Tag: Japan

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#BookReview: The Hiroshima Men by Iain MacGregor

Among The More Complete Histories Of The Nuclear Bombing Of Japan. Clocking in at nearly 450 pages, with only about 10% of that bibliography – and hence the star deduction – this account really is one of the more complete accounts of the entire event I’ve yet come across in all my years both reading books generally and studying WWII in its various facets more specifically. It was also the last of three books about the bomb and/ or the use of it that I read over the few days of US Memorial Day Weekend 2025 or in the days immediately after, the other two being Evan Thomas’ 2023 book Road To Surrender and Frank Close’s June 2025 book Destroyer Of Worlds.

Specifically, in tracking exactly who it does – including several key US personnel involved with both war planning and the Manhattan Project itself, the pilot of the bomber that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the reporter who really opened America’s eyes to the horrors of nuclear fallout, and even the Mayor of Hiroshima himself – this book really does give a complete all around picture of all aspects of the creation and use of the atomic bomb and the repercussions for both American leadership and Japanese civilians.

Reading almost like a Tom Clancy or perhaps Robert Ludlum war thriller at times, this text *also* manages to have the emotional heavy hitting of Hersey’s original Hiroshima report, which it covers in nearly as much detail as Lesley MM Blume’s 2020 book Fallout – which told the story of that report exclusively. Leaning more towards the American position that as horrific as this event was, it very likely saved lives – American, Japanese, and even Russian – this is one of those texts that largely doesn’t speak of the efforts in both America and Japan by several key, yet not quite highly ranked enough, leaders to at least consider trying to end the war through dialogue (ala Evan Thomas’ 2023 book Road To Surrender), but instead seeks to offer the reader a more complete understanding of the men who *were* making the decisions in these moments, from the President of the United States all the way to the commander of the airplane that actually dropped the bomb itself.

Ultimately a thorough yet sobering account, and with its release intentionally timed just barely a month before the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, this really is one of the most complete books I’ve ever encountered on the topic, one that at least attempts to strive for a balance in understanding *all* involved in this event. Thus, all -American, Japanese, and everyone else interested in discussing the event with intelligence and facts – would do well to read this particular accounting.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Hiroshima Men by Iain MacGregor was originally written on June 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Road To Surrender by Evan Thomas

History In All Its Complexity. This is one of the better histories of the nuclear bombings of Japan that I’ve come across over the years in that it isn’t “hoo-rah we didn’t drop *enough* bombs on Japan!”, but it also isn’t “nuclear weapons are an absolute abomination and their use made the term “war crime” seem like stealing a piece of gum, it was so much worse than that”. (The second there being closer to my own position on the matter, for what that’s worth.)

Instead, Thomas takes pains to show the complex realities on both sides of the war, both in what the leaders at the time knew and in the various pressures each was facing in trying to lead nations during a war. This is a Western-based book, and thus ultimately comes down on the side of the deployment of these weapons being “necessary”, but Thomas really shows effort to show that at least some of the American leaders that ultimately selected the targets and ordered the strikes did at least attempt to consider other alternatives – but again, given their own intelligence estimates, planning, and pressures, ultimately concluded to issue the orders they did.

One thing that becomes crystal clear when reading this text, however, is that while there may not have been (apparently clearly were not) actual communications regarding this between the governments, there absolutely were people – high ranking people – on both sides that were seeking ways to avoid this fate. There were those on the American side high enough up to know what was being built in top secrecy but low enough to not be able to countermand the order to actually use them that wanted to avoid civilian deaths at *all* costs – even if it meant not dropping these bombs at all. There were those on the Japanese side that were striving, as early as late 1944 in particular, to find some way to end the war and still allow Japan to retain its Imperial system, or at bare minimum its Emperor. (Which, to be clear, despite the US “insisting” on “unconditional” surrender, *was* ultimately allowed – and yes, Thomas goes into detail here too about what the terms actually meant to both sides.)

Truly one of the better histories of the topic I’ve ever come across, and I’m glad I finally read this text on US Memorial Weekend 2025, as we begin to go through the 80th anniversary of many of the final events detailed in this book.

Very much recommended.

This review of Road To Surrender by Evan Thomas was originally written on June 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Fuji Fire by Chas Henry

Mass Effect. September 11. Small Exurban Atlanta, Georgia. A Blimp Commonly Seen At Major US Sporting Events. All Connected By One Event. Many, many years ago – nearly as far back as the fire at the heart of this book, though I’m not quite *that* old – I attended a Family Day (or whatever they called it at the time) at the Goodyear plant in Rockmart, Ga, just outside metropolitan Atlanta at the time. My dad and several uncles all worked for Goodyear at one of their two plants in my hometown of Cartersville, just up the road, and for whatever reason this year (and maybe one other?) Goodyear was combining the event for all three plants. Little did I know that in attending that event, I would have a direct – if extremely remote – connection to a fire that killed 13 US Marines and injured nearly 50 other people when my dad was 19 and just before my mom’s 19th birthday, nearly a year before they wed and within 5 yrs before my birth. To the level that given my family and community connections, it is at least somewhat likely that I actually know people who know the people who likely never even knew that something they had made had unfortunately indirectly caused so much devastation.

And little did Henry know that in including the tiny detail of who made the fuel bladder that leaked the fuel that burned and caused these casualties, he would instantly make this tale that much more personal to a reviewer who had never heard of this tragedy before seeing this book.

But there are wider connections here, both more in the aftermath than the setup. One issue Henry dives into for a page or two (of just barely 230 pages of actual text here) actually connects directly to an issue explored early in the first Mass Effect game in an encounter that is almost unavoidable, but to reveal which one would be a major spoiler for the discussion at this point of the book, as they are in fact identical, with identical reasonings if not identical particulars.

The other, perhaps even most surprising connection of all, is actually that this 1979 USMC tragedy along the slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan is directly connected to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City – and directly helped save lives in 2001. All because one doc in particular was there in 1979 trying to save the lives of as many of these Marines as he could and learned lessons that became directly applicable that Tuesday in New York.

Read this book to learn of the Marines tragically lost over those two months in late 1979. Their stories have rarely been told outside of Marine circles, and everyone deserves to be remembered and have their stories known. Read this book to learn of the mistakes that were made that caused this calamity – or certainly exacerbated it, at minimum – and what we can do better both in the military (which *has* updated and clarified the relevant regulations over the intervening decades) and as a society in response to emergency and traumatic situations. Read this book to learn of the selflessness and heroism of so many working to save as many people as possible, and of the Marines themselves who were so often so much more worried about their fellow Marine than their own body. Read this book because so few of us have ever heard these stories, yet the sacrifice and courage of so many truly deserve to be more well known by so many more of us.

And yes, after you read this book… leave your own review. Tell the world what you thought of Henry’s reporting here (reads like a thriller, even as you know it is all too real) or the events shown here (I think I’ve been clear on that point). Help get the word out about this book so that the world can see what happened in 1979… and since.

And then go hug a loved one, because as this tale so poignantly points out… you never really know when it will be the last time you have a chance to do so.

Very much recommended.

PS: The star deduction? Unfortunately there was no bibliography at all in the Advance Review Copy edition of the book I read, and while I understand that this is original investigation, even by my more relaxed bibliographic requirements of nonfiction books these last few years I still really need to see at least around 15% of the text be bibliography, as that does seem to be a rough industry standard and is the standard I’ve been judging nonfiction books by for quite some time.

This review of Fuji Fire by Chas Henry was originally written on May 30, 2025.

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#BookReview: Vanishing Act by Dan Hampton

How Jimmy Doolittle’s Raid Connected Directly To The Atomic Bomb. On the weekend of the anniversary of the Doolittle Raid (as it has come to be known) and with conversations sparking again about whether the dropping of the bomb was necessary or not, I had an opportunity to read this book – which admittedly won’t release until the day after Memorial Day here in the US. (For everyone else, this book’s release date is the last Tuesday of May 2024.)

Here, Hampton adds a wrinkle to the discussion of the bomb by revealing what had previously been hidden about the Doolittle Raid – a *second* mission, known only to the pilot of the plane and to Doolittle’s own boss, to gauge just how ready the Soviet Union was to actually engage in warfare against Japan. Here, Hampton argues that the plane that for 80 years had been believed to have gotten lost… knew *exactly* where it was going and largely *exactly* what it was doing. Or, at least the one driving it did – and he relayed those instructions to those whose help he absolutely needed, his copilot and his navigator, and *no one* else. As in, the bomber’s bomber and gunners didn’t know of this secret mission. According to Hampton here, at least.

That the crew of “Plane 8” landed in the Soviet Union and was there imprisoned for a time before being repatriated back to the US has been known effectively since the events happened over 80 years ago – at least by then current communication standards, particularly during a time of global war.

But just what they were *actually* doing is new here – and because of what they found on that mission, we now have better information about what the various Generals and civilian leadership knew or thought they knew in the closing months of the war, as J. Robert Oppenheimer and his teams on the Manhattan Project were finalizing their new weapon. We now know what Roosevelt, MacArthur, Stinson, and Arnold knew about Soviet capabilities in the Far East… because this secret secondary mission got them the data they needed, three years prior. We now know that even if they had heard – as at least some claim – as early as February 1945 that Japan may possibly consider surrendering so long as the Emperor was kept in control of at least the Shinto religion (as, ultimately, is exactly what happened on Sept 2, 1945 on the USS Missouri), that even if they had heard this that the Soviet Union was not yet able to put the kind of resources into the region that may have made even Japan’s own war hawks reconsider their actual options.

This is a harrowing tale, very well told – in some respects, it reads as easily as fiction, yet gives a complete picture of all that was happening in and around the Doolittle Raid, specifically as it relates to this second, secret, mission.

The one problem I have, at least with this early edition I read, was that the bibliography is lacking, clocking in at just 10% of the available text. Even with original research as the basis of the claims of this book – and that is indeed the case here – one would still expect that number to be perhaps at least 50% higher to meet the bare minimums of being described as adequately documented given the explosive nature of the claims contained herein.

Overall a truly well written and apparently well researched tale that just needed a touch more documentation. Very much recommended.

This review of Vanishing Act by Dan Hampton was originally written on April 22, 2024.

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#BookReview: Ira Hayes by Tom Holm

Johnny Cash Was (At Least Partly) Wrong! Admittedly, the title of this review is mostly click-bait. But it *is* an accurate summary of this text – and yes, the text does at least briefly examine the song itself as well. Holm does a remarkable job of showing the history that created Ira Hayes, one of the six men immortalized forever in “The Photograph” of the American flag raising at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima during the WWII battle which became the basis of so many memorials… including a not-small one in Washington, DC. As with the better history books, Holm shows the relevant histories that lead into the famous events at hand- and the biography and histories of the fallout of the events, including the various impacts to both the man Ira Hayes and the cultural icon/ touchstone Ira Hayes. Yes, including the various movies, the various incarnations of The Ballad of Ira Hayes (including the Man in Black’s), and even discussing the book The Flags of Our Fathers and its movie incarnation as well. At 22% documentation, it is reasonably well documented, and there are no overly startling revelations here – though there is perhaps much new knowledge, depending on one’s own knowledge set when coming into this book. For example, the histories of the Akimel and Apache wars and interactions, and even how they waged war (both the weapons involved and the tactics and ceremonies) was new knowledge to me – and utterly fascinating.

Overall a well told and well examined history with no obvious flaws or even any overt political diatribes, this is a book that anyone interested in a more complete tale of Ira Hayes will enjoy. Very much recommended.

This review of Ira Hayes by Tom Holm was originally written on July 28, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Demon Crown by James Rollins

Tom Clancy Meets Jeremy Robinson Meets Brett Battles In An Epic Race To Save The World. Yet again, Rollins manages to blend different things from science and history in ways that seemingly only he can, though this time he did indeed have shades of the other authors named above. You’ve got the Debt of Honor ties to Tom Clancy with similar villains. You’ve got the Island 731 ties to Jeremy Robinson via using the real-world Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army for some of the backstory. And you’ve got the PROJECT EDEN ties to Brett Battles’ epic series via the ultimate endgames of the bad guys.

And yet Rollins manages to make this story completely his own, with only fans of the other three authors being able to see the connections probably at all. The follow up from The Seventh Plague in the opening scene with Sigma characters is great, and really drives home the very humanity that makes this series so truly compelling. But then the action picks up dramatically, and because of the nature of the threat… never really dies down. Once again the team is split with various people going various places, so people who don’t like following multiple trains on a given story may not like that bit – though at least here, we basically follow the two halves of the Sigma team + the bad guys (a bit). One interesting feature here is that Rollins actually bakes the life span of the featured creature into the narrative here, having one chapter devoted to each stage of its development – from that stage’s perspective. And yes, there are some utterly horrific scenes here as well, as virtually anything based on Unit 731 must include.

Overall an excellent tale and strong followup to The Seventh Plague, and sets in motion events which are sure to pay off down the line as well. Very much recommended.

This review of The Demon Crown by James Rollins was originally written on June 7, 2023.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: Fallout by Lesley MM Blume

This week we’re looking back at one of the most monstrous events in human history. This week we’re looking back on the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on its 75th anniversary through the lens of Fallout by Lesley MM Blume.

Fallout is not the story of the Hiroshima bombing, but of the coverup of its true horrific effects – and one man’s efforts to uncover them. Fallout is the story of the expose Hiroshima, written by John Hersey and published in The New Yorker on August 31, 1946. As Fallout cites the essay heavily while telling the story of how it came to be, and since The New Yorker’s website currently has the essay free to view at least as of the writing of this post in late June 2020, I very much recommend you take a moment to go read the original essay. It really is as powerful as Blume describes, and truly deserves its story being told.

Blume does the singular most remarkable job I’ve ever seen in a nonfiction book in at least one way: Nearly 40% of the text of the ARC I read of this book was bibliography. In my experience, a seemingly comprehensive bibliography averages closer to 25% to 33% of the text of a nonfiction book. Though at least in my ARC edition, the notes were not referenced in the actual text. It is unknown at this time if that was intentional or if that will be fixed prior to publication, but the effect was that it made the story flow much easier without the constant footnote references, so perhaps it is a great thing that they were listed but not directly referenced.

Blume also has a knack for the narrative, and does a remarkable job of keeping what could be a dense and complicated issue taut yet crystalline. Reading this book really gives the sense of being there and searching for the truth, yet also having the hindsight to know which passages and influences will ultimately bare out in the annals of history. Her passion for this particular essay, the history of it, and the history it describes, becomes abundantly clear almost from the first words of this effort.

Hiroshima was an absolutely critical essay for every American to read, understand, and internalize, and Blume’s work here detailing the history of how it came to be should be read right alongside Hersey’s original essay. Very much recommended.

And as always, the Goodreads review:
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#BookReview: The Spirit of the Dragon by William Andrews

Gone With The Kimchi. This book has the depth and emotion of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, but it is set beginning in 1930s Korea and continuing through the major events of the Korean people from then to now. Never overly graphic, yet conveying the appropriate gravitas regardless, this book highlights so many of the horrors of the Imperial Japanese government during this period – and how being a part of it came to haunt one (fictional) man. Ultimately a story of undying love and an undying belief that we are all truly one people, this is a book that cannot be missed. And if you happen to read Jeremy Robinson’s Island 731 before or after, you’ll have an even better sense of the true tragedy conveyed in this tale. Very much recommended.

This review of The Spirit of the Dragon by William Andrews was originally written on December 24, 2019.

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#BookReview: Project 731 by Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy Robinson continues to show why he is the master of the Kaiju literary genre – and deserves to see his ideas put to the big screen. This story in particular seems almost tailor-made for Hollywood – two terrifying creatures combine, and the original form of one of them has to stop the other.

Our action here picks up not long after where PROJECT MAIGO finished up, dealing with the repercussions of that book’s final battle. Meanwhile, another super secret government group is having a bit of clean up of its own – it seems some of the creatures from ISLAND 731 have made their way to the Oregon coast. These two storylines converge near LA, and LA and Salt Lake City will never be the same again.

Fans of Robinson will be thrilled – there is quite a bit here for the long time fan. Newbies to Robinson will get a prototypical Robinson story – wildly imaginative action, with humans fighting humans, humans fighting creatures, creatures fighting creatures, and just about everything in between, along with genuine character development, particularly in Hudson and Maigo. So pick this book up – you really can never go wrong with this author!

This review of Project 731 by Jeremy Robinson was originally published on December 1, 2014.