Contents - Hirohito's War

Appendices
Map, Diagram, Drawing and Chart List
Notes and Additional Resources
Acknowledgments
Introduction and Background


PART I    Meiji Restoration: 1868
1 Empires in Conflict
[1868–1931]
[Maps: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11]
[Photos]
 
PART II    Japan versus America and the World: 1931–1941
2 Ultra-nationalism and the Death of Democracy
[1930–1936]
[Maps: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4]
[Photos]
3 Japan versus China: From Phoney War to Total War
[1937–1941]
[Maps: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6]
[Photos]
4 Mobilization for War in Asia: America and Japan
[1931–December 1941]
[Map: 4.1 A] [Chart: 4.1 B] [Map: 4.2] [Chart: 4.3]
[Photos]
 
PART III   Hirohito’s Whirlwind Conquests:
December 1941–June 1942
5 Pearl Harbor: Yamamoto’s Great Mistake
[7 December 1941 in Hawaii and Washington: 8 December 1941 in Tokyo]
[Drawing: 5.1] [Maps: 5.2, 5.3, 5.4]
[Photos]
6 Plan ORANGE and MacArthur’s Philippines Debacle
[December 1941–April 1942]
[Maps: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 ]
[Photos]
7 Invasion of Malaya: Yamashita’s ‘Bicycle Blitzkrieg’
[December 1941–February 1942]
[Maps: 7.1 A, 7.1 B, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5]
[Photos]
8 Fall of Singapore: Churchill’s Sacrificial Pawn
[January 1942–February 1942]
[Map: 8.1]
[Photos]
9 Burma Corps: Humiliation Then a Fighting Retreat
[January 1941–May 1942]
[Maps: 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5 ]
[Photos]
10 Dutch East Indies and Japan’s Quest for Oil
[December 1941–June 1942]
[Maps: 10.1, 10.3, 10.4, ] [Diagram 10.2 ]
[Photos]
 
PART IV   ‘Victory Disease’: Japan’s Reversal of Fortune:
June–December 1942
11 Limits of Empire: Doolittle and New Military Strategies
[February 1942–May 1942]
[Maps: 11.1 A, 11.1 B, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 11.5, 11.6 A, 11.6 B, 11.7]
[Photos]
12 Battle of the Coral Sea: The First Carrier ‘Shoot-Out’
[April 1942–May 1942]
[Maps: 12.1 A, 12.1 B, 12.2]
[Photos]
13 Battle of Midway: Nimitz’s Lucky Day
[4–7 June 1942]
[Maps: 13.1, 13.2, 13.3]
[Photos]
14 Battles of the Kokoda Trail: Aussies Triumphant
[June 1942–September 1942]
[Maps: 14.1, 14.2, 14.3 ]
[Photos]
15 Guadalcanal: Battles of Tulagi, Savo Island, Tenaru and East Solomons
[May 1942–August 1942]
[Maps: 15.1, 15.2 A, 15.2 B, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.6, 15.7 ]
[Photos]
16 Guadalcanal: Battle of Edson’s (Bloody) Ridge
[August 1942–November 1942]
[Maps: 16.1, 16.2, 16.3]
[Photos]
17 Guadalcanal: Henderson Field and the Santa Cruz Islands
[September 1942–January 1943]
[Maps: 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, 17.5]
[Photos]
18 Battles of Buna-Gona-Sanananda: MacArthur’s Lies and Neglect
[November 1942–February 1943]
[Maps: 18.1, 18.2 ]
[Photos]
19 Guadalcanal: Battle of Tassafaronga and Final Reckonings
[October 1942–February 1943]
[Maps: 19.1, 19.2 ]
[Photos]
 
PART V  Toil and Sweat: The Pacific, India, Burma, and China:
January 1943–June 1944
20 Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Tipping Point of US Air Supremacy
[January 1943–March 1943]
[Drawing 20.1]   [Maps: 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 20.7]
[Photos]
21 Yamamoto Assassinated and the Battle of New Georgia
[March 1943–October 1943]
[Maps: 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4 A, 21.4 B, 21.5, 21.6 ]
[Photos]
22 The Huon Peninsula: Operation CARTWHEEL Completed
[September 1943–April 1944]
[Maps: 22.1, 22.2, 22.3, 22.4 ]
[Photos]
23 The Isolation of Rabaul and the Starvation of Bougainville
[November 1943–August 1945]
[Maps: 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, 23.4, ]
[Photos]
24 The Battles of Arakan, Imphal, and Kohima: Slim Boxes Clever
[August 1943–July 1944]
[Maps: 24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.4, 24.5, 24.6, 24.7, 24.8 ]
[Photos]
25 The ICHI-GO Campaign and the Battle of Myitkyina
[January 1944–August 1945]
[Maps: 25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4, 25.5, 25.6, 25.7, 25.8, 25.9, 25.10 ]
[Photos]
26 Battle for China: FDR, Chiang, Mao, and ‘Vinegar Joe’
[January 1942–August 1945]
[Charts: 26.1, 26.2 ]
[Photos]
27 Jump to Hollandia: MacArthur’s Greatest Victory
[March 1944–October 1944]
[Maps: 27.1, 27.2, 27.3, 27.4, 27.5, 27.6 ]
[Photos]
28 Pacific Island Hop: The Gilberts, Marshalls, and Carolines
[May 1943–June 1944]
[Maps: 28.1, 28.2, 28.3, 28.4, 28.5, 28.6 ]
[Photos]
 
PART VI   
29 The Great Marianas ‘Turkey Shoot’
[February 1944–June 1944]
[Maps: 29.1, 29.2 ] [Chart: 29.3]
[Photos]
30 The Invasions of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam: General Tojo Upended
[June 1944–August 1945]
[Maps: 30.1, 30.2, 30.3, 30.4, 30.5 ]
[Photos]
31 The Battle of Leyte Gulf: ‘Bull’ Halsey’s Mad Dash for Glory
[October 1944]
[Maps: 31.1, 31.2, 31.3, 31.4, 31.5, 31.6 ]
[Photos]
32 “I Have Returned”: MacArthur Regains the Philippines
[October 1944–August 1945]
[Maps: 32.1, 32.2, 32.3, 32.4, 32.5, 32.6 ]
[Photos]
33 The Battle of the Irrawaddy River: Slim’s ‘Mandalay Feint’
[January 1945–May 1945]
[Maps: 33.1, 33.2 ]
[Photos]
 
PART VII   
34 Iwo Jima: The Iconic Battle of the Pacific War
[February 1945–March 1945]
[Maps: 34.1, 34.2, 34.3 ]
[Photos]
35 The Battle of Okinawa: Slaughter of the Innocents
[April 1945–August 1945]
[Maps: 35.1, 35.2, 35.3 ]
[Photos]
36 LeMay’s B-29 Superfortresses over Japan: Cities in Ashes
[April 1944–August 1945]
[Maps: 36.1, 36.2, 36.3, 36.4 ]
[Photos]
37 Potsdam, Hirohito, and the Atom Bomb
[July 1945–August 1945]
[Drawings: 37.1, 37.2 ] [Maps: 37.3, 37.4 ] [Charts: 37.5, 37.6]
[Photos]

Index

34 Iwo Jima: The Iconic Battle of the Pacific War

[February 1945–March 1945]

[Maps: 34.1, 34.2, 34.3]

Luzon or Formosa? (p 977) Lieutenant-General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (p 980) Building the Killing Machine (p 981) Spruance’s Plans for the Invasion of Iwo Jima (p 982) Bombardment and Landing at Iwo Jima (p 984) A Flag on Mount Suribachi (p 986) Into the ‘Meatgrinder’ (p 987) Public Criticism in America (p 989)

Luzon or Formosa? [Map: 34.1] In September 1944, after Admiral Spruance’s return to Pearl Harbor from his successful conclusion to the Marianas Campaign [see Chapter 30: The Invasions of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam: General Tojo Upended] Admiral Nimitz told him to go back to California for a holiday. He was ordered to report back in two weeks: “the next operation is going to be Formosa and Amoy1 Nimitz told him. Spruance responded “I would prefer taking Iwo Jima and Okinawa.” Nimitz insisted, “Well, it’s going to be Formosa.”2 The real debate however, which had plagued the US Joint Chiefs of Staff for the best part of a year, was whether it would be better to take Luzon or Formosa.

As many others had done before him, Spruance had studied the maps and believed that an invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa would provide the airfields that the United States needed to dominate the East China Sea and complete the economic strangulation of Japan. Unlike Formosa a thousand miles to the west, Iwo Jima lay on the direct route to Tokyo from the Marianas. Interior lines of communication and supply from Saipan, Guam and Tinian seemed to make the advance to Iwo Jima and then Okinawa the logical path. In spite of Admiral King’s seeming cast iron support for the invasion of Formosa from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s and the two volume study that supported it, Spruance was adamant that it was a plan that would never be adopted and ordered his staff not to waste their time working on it.

Spruance returned to California to see his wife and daughter in the small town of Monrovia. His grump at being told that he would have to invade Formosa was compounded by the loss of his friend and Chief of Staff, Captain Carl Moore, who at Admiral King’s insistence was replaced by Rear-Admiral Cayley Davis. King and Nimitz had insisted that all four-star admirals should have a three-star chief of staff; furthermore ‘sailor’ (‘black shoe’) admirals were required to have ‘aviator’ (‘brown shoe’) chiefs of staff while ‘aviator’ (‘brown shoe’) admirals were required to have ‘sailor’ (‘black shoe’) chiefs of staff. For Moore, promotion to Rear-Admiral, which would have enabled him to stay on in the role of Chief of Staff to Spruance, was repeatedly turned down by King. Spruance thus harbored a double grievance toward the head of the Navy in Washington.

Realising that the operational team built by Moore was superb in every respect, Rear- Admiral Davis made no attempt to change it and concentrated instead on making sure

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