Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944--45
£4.46
Could be better - I was a little disappointed with this book. I bought it thinking it would be as good a read as Armageddon by the same author. But here I was wrong. It seems that the author has tried to fill up a long book rather quickly without paying too much attention to the overall readability. He does cover the Japanese point of view too, which is interesting but I think he has included too many personal interviews with survivors. It must be fascinating for someone who lived through it all, who can piece it all together today - but I was left a little confused and just about managed to finish reading the book. Not easy reading.
Essential history that all should know. - An extremely good read, the battle for Japan has not received the same level of historical coverage given to the European Western and Eastern fronts, but this book certainly rectifies that. A compelling, informative and justifiably horrific book, it pulls no punches and serves no political or historical masters. For truth and honesty about the events and the figures that drove them you ll have to go a long way to better this book. Cannot praise highly enough. You should bookend your WWII historical collection with this and it s older brother Armageddon-Max Hastings about the battle for Europe.Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45
BRITISH PACIFIC FORCE? - At the Winchester Festival, reviewing his book, Hastings made a misguided and alarming remark, that the Royal Navy s Fleet Air Arm, other than Taranto Raid, played no significant part in WW2. It is therefore no wonder that he has omitted to include in his book the British Pacific Forces s successful attack on the Japanese oil refineries at Palembang (Samatra) in January 1945. Four British fleet carriers with 244 aircraft embarked disabled the refineries that were supplying Japan precious aviation fuel. He has also failed to document one of two VC s won my Fleet Air Arm pilots during WWII - Lt Gray with his plane on fire, pressed home his attack and sank a Japanese destoyer. Glancing through the book Hastings does not do justice to the Royal Navy in the Far East during 1944-45 period, until he educates himselve on the Fleet Air Arm s war effort, I will stay clear of his books. Question for you Max, which allied torpedo bomber aircraft sank more enemy shipping (by tonnage) then any other aircraft acting in the same role during WW2? Clue it is the same aircraft that disabled the Bismarck s steering, enabling the Royal Navy to sink it.
When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today - When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today, is inscribed on the War Memorial at Kohima. It commemorates a forgotten battle fought by forgotten soldiers of a forgotten army of a forgotten empire for a forgotten cause against a forgotten foe - I exaggerate only slightly, for what school child in any of the great democracies (assisted only at its dénouement by the dreadful Soviet dictatorship of Uncle Joe Stalin) that eventually triumphed over a monstrous and militarist enemy can tell today of Kohima, of Imphal, of Leyte Gulf, of Iwo Jima, of Okinawa? Not many, I guess. I am deeply regretful that so few of our young know anything of the above. Max Hastings has performed a first-class service for those who know little or nothing of what happened then or of the need to destroy that monstrous and militarist enemy, the Japan of Hirohito. Those of us who know of the need must never forget, nor permit others so to do. Read this book in order to know why!
Not history, but rather slapdash journalism - If you like your history personalised and trivialised, enjoy knocking copy but are not much interested in facts nor concerned with accuracy, this is your book. Do not be bluffed by its bulk and the plethora of end-notes, it lacks a bibliography, making it impossible to decide which howlers stem from ignorance of sources and which from misusing them.I bought Nemesis because I learned that Hastings quotes from my uncle s book War Bush: 81 (West African) Division in Burma 1943-1945 by J.A.L.Hamilton (Norwich: Michael Russell, 2001) in his first chapter on the war in Burma. He quotes from it with acknowledgement four times, each time with one or more errors, and uses it in six more without acknowledgement. My uncle s book closes with the opinion of the Japanese Arakan army, that of the troops opposed to them for more than a year the Africans were undoubtedly (the Allies ) best jungle fighters . Hastings, who was not there, knows better: The War Office was seized by a belief that jungle warfare would suit Africans, this though most had never seen such terrain. He backs this up by quoting a British general s views that The African has not a fighting history and The African....cannot react quickly....due to an inherent....lack of intelligence , and considers it relevant to cite a Gurkha officer s report of his men gazing with awe, when snooping on Africans bathing, at the extravagant proportion of their black comrades private parts , as if this titbit of schoolboy smut affected their performance as soldiers. It is typical that they are said to be West Africans, though in the Kabaw Valley, where 11 (East African) Division campaigned. He thinks there were only two African divisions, and only one from West Africa, which sent two, making three. He tries to belittle the share of British troops in the Burma fighting - only a fraction....two divisions....one in thirteen of the ground troops . There were three, one broken up to form Chindit brigades, and in addition one-third of the infantry and half or more of the artillery in an Indian division were British units. On numbers the British were 100,000 out of 605,000, almost one in six. He quotes figures without a source, and overestimates the Japanese killed in Burma after the invasion by subtracting the number killed then from the total of all Japanese casualties (KIA, wounded and missing).The narrative is bulked out by personal reminiscences and anecdotes, many used as a basis for sweeping, often dubious, generalisations, there is an evident relish for horror stories. Hard facts are scanty, and many incorrect even though well-known - wrong dates for the start of Operation Thursday and the death of Wingate, the wrong division landing at Rangoon, on the wrong day. Sources are mis-quoted, not acknowledged, their evidence distorted. How can one trust the rest of the book? This is not history, but rather slapdash journalism, as Kipling wrote, Once a journalist, always and forever a journalist .