Fascinating and incredibly detailed. Would be a perfect companion for a research paper. It was a little dense to get through as a casual read, however.

Whew - that took nearly 2 months but I'm finally done! An extremely comprehensive treatment of the surrender of Japan, approaching the issue from directions I never would've conceived of beforehand. The arguments Frank deploys are well-supported and drawn from a broad swath of evidence - I must admit they've overturned my previous ideas regarding the likelihood of Japanese surrender pre-atomic bombing.

The book is very detailed, and it takes a degree of patience (I felt myself getting bogged down at many instances) to go through all the statistics and seemingly inconsequential points (e.g. the exact distribution of Japanese divisions on Kyushu in preparation for the US invasion). Having gone through them, however, one is rewarded with a greater intuition for how military planners might have dealt with these issues in the moment.

If one is looking for definite answers regarding what could have occurred at the end of the Pacific War, they will not find them here - one instead finds a set of measured, supported conclusions that do not step off into the realm of over-speculation.

I'll start off by saying I am in the "Soviet Invasion Camp" did more to bring Japan to surrender than the atomic bombs did. That being said, Richard B. Frank has written a well researched and convincing argument for why the use of the atomic bombs were not only necessary, but ultimately saved lives. Frank focuses on American intelligence sources (MAGIC and ULTRA intercepts) and goes through how the air campaign against the Japanese mainland progressed in late 1944 until the war ended in August 1945. He also goes in depth on the different US invasion plans for the Japanese home islands and the casualty projections.
Two things that Frank focused on that I thought particularity interesting were that the American incendiary attacks were focused on industry, not civilians; and the possibility of saving not only American lives, but Japanese, Chinese, and Korean lives by ending the war as quickly as possible. I was under the impression that the incendiary attacks against large cities like Tokyo and Yokohama were focused on destruction of civilian homes and lives. Frank goes into the American planning of bombing and how the war industry of Japan was largely spread out in small workshops, rather than being concentrated in large central factories. Incendiary bombing was seen as a way to improve bombing results, with the civilians living around these workshops being collateral damage, not the targets.
Frank also takes time to describe how starvation threatened the Japanese home islands if the US had continued to focus attacking transportation infrastructure. Frank looks briefly at Japanese contingency plans to take more food from conquered areas of China and Korea, leading those people to also face the threat of starvation. Even after the US occupation, General MacArthur had to bring in tons of supplies to prevent widespread starvation in several areas of Japan.
While I feel that Frank may have put more attention and weight to American sources than Japanese sources, I think he brings a convincing counterpoint to many of the cases against dropping the atomic bombs. Definitely worth reading if you've ever been frustrated by the seemingly simple arguments about the use of the atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

This exhaustively researched book is arguably the most authoritative popular reference for the subject of the last months of the Second World War against Imperial Japan. Due to its academic hue, it is only recommended read for the most serious student of the subject. I am impressed with the author's presentation of the facts as gleaned from meticulous American code-breaking of the Japanese diplomatic and military codes and the now-accepted thesis that Japan stubbornly refused to end its savagery and surrender until their war leaders, led by the Emperor, were forced to acknowledge the reality of their defeat by the entry of the Soviet Union into the war and the US' use of the atomic bombs.

This book is one of the last nails to the coffin of the myth still being propagated by some Japanese to portray themselves as the victims of the Second World War.

For the record: The Japanese militarists and imperialists were not the victims; they were the AGGRESSORS. They reaped what they sowed.

Very good book that lays out the arguments for and against using the atomic bombs versus Japan at the end of WW II. It makes clear that the use of the bombs saved both American and Japanese lives in the end and although horrible weapons, they produced the least horrible result that was possible. Serves as a definitive counter argument against Howard Zion’s slanders about American use of the atomic bomb.

Nobody can doubt the wisdom, or the necessity, of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after reading this compelling, irrefutably documented and comprehensive history.

Very comprehensive account of the end of the war in the Pacific. Probably too much detail for casual readers, but a very interesting and engaging telling of the events in any case. Spoiler Alert: The atomic bombing of Japan was the right and necessary thing to do. The evidence presented by Mr. Frank overwhelmingly supports that conclusion. I will be speaking on this topic August 27, 2016 at the College of Complexes in Chicago, Illinois. See collegeofcomplexes.org for more details.

So much has been written about the two atomic bombs that were dropped in Japan that one has to wonder if there is anything new that can be added to the narrative. Apparently there is. Richard Frank’s Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire utilizes newly declassified military papers and years of research to disclose the events leading up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and provoke us to rethink the delicate trichotomy of dropping the bombs, invading the Home Islands and forcing the Japanese to surrender through blockade and diplomatic channels.

The book opens up with a gruelling account of the Tokyo bombing on March 9 and 10. The raid resulted in an estimated 100,000 deaths and many others wounded. Frank, who previously wrote another non-fiction Guadalcanal, intentionally started the book by demonstrating the horrible effects of bombing raids and perhaps by doing so, illustrated further destruction in the event of a prolonged campaign even without the use of atomic bombs. As indicated in the introduction, Frank proposes to emphasize the historical context and alternatives at that period to both the American and Japanese sides instead of merely condoning or condemning the employment of Fat Man and Little Boy.

The book then chronologizes the change in command to General Curtis LeMay, the invasion plans of the Home Islands known as Operations Downfall and Olympic, and secret Japanese messages that the American forces managed to intercept through Magic, the cryptanalysis project designed to break enemy’s code. After learning of the massive Japanese build-up in Kyushu and the devastating kamikazes and fierce resistance of the Japanese however, Operation Olympic was thrown in doubt. The plan for land invasion was further reconsidered after President Truman and the top military command learned of the Manhattan Project. Truman did not object that the bombs be used when they are ready, as his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt had decided earlier. The book also provided the basis for selecting Hiroshima as the first target. The city has yet to be bombed previously and given the concentrated population and geography, a more accurate assessment on the effects of the bomb can be done.

Frank examined the traditional and revisionist accounts of the decision to drop the A-bombs. Traditionalists held that the atomic bombs were necessary to end the war while revisionists argue that Japan was already seeking to end the war before the bombs were dropped and hence the United States used the nuclear weapon for political reasons directed at the Soviet Union rather than for military and peaceful purposes. Frank was critical of the latter as he claimed that the existing evidence did not indicate that the Japanese was willing to submit to unconditional surrender prior to the A-bombs. He showed that even though the Foreign Minister and ambassador were seeking a quick end to the war, the Big Six cannot agree. Meanwhile Japanese militants were drawing up plans to engage the Allies in a final encounter, most probably upon their landing at Kyushu. If they fail to dislodge the Allies at the beach, they will resist and attempt to push them back till the last man. Given their encounters with the Japanese armed forces and civilians in Iwo Jima, Okinawa and others, the Allies predicted very high casualties if the battle materializes.

That is not to say Frank is totally supportive of the A-bombs. He was sceptical of the false dichotomy between dropping the atomic bombs and invading Japan. He raised the possibilities that if the Allies had prolong the blockade and bomb railway network, they might be able to force the collapse of the Japanese economy. Then, starvation and unrest could subdue the political will of the Japanese leaders to accept surrender terms. He also hinted that if the Americans had battle the Japanese in Kyushu, high casualty might be able to push the president and military leaders to modify their surrender term. Indeed, a central controversy revolves around whether or not Americans’ refusal to modify unconditional surrender actually prolong the war and make the Japanese unable to accept their proposal. Again, the revisionists claim that if Americans were to modify the surrender term, the Japanese would be able to agree on peace. The book disclosed the Allies’ rationale : Unconditional surrender is not negotiable. It is vital for them to prevent the militants to ever grasp power and start another war. Hence occupation to oversee postwar development would be necessary for them – something the Japanese army cannot agree to. Again, Frank showed that deadlocks such as this impasse render the revisionists’ simplistic calculation less credible. The last few chapters of the book recount the steps leading to the Japanese surrender and the decisive intervention by Emperor Hirohito and assessment of the reality and its alternatives.

Overall this book with its nearly a hundred pages of citations and references is a detailed study on the subject. This book will not convert those who opposed the decision to drop the atomic bombs, which is understandable given the terrible destruction. But at the very least, Frank reminded the readers that the alternatives to the atomic bombs are probably just as ugly, if not more.

My comments here do not represent a review. I have only read two other books on the subject of WWII in the Pacific, wonderful books by John Dower, and so I am entirely ill equipped to comment on its merit as an account of past events. But I can comment on my sense of the writer's methods, which evokes in me a sense that he has been altogether successful in accomplishing his purpose. Whether his book has withstood critical examination - I can't say.

And what purpose is that? Frank's purpose in writing this account appears to be a conviction that historians/writers who, out of moral convictions, reject or even so much as quibble with Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons to end the war in the Pacific. He attacks these positions in every chapter, and his approach is to examine and evaluate (1) the scope and depth of critics' research into documentary sources, (2) their complete disregard of accepted evidentiary standards and rules of evidence, and (3) the rather narrow-minded evaluations that ignore the scope of an extremely complex set of considerations and uncertainties that confronted decision makers both in Japan and the USA in 1945. As far as I can tell, and I don't intend to sample that vast body of work any more extensively than I already have, Frank demolishes completely the arguments of his opponents in lawyerly fashion - and Frank is a lawyer - as the product of slipshod research and extraordinarily faulty interpretations of the bits and pieces of evidence they adduce.

It's quite refreshing (for me) to read a work of history that derives from technically excellent research. He states and applies his evidentiary standards, explains his acceptance of certain sources and rejection of others, assesses gaps in the historical record, identifies the unknowns that will remain forever unknown, the uncertainties that will likely remain uncertainties throughout all time, and then marshals the evidence he finds credible, even clear and convincing, in an extraordinarily economical manner to render his opponents' assertions laughable, even pitiable, the products of incomplete, selective and uncritical research and sloppy thinking, which don't represent credible facts but rather expressions of moral outrage that attempts to pass as "history" - whatever that may be.

Frank's own variety of moral outrage is quite palpable. It expresses itself in his relentless and unremitting presentation from first page to last of distilled oceans of documentary evidence in the most dispassionate and economical manner that I've encountered since I last watched an episode of "Perry Mason" decades ago.

It is good that we confront the decisions of the past, it is good that we account for voices of dissent. However we cannot strip decisions and the dissents from the context they inhabited.

Downfall was explicitly written as a counter the “revisionist” view that the bombing of Japan was militarily unnecessarily and perhaps even a war crime. I’m not going to make a call on that, but there has been a preponderance towards the revisionist view in articles.

There are major discussion points around whether the Japanese were willing to surrender from June 1945 (Frank says they weren’t and were pretty keen on decisive battle) and that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would have been sufficient (Frank says that’s overstated and would you have liked the Soviets in Hokkaido, knowing that 300,000 Japanese died as prisoners of the Soviet Union?). Despite this, I will focus on the war crime part.

Agents of Mass Death

When you open a book on atomic weapons with the conventional fire-bombing of Tokyo in March 1945, perhaps the most single devastating event of the war, it’s clear you want to make a point:

…central to understanding this period is the basic fact that atomic bombs were not the sole agents of mass death.

In World War Two, the Western Allies propped up the Soviets (morally troubling to Frank) and launched bombing raids over Axis cities:

If Bomber Command could not hit what it would, it would hit what it could. That meant an “exterminating” rain of high explosives and incendiaries on urban centres to destroy civilian “morale” – “a cosmetic word for massacre,” observed John Terraine.

Frank notes that the British, with some squeamishness from the Americans, intended to bomb the civilian areas of Germany to force surrender, i.e. terrorism. The point I take from Frank is that the atomic bombing was not a tremendous leap morally from what the Allied powers had committed themselves to doing anyway.

There has been commentary that 7 of the 8 five-star generals opposed the atomic bombings. That is not covered directly, but Frank pushes back on the contemporaneousness of Eisenhower’s comments. Further, MacArthur was slated to lead the most brutal invasion of the war, knowing from Saipan, Luzon and Okinawa that civilians would be involved as combatants or victims.

A Plethora of Unattractive Options

“I don’t get the problem,” you say. “They are all war crimes.”

…and look, yeah, probably… Frank points out the Allied populations imbibed those beliefs in mass bombardment, but it kind of helps they were on the winning side. Germans imbibed Anti-Semitism in one form or another, and it hardly stands as a criminal defence. At best it is evidence of political will.

Frank alludes to the escalation by the Axis powers at Guernica, Chungking, Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Coventry. However, he does ignore the British bombing of villages during the 1920s revolt in Iraq, a pretty notable precursor. As Frank himself acknowledges, Allied leaders often placed a patina of legality over the mass bombardments, suggesting an underlying admission of the wrongness of their actions.

His better point, and the one he emphasises, is that there was a race against time. Death rates among European and Asian (particularly Asian) prisoners and slave labourers were astoundingly high, estimated by Frank as 100,000-250,000 a month:

Any moral assessment of how the Pacific war did or could have ended must consider the fate of these Asian noncombatants and the POWs.

Frank states was fundamental for political purposes to maintain political support and this was enshrined in the goal to end the war against Japan within a year of Germany’s surrender. The prospect of massive casualties on both sides by way of invasion, or starvation of millions via blockade hardly appears more attractive than going to the atomic bomb.

Bombs Away?

I feel Frank:

(a)tmakes a good point in making the atomic bombings a lot less exceptional from a war crime perspective in the context of the war; but

(b)tdoesn’t undermine the basic contention that it was a particularly war crimey time, going instead with the position that were clear trade-offs.

The book never really tries with the second point from a legal perspective, and that does hurt it. The trade-offs come down to which number is bigger, and Frank places the blame on Japan’s refusal to surrender being the prime cause of those numbers:

It might appear obvious in hindsight that Japan's leaders should have recognized the impossibility of continuing a modern war of attrition and the clear course was to surrender. The reality, however, is that they chose a different path.

Despite weaknesses, that Frank works within the context of the time, even if imperfectly, should be acknowledged. Atomic bombing another country is never a great choice. The issue is, were there any better ones?

This book gave me life

Excellent book about the defeat of Imperial Japan in WW II, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb.
Over the years, revisionist historians have tried to state that we never should have dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. They state that Japan was already defeated, and would have surrendered anyway. Some historians state that the only reason to drop the bomb was to demonstrate its capability to the Russians at the beginning of the Cold War. Frank's debunks these theories. Japan was not defeated. They were building an armada of suicide bombers and boats. They had huge armies in China and Southeast Asia who were not defeated. The Japanese Imperial Army and Navy wished to fight to the last man. They had enlisted the entire civilian population to fight an expected American invasion. Casualties on both sides would have been huge. Also due to intensive American bombing and a naval blockade, the Japaneses infrastructure was in tatters. Without the atomic bomb, hundreds of thousands Japanese would have died of starvation. The death toll at Hiroshima was 100,000 and the death toll of Nagasaki was 25,000. 125,000 Japanese were killed so that millions would be saved. Even with those number, Emperor Hirohito had to push hard for surrender.
On a side note, the fire bombing by America on Tokyo killed 100,000 in one night of terror. Tokyo was built of wood and paper and when napalm was dropped, an inferno was begun. As William T. Sherman said, "War is Hell."