent to which high ranking Japanese military and civilians privately knew the war was lost, but were, because of the...

United Kingdom on Dec 29, 2008

Arkansaw Traveler: The British author Max Hastings normally a creditable job in covering his campaign de june, but this time as with "Armageddon" he attempts to cover larger campaigns and issues of WWII and doesn't succeed. The British slant is present as usual, this time playing up the British campaigns in the CBI theater as important to Japan's defeat. Well, hardly. The fastest the British moved was in steaming to Hong Kong to re-occupy their former colony at war's end before the Americans got there, an item Hastings doesn't mention. Siam was lost to them due the OSS support of the "Black Thais", and that couldn't be allowed to happen again.

The strong points have been covered well in other reviews, but allow me to add a few facts into the debate over the necessity of dropping the atomic bombs. Yes, the Japanese Foreign Office had made an offer (in response to a query) to surrender through the Soviet Union in early July but it was clearly unacceptable to the US. These cables and their decoding through Magic were discussed at length (see Richard B. Frank, "Downfall"), and although the clear Japanese text is sometimes seized upon to prove the revisionists' case that Japan would have...

United States on Aug 29, 2008

Peter Staric, PhD: Max Hastings, Retribution; the Battle for Japan, 1944-45

The author describes the last year of the war against Japan, which had started on 18th, September 1931, when Japanese troops attacked Manchuria. However, this was just the beginning of their conquests, which up to December 1941 included large portions of China, and the whole Korean Peninsula. To stop the Japanese expansion, which was accompanied with so far unheard of atrocities against the captured soldiers as well as toward the occupied populations, the USA imposed progressively tighter embargoes on industrial goods and raw materials exported to Japan. Since this might actually stop the Japanese war machine and prevent their further conquests, the Japanese committed a fateful move by attacking Pearl Harbor.

The architect of this assault was the competent Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He had studied at Harvard and served several years as the naval attaché in Washington D.C. Knowing well enough the strength of the USA and their mighty industrial potential, he at first opposed the planned adventure. But, as an obedient soldier, he nevertheless carried out the order to attack. His plan was to destroy the main US...

United States on Jul 01, 2008