Japan War History

Brought to Japan in the 16th century by Portuguese traders, he was the first person of African origin who became an instant celebrity. Rumored to be about seven feet tall and possessing the strength of 10 men, he garnered the attention of the famed warlord Oda Nobunaga. He served his master diligently through many battle victories. He is most famously associated with the title of African Samurai. This is the story of Yasuke.

“I shall return”, General Douglas MacArthur promised the Filipino people following the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines in spring 1942. The people there believed MacArthur’s vow - and even Americans were stirred by his dramatic pledge. Now, two and half years later, MacArthur was ready to fulfill his promise - the liberation of the Philippines was about to begin.

The First World War came at an unfortunate time for those who would fight in it, and while the role of Japan in World War II is widely known, Japan’s important role in the First World War is mostly overlooked...Japan and World War I: The History of the Japanese Empire’s Participation in the Great War analyzes the actions of the forgotten ally, and how Japan’s participation helped set the stage for its expansion across the Pacific. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Japan and World War I like never before.

Richard Sorge was dispatched to Tokyo in 1933 to serve the spymasters of Moscow. For eight years, he masqueraded as a Nazi journalist and burrowed deep into the German embassy, digging for the secrets of Hitler's invasion of Russia and the Japanese plans for the East. In a nation obsessed with rooting out moles, he kept a high profile - boozing, womanizing, and operating entirely under his own name.

Submarines exercised a decisive impact on the outcome of the Pacific Theater in World War II. The US submarine fleet, largely though not exclusively under the overall command of Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, strangled the supply lines and shipping traffic of the Empire of Japan. Their commerce raiding crippled both Japan's ability to keep its frontline units supplied and to manufacture the weapons, vessels, and vehicles needed to successfully carry on the struggle.

Many people in the West look upon the Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place in the 1930s and 1940s, as a sort of sideshow to the larger Second World War, but there is no separating the two. Imagine the Pacific War, the theater of World War II that took place in the Pacific. If the Japanese were not busy fighting on another front, they would have had millions of more troops available to fight the Americans and the British. In all likelihood, World War II would have ended the same way, but it would have taken much longer and cost that many more lives.

The End of the Road… Italy was a broken nation, and the noose was tightening around Germany and Japan. The Western Allies were poised to cross the Rhine and defeat for the Reich was just a matter of time, which didn’t mean they were about to see sense and end the war. In Europe the real question was where would the dividing line be drawn when the conflict was over? As relations between the Western Allies and the USSR turned colder each side wanted to ensure it gained the upper hand. In the Pacific divisions had also opened amongst the Allies, with the British focused on an advance to ...

After the Battle of Midway, the Japanese were forced into the position of trying to defend the territory they had previously taken; their dreams of expanding their acquisitions and becoming the dominant power in the Pacific were gone. The tide of war in the Pacific had shifted.

At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945, America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The city was flattened, and more than 70,000 Japanese citizens were killed. Among the horrific scenes were also hundreds of Allied British, Australian, American and Dutch prisoners of war, working as forced labourers in the shipyards and factories of Nagasaki. This book tells their remarkable untold stories

With an introduction read by Max Hastings. A companion volume to his best-selling ‘Armageddon’, Max Hastings’ account of the battle for Japan is a masterful military history. Featuring the most remarkable cast of commanders the world has ever seen, the dramatic battle for Japan of 1944-45 was acted out across the vast stage of Asia: Imphal and Kohima, Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Soviet assault on Manchuria.

Late in the Pacific War, as Americans were fighting their way to the home islands of the Japanese Empire, one of the fiercest battles of World War II was raging. The Japanese had created, perhaps, the best defended area anywhere on an island called Iwo Jima. Days into the bloody battle, casualties were high on both sides. United States Marines were taking an awful pounding out in the open from enemy-fortified positions.

The classic first-hand WWII narrative that chronicles the Marines’ savage five-day struggle to wrest Mount Suribachi from its tenacious Japanese defenders during their 35-day battle for Iwo Jima in 1945. Revised with a new introduction by the author and recently discovered photos, this book served as invaluable source material both for James Bradley’s best-seller Flags of Our Fathers as well as Clint Eastwood’s acclaimed film of the same name.

In November 1944, the U.S. Navy fleet lay at anchor in Ulithi Harbor, deep in the Pacific Ocean, when the oiler USS Mississinewa erupted in a ball of flames. Japan's secret weapon, the Kaiten - a manned suicide submarine - had succeeded in its first mission. The Kaiten was so secret that even Japanese naval commanders didn't know of its existence. And the Americans kept it secret as well. Embarrassed by the shocking surprise attack, the U.S. Navy refused to salvage or inspect the sunken Mighty Miss.

Continuously in demand since its first, prize-winning edition was published in 1975, this is the classic history of Hiroshima and the origins of the arms race, from the development of the American atomic bomb to the decision to use it against Japan and the beginnings of U.S. atomic diplomacy toward the Soviet Union.

At the height of the Korean War, President Truman launched one of the most important intelligence-gathering operations in history. So valuable were the mission's findings about the North Korean-Soviet-Chinese alliance that it is no stretch to say they prevented World War III.

The saga of the flags on Iwo Jima has fascinated America for decades. Hammel himself grew up in the company of WWII veterans and has always been intrigued by the photo of the flag, which became a powerful symbol of patriotism and national pride. But the story of how the flag got there, and even the identity of the soldiers in the photo, has been muddied by history. Eric Hammel here sets the record straight, viewing complex events through the lens of the story of the infantry company in which all the flag raisers served.

"Shadows of the Rising Sun" delves into the enigmatic Black Dragon Society, a secretive ultranationalist group in early 20th-century Japan. As Western imperialism spread across Asia, the Society proclaimed Japan as the defender and leader of Asian unity against Western dominance. Their ideology of "Greater Asianism" influenced Japan's aggressive expansion and contributed to the regional conflicts of World War II. This book explores the Society's origins, philosophy, and significant impact on Japan's foreign policy. It also examines their strategic support for Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-...

Near the end of World War II, in an attempt to attack the United States mainland, Japan launched its fu-go campaign, deploying thousands of high-altitude hydrogen balloons armed with incendiary and high-explosive bombs designed to follow the westerly winds of the upper atmosphere and drift to the west coast of North America. After reaching the mainland, these fu-go, the Japanese hoped, would terrorize American citizens and ignite devastating forest fires across the western states, ultimately causing the United States to divert wartime resources to deal with the domestic crisis.

Many books have been written about the amazing life of General Douglas MacArthur. This book is different. It contains information that is not reported elsewhere, information that tells us more about the greatness of this man, and how a powerful and popular US president, because of personal animosities, tried to destroy him. MacArthur led a 50-year career through some of the most difficult times in our nation's history, yet he never failed us. His Island-Hopping Campaign in the Pacific, his autocratic but benevolent rule over Japan that rebuilt their country into our great ally, his genius ...

One Christmas in Washington is a fascinating, in-depth look at one of the most crucial periods in modern history: the Washington war conference of 1941, when two proud and accomplished statesmen struggled to overcome biases, suspicion, and hubris to create what turned out to be the war-winning alliance.