

Hell to Pay
Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947
Author: D. M. Giangreco
Narrator: Danny Campbell
Unabridged: 16 hr 4 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 09/29/2010
Categories: Nonfiction, History, Asian & Pacific Islander History, Wars, World War Ii
Synopsis
These facts are well known and have been recounted—with varying degrees of accuracy—in a variety of books and articles. A common theme in these works is their reliance on a relatively few declassified high-level planning documents. In contrast, Hell to Pay examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents unearthed by the author in both familiar and obscure archives, as well as postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur's headquarters. Hell to Pay brings the political and military ramifications of the enormous casualties and loss of material projected by both sides in the climatic struggle to bring the Pacific War to a conclusion through a brutal series of battles on Japanese soil. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atom bomb and shows that President Truman's decision was based on very real estimates of the truly horrific cost of a conventional invasion of Japan.