Japan World War

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.

In Japan, preparations for the coming Tokyo Olympics are underway, and adults wax nostalgic about the first Tokyo Olympics in 1964, as well as the economic boom years of the 1960s. The younger generation is curious about the first Olympics and how things changed in Japan then. What was it like to be a child at that time, and why should we care now? "J-Boys, Kazuo’s World, Tokyo, 1965" follows the adventures of a third-grade student named Kazuo and his friends. Obsessed with U.S. sprinter Bob Hayes, American TV shows, and tasting a “real” American hamburger, Kazuo also bathes in public...

Harold Guard became a war correspondent quite by chance, after he had been invalided out of the navy following a submarine accident. Thereafter, working for United Press, he gained a front row seat to many of the most dramatic battles and events of the century. In March 1942 Guard arrived in Australia, having narrowly escaped from Japanese forces invading Singapore and Java. His dispatches from that disastrous front prompted one observer to comment on “the crisis days when everybody except Harold Guard was trying to hush up the real situation.”

This is not just another book about Pearl Harbor. It is the story of Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan, and his frantic effort in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack to orchestrate an agreement between Japan and the United States to avoid the war he saw coming. It is a story filled with hope and heartache, with complex and fascinating characters, and with a drama befitting the momentous decisions at stake.

In the late hours of 15th May 1945, the radar operator aboard the destroyer Venus identified a spot of light on his screen. Captain Power was in no doubt that this was the heavy cruiser, Haguro, that they had been searching for, but how could he stop this formidable enemy ship as it steamed hard for Singapore? A trap of torpedo and naval artillery was set by the 26th Destroyer Flotilla, there was no escape for the Haguro.

In July 1944, the 9,000-man Japanese garrison on the island of Tinian listened warily as the thunder of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, Army and Air Corps, descended on their neighboring island, Saipan, just three miles away. There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Saipan, but the US obliterated the opposition after a horrific all-arms campaign. The sudden silence only indicated it was now Tinian's turn.

In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the victorious powers turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For the Allied powers, the trials were an opportunity both to render judgment on their vanquished foes and to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was no more than victors’ justice.

One of the most fascinating aspects of World War II was Japan's use of suicide pilots known around the globe as kamikazes, though the Japanese referred to them as Tokubetsu kōgekitai ("Special Attack Units"). Translated as "God Wind", "Divine Wind", and "God Spirit", kamikazes would sink 47 Allied vessels and damage over 300 by the end of the war, but the rise in the use of kamikaze attacks was evidence of the loss of Japan's air superiority and its waning industrial might.

From a cabin boy on a China Tea Clipper to a titan of the shipping industry, Olaf Sorenson's life was a saga of resilience and cunning. Fleeing an abusive father at fifteen, Olaf braved the treacherous seas from Europe to the Far East, and ultimately to Japan. Drugged, robbed and left for dead, he was abandoned by his ship. Overcoming this, he built a shipping empire across the Western Pacific, weathering two world wars. He outwitted the Japanese army in Singapore, where his capture led to a daring escape. During his temporary exile in Malaysia, he formed a partnership with General Douglas ...

On August 18, 1945, US Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. Marchione, a gunner in the US Air Force, died, like so many before him in World War II, quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy. Though tragic, Marchione's death would have been no more notable than any other had he not had the dubious distinction of being the last American killed in World War II combat.

There was a place far worse than Changi - Singapore's Outram Road Gaol. Deprivation here was so extreme that there really was a fate worse than death. Stubborn Buggers is the story of 12 Australian POWs who fought and survived the battle for Malaya, then captivity and slave labour, followed by the unimaginable hardships of Outram Road Gaol.

It is a story of how they dealt with the brutality of the Japanese military police, the feared Kempeitai.

The Second World War is regarded as one of the most brutal conflicts of the modern era. This book investigates what war can do to one's identity, character, and culture. The Imperial Japanese soldiers from New Guinea, Chichijima, and other Asia Pacific Islands ate the flesh of prisoners of war and slave laborers, sometimes stripping the meat from live men. Who is to blame? Cannibalism Culture: The Bushido Horror in World War II uncovers the hidden causes of horror in war.

For months during 1943 there was no night in Hellfire Pass. By the light of flares, carbide lamps and bamboo fires, men near-naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific, they struggled, died, and survived with a little help from their mates.

Colonel Liston is a murder mystery set in California and Washington D.C. during the tumultuous years leading up to World War II. This thrilling tale dives into the heart of pre-war espionage and political intrigue. Colonel Liston is deeply troubled by Japan's intentions in the Pacific, believing that their expansionist ambitions threaten America's interests. His warnings fall on deaf ears, but the real action begins when Joseph Handel, a man with a shadowy past, boards a train bound for Washington. Along the way, he encounters a series of mysterious characters, including the fiery Doug ...

December 7, 1941. The Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States was sucked into World War II. The nation was furious, and the public demanded revenge. Back home, Colonel James Doolittle of the United States Airforce was tasked with organizing a raid on Japan. On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25B Mitchell bombers were flown from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet off the coast of Japan. The daring mission was successful in creating fear within the hearts of the enemy and won support for the military back home. This is the story of The Doolittle Raid.

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.

Author Bob Wodnik has masterfully compiled the stories of several World War II prisoners-of-war into a non-fiction historical work with the feel of a novel. Listeners glimpse the unrelenting physical agony and mental anguish of these young heroes as they struggle for survival, and then, following years of captivity, make the difficult and awkward return to civilization.

Though scarcely mentioned in the world of early 21st century politics, Manchuria represented a key region of Asia during the first half of the 20th century. Once the heartland of the fierce Manchu empire, this northeastern Chinese region's rich natural resources made it a prize for nations in the process of entering the modern age, and three ambitious nations in the midst of such a transformation lay close enough to Manchuria to attempt to claim it: Japan, Russia, and China.

The aftershocks of the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor were felt keenly all over America - the war in Europe had hit home. But nowhere was American life more immediately disrupted than on the West Coast, where people lived in certain fear of more Japanese attacks. From that day until the end of the war, a dizzying mix of battle preparedness and rampant paranoia swept the states. Japanese immigrants were herded into internment camps. There was panic on the Pacific coast: The Japanese were coming.

The topic of propaganda has become increasingly relevant in recent years. With the advancement of technology, people are increasingly more vulnerable to disinformation. Japan experienced a similar situation in the early 1900s and 1930s. With the rise of mass production of newspapers and magazines amidst the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese population became instilled in nationalism and militarism. Despite the era of demilitarization and democratization that followed after World War I, the Japanese Empire, once again, became fixated on expansion. This time, advancements in radio and film ...