A dense, but very fascinating full picture of the events leading up to the use of the atomic bomb. From the strategic air bomb campaign of Lemay, Russian intervention, Ultra message decoding the thoughts of top Japanese brass, U.S. military heads personal bickering and agenda's, the role the downfall of Germany played, the Japanese occupation of China/Korea, the final "decisive battle' Japan was building up for, and the Emperor's quest to keep his own power, this book covers so much ground. This was the first book i've ready on the atomic bomb and i was consistently amazed at all the research Richard Frank put together here. While reading this may not change minds on the decision to use the a-bomb, it does certainly make clear how difficult the decision to find a way to end the war with as little loss of life as possible was.

Extremely detailed and well-researched account of the final months of WW2 in the Pacific and the decision to use the atomic bomb.

A well-written examination about the end of the war with Japan. It discusses the plans and projections for Operation Olympic (the invasion of Kyushu scheduled for November 1945), the effects of the B-29 bombing campaign, what the US actually knew from extensive codebreaking of Japanese messages, how willing the Japanese were to surrender, the Soviet Union's entry into the war, the atomic bombs, and some of the possibilities if the war had not ended when it did.

Certain areas could have been given more depth, but for "only" a 350 page hardcover book it covers a great deal and it covers it well.

Really interesting, it did get dry at some points but overall a great read

Extremely thorough reconstruction of the end of the war against Japan, focusing on the Japanese plan to defend Kyushu and Honshu, and the strategic bombing campaign against Japan. It paints a fascinating picture of the Emperor's involvement in the surrender, and the parts that both the US atomic bombs and the Soviet entry into the war played in that decision. It gets three stars instead of four or five because its very thoroughness makes it dry to read at times. Highly recommended for those interested in World War II history, but doesn't compare to the readability of books like Max Hastings' "Retribution" or Gordon Prange's "Miracle At Midway."

Well-written and includes material that was unavailable to other authors because it has only been recently declassified. Other books I have read seem to have more ideological baggage especially when it comes to cherry-picking the evidence from internal Japanese communications to make the case (which Frank totally rebuts) that Japan was on the brink of surrender negotiations on terms that would be acceptable to the US. Richard Frank has appeared in many short videos discussing the decision to drop the bomb. Watch one of them to get idea of how the material is presented in this book.

“Before the calendar ran out on [1945], fiery devastation was to come to more than sixty other Japanese cities [besides Tokyo]. Those Japanese not killed in air raids would stand on the precipice of extinction through starvation. A great invasion would be planned but not executed. The Soviet Union would unleash a mechanized assault in Manchuria and plan to seize a Home island. Millions were to die, only a minority of them Japanese, and the Imperial Empire was to vanish in two atomic flashes…”
-tRichard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire

The decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in August 1945 was one of the most controversial and consequential in human history. Over a hundred thousand people died. Many more were injured or sickened. When the radioactive dust settled, the “good war” was over, but it had a glowing asterisk next to it.

Beyond the lives lost, the houses destroyed, the nuclear bombings conducted by the United States ushered in a frightening era: the Atomic Age. It can seem quaint now, the way people reacted to this bright dawning: backyard shelters; stores of tinned foods; and Bert the Turtle telling kids to “duck and cover.” But in a very real sense, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were warnings of near-biblical prophecy.

The choice to let Little Boy and Fat Man fall from the sky will haunt earth right until the moment it happens again.

Needless to say, it has also engendered endless, often passionate debate.

From the moment on August 6, 1945, at 8:16 a.m., when a mass of Uranium-235 went critical 1,900 feet over the Shima Hospital in Hiroshima, President Harry Truman’s go-ahead order has been hotly discussed. The argument has many aspects and angles. It boils down to this: Were the bombs necessary to end the war?

Richard B. Frank’s demi-classic Downfall – originally published in 1999 – provides an answer to this question, if not necessarily the answer.

Downfall is something of a hybrid. Part of it is a straightforward narrative about the endgame in the Pacific Theater, beginning with the infamous Tokyo firebombing in March 9-10, 1945, and ending with the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945.

The highlight of the narrative portions – in literary terms, of course – comes right at the beginning, in the very first chapter. Here, Frank delivers an incredible portrayal of the B-29 fire raid that annihilated Tokyo and killed – conventionally, with explosive force and fire – approximately as many Japanese persons as did the atomic bombs.

The conflagration this night, with potent incendiaries falling “like rain drops,” was more than any city fire department in the world could have handled. There were far too many fires – each Superfortress bomb load covered an area 1,500 to 2,000 feet long and 300 feet wide – and the heat and fleeing crowds made it impossible to get to some places. Once the fires gained hold, the scorching winds projected “great clots of flame” on short trajectories but also launched live sparks on vaulting arcs up into the sky. Then, as they gathered strength, the fires propelled upward burning bits of wood or paper that tumbled across neighborhoods and then whole wards in fiery showers. Distant observers could see “torch clusters” explode and then sink back in “wavy lines across the city,” with individual blasts that looked like “flaming hair.” After only an hour, the fire department conceded total defeat…

Unfortunately, in a way, Downfall is a victim of its own exceptional opening gambit. Like the inimitable war film Saving Private Ryan, Frank puts his best scene first. Everything afterwards, including a rather brief description of the atomic bombings themselves, seems pale by comparison. In terms of dramatic and emotional impact, nothing in Downfall even approaches the first seventeen pages.

Frank, however, has other things on his mind than storytelling. That’s because Downfall is also an argument in support of the atomic bombings. Carefully, methodically, sometimes pedantically, Frank takes you through the laborious decision-making process that ended with the pika don, the flash-boom of atomic explosions.

Overall, I give Frank a lot of credit for making this complex issue digestible. There are a lot of moving pieces to cover, including American intentions, Japanese intentions, and Soviet intentions. Add to this the interservice rivalry amongst the U.S. military branches, with the Army (proposing invasion), Navy (proposing blockade and bombardment), and Army Air Force (seeking independence) all vying to be in on the kill. There is also a slew of decryptions from the U.S. codebreaking efforts known as Ultra and Magic. At the time Downfall was published, a more complete picture of the intelligence situation was just becoming available. As such, Frank spends a great deal of time with U.S. intercepts of Japanese military and diplomatic messages, requiring head-spinning layers of analysis.

The vast amount of material in Downfall is arranged chronologically. On the one hand, this has the advantage of clearly demonstrating the evolution of American thinking. Right up till the end, even after the atomic bombs had fallen, the strategic picture was in flux.

On the other hand, I felt at times that Frank made things unnecessarily confusing by withholding certain key information. For instance, there is an extensive discussion about Operation Olympic, the proposed U.S. invasion of the island of Kyushu. The level of detail here is mind-numbing. Rather than provide an evocative portrait of how an invasion might have unfolded, Frank mostly provides endless orders of battle, describing every Japanese unit and where that unit was positioned. Much of this is just lists, meaningless lists. There were times, I will admit, that my eyes glazed over. Sentences such as “X-Day likely would have dawned with the Japanese 77th, 25th, 57th, and 216th Divisions, as well as the 4th, 5th, and 6th Tank Brigades…marching for Ariake Bay” just don’t do much for me. Furthermore, and here is the real source of my criticism, Frank waits until after you’ve waded through all these numeric identifiers to tell you that the invasion of Kyushu was probably not going to happen anyway, since American intelligence had become aware of a massive defensive buildup.

Downfall is not a huge book. My hardcover has 360 pages of text, not counting two appendices. There are some good maps showing proposed invasion sites. The annotated endnotes attest to a massive amount of research, and contain a lot of amplification. The final two chapters do a good job of summarizing all that came before, and delivering Frank’s conclusions. In all, then, this is a very good work of history.

At times, though, Downfall tends to feel like the written-word version of whack-a-mole. There are a lot of counterarguments to the atomic bombings, and Frank tries to knock them all down. It should not be surprising that he is not entirely successful, even if his confidence and authoritativeness convey an unshakable sense that he is absolutely correct.

I’m not saying Frank is wrong or wright. It’s simply that we are dealing with the notoriously difficult realm of counterfactuals. In that realm, in which we are attempting to prove things that never happened, the evidence provided by Frank is open to different modes of interpretation.

No one – not you, me, or Richard Frank – can honestly answer the question of whether or not the atomic bombs should have been dropped, because no one – not you, me, or Richard Frank – has ever been in the position of having to give the order, and to accept the consequences.

It is easy – to the point of insult – to say, Sure, drop the Bomb, twice, without having to take responsibility for the noncombatant men, women, and children you are flash-frying, some obliterated so completely only their shadows remained. It is also too easy to say, No, of course not, nuclear weapons are immoral, without having to take responsibility for the eighteen year-old U.S. soldier going ashore on the first wave, or the Chinese civilians dying each day under Japanese occupation, or the Korean women forced into Japanese brothels, for whom each day of continued warfare was suffering.

There were alternative ways of ending World War II, whether by bombardment, blockade, or Soviet intervention. That is a given. Everything else is an unknown. It is a certainty, though, that of all the possibilities, none were perfect. There was no way that the bloodiest of all mankind’s innumerable conflicts was going to end without further bloodshed and death. I am certain of this, if nothing else: I’m glad I didn’t have to make that call.

In the 1970s I took a college class on the development and use of the atomic bomb. Part of the subject dealt with the morality of using the bomb on Japan, and what the likely outcomes would have been if we didn't.

That was only 30 years after the end of the war, and since then many documents have been made available, including personal diaries from both the Japanese and U.S. side, and the Emperor's written account, released after his death in 1989.

I was curious what was the result of revisiting the issue. This book deals with the ongoing perception of the war from both sides, and goes into extensive detail on the preparations on both sides for an invasion of Kyushu, scheduled for Nov. 1, 1945. The ending of the war on Aug. 15 precluded that.

It's fascinating to see how the Japanese military accurately forecast the likely landing sites and extensively built up the defenses, including massive numbers of suicide attackers. The U.S. became aware of this build-up because we had broken their codes. As the Japanese poured forces into Kyushu, the enthusiasm for an invasion by the U.S. commanders waned, especially the leaders of the Navy. An Army/Navy clash over the topic in August was only avoided by the bomb and subsequent end of the war.

The Japanese military hungered for a battle on their home territory, reasoning that based on American casualties sustained on Okinawa (70,000 casualties, over 12,000 dead), the Americans would lose their stomach for the fight after the initial battle and seek a negotiated settlement rather than unconditional surrender. It's intriguing to realize that the Japanese leaders might have been correct; forecasts of casualties are notoriously difficult, but based on Okinawa, America may have sustained as many casualties as they had taken in the entire war up to that point. Would the American people have had the stomach for that kind of loss to achieve unconditional surrender? It's an open question.

Anyhow, a fascinating and well-researched revisit of that critical period of time. As a history it reads a little dry because of so much numerical information and textual citations, but for those interested in the end of WWII, it's a compelling read.

This is an excellent book. A comprehensive look at the fall of the Japanese Empire in 1945. Anyone interested in learning about the end to the Pacific War should read this book.

An exceedingly interesting and engaging work of historical analysis. Mr. Frank tries to contextualize the various decisions and options as the U.S. sought to end the war against Japan in 1945. What were the alternatives to dropping the atomic bombs, and how do they stack up? Very satisfyingly, these questions are asked (and convincingly answered) both in the frame of perfect hindsight, and also in the context of what was (and could have been) known by the participants at the time. While not everyone might agree, Mr. Frank thoroughly makes his case and reminds us all that no matter the supposed "virtue" of war, no matter which side one is on, it debases human nature and pours out suffering on all who chose to, or are forced to, participate.

If you've ever wondered whether it was necessary to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, read this book! It lays out the arguments for its necessity in a clear, convincing, and compelling way. In the author's point of view, the 2 bombs were the best of many terrible options. I won't get into his reasons, but suffice to say, they were pretty persuasive. This is coming from someone who thought before reading this book that they were unnecessary.

The book could be really dense and difficult to follow in certain places. There are lots of names that I had a hard time keeping straight and lots of discussion and details about military tactics that I wasn't interested in. But interspersed with all of those things were a well-laid out argument about why there wasn't a better alternative.

BTW, his charts on the number of people who died were really confusing. How many people actually died from the fire bombings of Tokyo?

I'm giving this book 5 stars, not because it's edge-of-your-seat thrilling, but based on what it's supposed to be.

Downfall is the historically-accurate, highly-detailed nonfiction story of the last months of the Japanese Empire during WWII. The author goes into meticulous detail of the XXI Bomber Command's air offensive, the American invasion plans and Japanese defense plans for the home islands. It details the specifics of the diplomatic front, who sent what telegram to whom, containing which details, and why they matter.

This is not an easy read. It's not for even most history buffs. It's for those studying specifically the events of WWII in the Pacific theater from roughly February - September, 1945. It's not supposed to be exciting or a page-turner. The real underlying message from the book is the complete, irrefutable fact the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fundamentally necessary in order to end WWII as quickly as possible, with ironically, as few casualties as possible. Because as the author demonstrates though facts, not opinions, the Japanese were ready if not eager to meet the Americans on the invasion beaches of the home islands for one climatic, bloody battle that thankfully never happened.