Intense, well researched, a book to reference and come back to. I'm curious about counter points to this book and his conclusions, etc.

A rough rule of thumb is that to ensure success at a reasonable cost the attacker should outnumber the defender three to one. (135)

This sortie and another that followed it forced the Japanese to reroute ships, initiate convoying, and abandon the practice of anchoring outside ports. (155)

Two factors channeled their deliberations: There would be few bombs and thus few targets deemed worthy of such weapons. (254)

Two words became fixed to the event: pika and don - pika meaning a glitter, sparkle, or bright flash of light; don meaning a boom or loud sound. (264)

The awed Soviets called such suicide attackers smertniks. (322)

MacArthur, in one of his finest hours, silenced them by observing that the Allies had just tried and executed Imperial Army commanders of their responsibilities in "ill treatment, including starvation" of American prisoners of war; with the situation reversed, America had to do better. (352)

Those Japanese noncombatants, however, held no stronger right not to be slaughtered than did the vast numbers of Chinese and other Asian noncombatants, the Japanese noncombatants in Soviet captivity in Asia, or the Japanese noncombatants (not to mention Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees) who would have perished of starvation and disease in final agony of the blockade. (360)

Excellent book on the end of the Japanese war, lots of facts from both sides. This is a very interesting read, the biggest problem is what one other reviewer stated and I found accurate "He never found a number that he didn't like!" Numbers are great but sometimes just a "general idea" would be easier to follow. Other than that, it was very informative.

Excellent read about the last 6 months of the War in the Pacific.
Starts off with the fire bombing of Tokyo, LeMay taking charge and going from high altitude bombing to low altitude bombing with the new M-69 incendiaries.
Planing for Operation Olympic, intel from Magic and Ultra chapters are some good reading about Japans defensive scheme for an Armageddon.
Lot of tables and numbers.
My only gripe the two maps that were with the book I just wish they had been a lot more detailed.
It's another one of the books that's good to read every few years.

I am very impressed by Mr. Frank's research. I will refrain from expressing an opinion about his work until I have finished reading it. In a footnote on page 248, he comments on an alternative theory about the end of the Pacific War and the use of nuclear weapons on Japan, viz.

These memoirs [by Joseph Grew and Henry Stimson] form the foundation for an augment alleging that use of atomic bombs actually delayed the surrender [of Japan] because the U.S. government chose to wait to use them rather than issue such a guarantee [regarding the future of the Imperial dynasty], coupled perhaps with other modifications of unconditional surrender, at some point between around June and August 1945

This happens to be a theory that reflects my own personal views; I will see if Mr. Frank is able to refute it.

I am eager to read this book, but frankly, I find Frank's thesis--at least as summarized by readers here--to be suspect. There is little if any evidence to suggest that nuclear weapons were ever intended by AAF officials to end the War in the Pacific or that the bombings did, in fact, result in the end of the war.

Michael S. Sherry argues persuasively in The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon that the air campaign against Japan was never intended to accomplish anything other than "softening up" the Japanese before a land invasion (p. 236) and that the AAF had no way to know the effectiveness of their bombings relative to that mission. Sherry quotes Lauris Norstad, chief of staff of the 20th Air Force, as stating on September 27, 1944, "Whether or not air bombardment alone can defeat a power like Japan is no concern of ours" (p. 237), as well as a civilian analyst who wrote on June 6, 1945, that "there has been to date no careful study of bombing accuracy from B-29s" (p. 235).

The atomic bombings and the claims that they ended the war were more likely the result of efforts by AAF commanders to rationalize the enormous amounts of money devoted to the bombing (development of the B-29 cost more than the Manhattan Project itself) and to demonstrate the necessity for a large and independent Air Force after the war was over. The notion that the bombings accomplished the surrender of Japan was consistent with the Air Force's self-mythological public relations campaign, not to mention a way for self-righteous Americans to ignore the devastating human toll that area bombing produced. In the end, as John W. Dower (Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II) and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan) argue, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Moscow's declaration of war against Japan were the final straws that broke the will of the emperor and Japanese military.

One rationalization for the fire bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 was, as Frank repeats:

The intermixture of modest and medium-sized enterprises with private dwellings [that] played an important role in armament production. The output of a major factory, and there were a great many in Tokyo, depended typically upon a flow of component parts from feeder firms across the city. (p.7)

Sherry offers this:

The feeder system was indeed extensive and commented upon by Japanese as a target whose destruction did serious damage to Japan's war economy and thereby was implicitly justified. But its importance in 1945 was another matter altogether. Japan's industrial economy, like that of every combatant, had undergone a concentration into larger enterprises to achieve economies of scale and reflect accompanying shifts in the location of economic power. Large numbers of men (by conscription) and women (by economic necessity) had been drawn into the factory system, and the 'drift toward oligopoly,' Thomas Havens notes, saw '11,000 small shops forced to close in Tokyo alone by mid-1943.' Doubtless, many of those were in the rapidly collapsing consumer sector, but as the Strategic Bombing Survey later concluded: 'By 1944 the Japanese had almost eliminated home industry in their war economy.' Factories with fewer than 250 workers still played a vital role, but these were hardly backyard drill presses. Simply the well-known dispersal of war industry out of the cities made the cottage industries a less practical source of supply." pp. 285-6)

In any case, Sherry adds, bombing damage to Japan's heavy industry plus the U.S. Navy's stranglehold on imports of raw materials gave both factory and cottage industries few materials for any type of fabrication. (p.286)

The last third of the book is better than the first 2/3 because it deals with the atomic bomb. The first 2/3 just deals with troop numbers and movements, and way too detailed and boring.

Extremely well researched examination of the decision to use nuclear weapons at the end of WWII in the Pacific campaign. Paints a vivid picture of the last few days of the war as Japan struggles within its Imperial identity to come to a consensus of whether to end the war or not, and under what conditions. Before reading this I had always felt that the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitous, but the author painstakingly creates context for the decision. Looking forward to reading Pulitzer prize winning "Embracing Defeat" as a good companion piece.

Intriguing book on the 1945 period in the Pacific. The book did concentrate almost solely on the U.S. and Japan with some supporting details from China and the Soviet Union's entry into the war. For those looking for insights into how the Japanese government arrived at their decision to end the war, this is definitely the book to get started with.

By organizing and rendering all research and evidence as of 1999, Richard B. Frank conclusively proves that the use of two atomic bombs were critical to the end of America's Pacific war with Japan.

Outlining the last year of the war, Frank uses the Ultra and Magic decrypts of Japanese military and diplomatic traffic to show the evolving situation in Japan's leadership especially including the essential role of the Emperor.

For the first time I read of Stalin's plans for the Soviet occupation and communization of the Japanese home islands and Truman's firm rejoinder. We thus fortunately avoided another Korean War which would have produced far more destruction and far greater casualties. Truman was a hero.

In addition, I can think of no other general readership history that so completely covers the evolution of the American invasion plans - Olympic and Coronet - and Japan's planned defense against the invasion of Honshu, Ketsu-Go.

Essential reading for students of the Pacific war.

Outstanding book! Excellent argumentation, using newly declassified (for 2000) evidence from Magic and Ultra, to prove (beyond a doubt in my mind) that dropping the atomic bombs was absolutely necessary to end the war quickly, especially to save both American and Japanese lives.

Richard Frank does excellent work, and Downfall is a further example

Oustanding book that when coupled with "Racing the Enemy" and Max Hasting's "Retribution" gives one the most comprehensive understanding of how in the summer of 1945 both the US and Japanese governments were on a course that made the dropping of the two atomic bombs almost inevitable. As a friend of mine put it, this book reads most like a mystery novel where the author explores the motivations, actions and timelines of the key protagonists on an almost day by day basis.
Frank's book does a masterful job demolishing some widely held beliefs about the end of the War in the Pacific particularly the notions that sprung up decades after the war that Japan was actively seeking to end the war and accede to the Allies demands and that the bombs were not needed (and were probable war crimes. Frank also details how not even the entry of the Soviets into the war against Japan which ended any Japanes hope for using Stalin as a honest broker in negotiations with the US and UK was enough to break the hold of the Big 6 military/political leaders who got Japan into the war and held power in the summer of 1945.
While on paper the Japanese were thoroughly defeated to the point US planners worried that if the Japanese held out too long it would be impossible to feed the Japanese in any potential occupation. Every month the war continued meant an average of 200K people, mostly civilians, would die in China and Japan. Even with all thaat and the addition of the Red Army plowing through the Japanese army in China, the Big 6 thought by sacrificing the southern home island of Hyushu they would bleed the US enough to force a tolerable peace.

Written in 1999, the author claims to have had access to all materials about the policy decisions made to end the war against Japan. It is riveting material, about choices, ethics, the terror of war...

Dec. 2015. I reread this book and found it as good as I originally thought. The author write about the "business" of war. Pragmatism in the midst of violence. The issues of intelligence, both as process and product, run throughout both sides. The author does not hesitate to take up all the controversies and give his informed take on them. He is especially good in getting into the minds of the chief protagonists on both sides and trying to see what they saw.

The Japanese were caught in a code of war that kept them going until it was seen that traditional Japan would be destroyed by continuance of the war. The Americans did not know enough to be sure of where the Japanese were going but knew enough to start taking a look at revising the policy of invasion when it was seen that Kyushu would have been a death-trap.

Atomic bombs, the Russian attack, Japanese fear of attack on transportation (and wonder why it had not been done earlier), all conspired to bring the Japanese hierarchy to change their position. Late, very late but it did happen. The counter-factual alternatives are addressed by Frank and demolished, I think.