The View of the Japanese Enemy 75 Years after the End of World War II

After the defeat of Germany in May 1945, the United States wanted to end the war with Japan as quickly as possible. But Waldo Heinrichs and Marc Gallicchio contend that this was impossible as the United States was not in the position to launch a successful invasion of mainland Japan. One of the questions that Implacable Foes sets out to answer is how the conflict arrived at the point that the United States needed to be saved by both the atomic bombs and Hirohito's intervention in favoring surrender, because the prospects of a successful U.S. invasion of Japan did not look good. The book's premise is novel in that it challenges a common narrative that the dominant United States, with all its industrial might, men, and matériel was the certain victor in 1945. The authors depict a United States government and military that still considered themselves the underdog versus the Japanese who had not won a battle since the loss of Midway in 1942. Despite the Japanese fighting a two-front war in China for eight years and for four years in the Pacific theater, with a dwindling amount of supplies, trained pilots, and resources necessary to wage war, the United States still did not like its chances in launching an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Japan had 69 cities that had already been firebombed prior to the atomic bombings, and their military had to resort to kamikaze tactics in 1944 as their primary strategy from the air out of their sheer desperation caused by their lack of skilled pilots and planes. That the Japanese posed such a formidable threat raises questions: was the United States really incapable of launching a successful invasion of Japan or was it that the government and public simply did not have an appetite for further fighting with boots on the ground? The authors argue that both are true.

This substantial book is primarily focused on the American order of battle, the personalities of several "great men" like General Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall, and detailing the internal wrangling that U.S. government officials and military leaders went through when confronted with the prospect of continuing the Pacific war well past the end of fighting on the European front. References to Japanese soldiers, which are relatively rare, often rely on depictions of them as fanatics who fought to the death: "[The Americans] were engaged in a war of annihilation against an enemy resigned to his own death and determined to fight on for the sole purpose of killing as many Americans as possible" (p. 8).

Although the authors try to provide balance by pointing out that American soldiers—like the Japanese—also committed brutalities during the war, (pp. 77–80) brief mentions do not obviate the overwhelming sense that pervades the book that the Japanese were an enemy of a sort that American soldiers had never encountered before. Refuting John Dower in War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1987), which argues that the Pacific War was a race war that fueled hatred on both sides, the authors contend that Japanese soldiers were unique and unlike their American counterparts. "That war with the Japanese was a battle for survival, a struggle without sanctuary, came as a shock to the American soldier. Surrender meant barbaric death, to survive meant killing" (p. 79). While it is true that official Japanese military doctrine discouraged soldiers from surrendering, whether this resulted in American soldiers being less willing to fight for their lives than the Japanese is debatable. More groundwork and substantial evidence would help advance their argument against Dower's.

Regardless, the book was never intended to be about the foes of America, but instead the focus was meant to be (and is) on how the American government and military officials saw their options to end the war in light of the...