Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
by Max Hastings
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Book Summary Information
Author: Max HastingsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-03-18
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 656
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
Book Review: Hastings has Eurocentric bias....
Summary: 4 Stars
While the bulk of the book is stellar, and reveals facets of the Pacific War that even I, widely read as I am of this period of history, was not familiar.
To my disappointment Hastings rolled out the much repeated slurs against Gen D. MacArthur. To bet a much more balanced view of MacArthur, one should read Geoffrey Perret's Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur.
A few points should be made about MacArthur. He had an ego, like all great men, his was large. He had a doting mother, just like Roosvelt who was a distant cousin. He served valorously in WWI and rose to Army Chief of Staff during the interwar years.
His long list of career achievments belie the claims of other reviewers that MacArthur was an incompetent pretender.
MacArthur was poorly served by numerous subordinates, not least was his chief of staff, Sutherland. MacArthur prized loyalty and reciprocated, keeping incompetent subordinates in tow when more ruthless commanders would have dismissed them.
The oft repeated sobriquet "Dugout Dug" was dispised by him and was propogated by enemies. He showed on more than one occasion in WWI and repeatedly in WWII that he had far more physical courage than most men.
Like another prima dona, Gen. Patton, he had a profound sense of destiny which fortified his physical courage and a deep sense of religion and purpose.
Assertions of other reviewers to the contrary, MacArthur did have consumately competent subordinates...Gen. George Kinney for example. Who's overwhelming successfull application of air power led to his opinion being sought and his suggestions adopted by the 8th Air Force in Europe. His advice was destroy the Luftwaffe, attack targets they must defend either out of necessity or pride. The result was the the devastating interdiction campaign leading up to D-Day and the successful war of attrition that gutted the Luftwaffe of its seasoned pilots. The exact tactics Kinney's 5th Air Force used to destroy Japanese air power in the Southwest Pacific.
I said Hastings had a Europcentric bias, because of his negative outlook on MacArthur. He repeats verbatim the same tired slurs and mis-information, about MacArthur and the New Guinea-Phillipine axis of advance, that it makes me think he was a Navy man, maybe related to Nimitz or King.
Yes MacArthur does appear hard to like from 60 years distant, but placed in the context of his times, he was a giant among men. Today we accept cardboard cutouts as national heros and elect do-nothing-nobodies to the highest office in the land then give them allocades they neither have earned nor deserve.
I'll take accomplishments over pipe dreams every time. Instead we get semi-pretty boys with no credentials at all.
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