Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict

by Edwin P. Hoyt

The many factors that led to Japan's participation in World War II, and the horrifying battles that resulted, come into focus in Japan's The Great Pacific Conflict . The book, which takes into account Japanese and Asian documents and scholarship in addition to American and European sources, chronicles events in the Pacific from 1853 to 1951. During those years, the leaders of Japan, believing in the superiority of their nation and culture, sought to dominate East Asia and the Pacific Basin. That period also saw Japan and America becoming entangled in each other's national affairs, starting when Commodore Perry's ships ended Japan's isolation policy, and continuing into the occupation by the U. S. Army following the war.

Author Hoyt shows conflicting personalities and historical context that led to the rise of Japanese militarism and wars with China and Russia. Japan's War examines the decisions that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the escalating climate of violence that resulted in the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March.

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction, Military History, Japan, War, Japanese Literature

568 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Edwin P. Hoyt was a prolific American writer who specialized in military history. He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1897–1979) and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore (1901–1970). A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post (of which his father became editor and publisher in 1946) and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.

Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.

Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a writer full-time, and for a few years (1976 to 1980) served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works.

While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels (many published under pseudonyms Christopher Martin and Cabot L. Forbes) the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.

Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Reviews

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to begin an account of World War II from the Japanese perspective? Why, with a brisk history of Japan up to the Meiji Constitution (in two chapters), a few chapters hitting such highlights as Japan's turn to imperialism in Korea -- and why the heck not, when every other Great Power was? Up to the China Incident, which is perhaps the outbreak of World War II because the fighting went on and on and on until it merged with what is unquestionably World War II. (I note that the chapter titles are all Japanese sayings, which are all chosen well and striking, but not entirely useful when trying to locate something.)

And so onward, through the alliance with Germany and Italy, the outbreak of war in the West, the American, British, and Dutch cut-off of oil, the battles of World War II, all the way to the defeat and the trials of war criminals.

Lots of interesting stuff.

The junior officers who deliberately provoked the China Incident and got away with it. Other junior officers whose attempts at overthrowing the government got handled mildly except for the time that the Emperor blew his stake and insisted on harshness. Also, the local commanders often ran basically on their own, which accounted for a lot of the atrocities. (Though I think he pushes it too far when he argues that therefore their superiors were not responsible. Who allowed them to run wild? It wasn't as if atrocities were incidental or isolated, and their superiors did not even try to rein them in.)

The insanity of requiring a general or admiral on active duty to act as Minister of War. The effect was that the armed forces could prevent a government by refusing to fill the post and it was impossible for civilians to control them. It was intended to prevent civilian meddling, but the results were not pretty.

Army-navy hostility. In spades.

Some Japanese officers were visiting Germany and then Italy when Hitler summoned them back to Germany to explain that he expected an attack from the Soviet Union any time, and they had best get back. The army officers went. The naval ones dismissed it. After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, they were shipped, without their luggage, to Argentina by submarine. Took 'em months to get back to Japan.

Corregidor was a serious embarrassment. This is where American forces held out the longest. Propaganda would announce it was on the verge of conquest, and then fall silent for a few weeks, to announce it again and then fall silent again -- and this in a time of unbroken successes.

A general who objected to the Bataan Death March to an officer involved was stabbed by him on the stop. And then made a scapegoat for the unfriendly attitudes of the Phillippines in spite of his acting much more generously toward them than his successors -- though things weren't rosy while he was there. The officer who stabbed him also secretly arranged the execution of Filipinos who worked for Americans.

Midway. The Americans were almost sure the Japanese were about to attack Midway, that it was the AF in their messages. Then some officers were talking in Naval Intelligence. One had been an engineer and knew Midway was dependent on rain or its distillery for drinking water. Another said that the Japanese would send back word if it broke. So they told Midway to broadcast a message in the clear that it had broken, and Hawaii to broadcast back that they would send fresh water. When the Japanese sent a message that AF's plant had broken down -- they knew.

Midway undermined some propaganda claims at first, the Japanese pilots saw that however unskilled the American pilots were, they were obviously trying to attack with much courage. Then the dive bombers hit. It was presented to the Japanese public as a glorious victory. The navy didn't tell Tojo -- the Prime Minister -- what a disaster it had been for a month. Which began a whole string of lies about defeats, ones that got hard and harder to maintain.

The enormous battle at Guadalcanal and Henderson Field, which was the airport that the Americans landed to prevent the Japanese from building and then built themselves. If they had sent enough men, they might have won, but they never did until the Americans had managed to make supplying them too difficult. A lot of Japanese soldiers died of hunger.

It was also the point at which newspapers started to have less fun. When you used to be able to plaster the front page with Victory, Victory, Victory! while telling the truth, it got harder about here.

The funerals for "hero gods" would slip through the cracks of censorship. People would be told of the deaths of soldiers in battles -- and so hear of the battles for the first time.

American island-hopping produced a PR problem even in a state like Imperial Japan. The public demanded some effort to feed the soldiers that the Americans had left behind to die on the vine. They tried to send in seeds they could plant by submarine.

The Japanese tried to push to win in China under the impression that would remove the reason to fight. Then, they also thought the effect of Pearl Harbor would be to demoralize the United States.

Saipan was among the last of the "We're winning! Our glorious fighting spirit! Massive loss inflicted!" Partly because they would announce where they were fighting, and anyone with a map could see that they were driven back. Until finally they lost the island, and had to admit that they had -- shudder -- been defeated. Tojo's government fell. (Most of the civilian population died, heavily from suicide. Bad effects all around. Helped convince American soldiers that they wouldn't surrender so you might as well kill them, which of course encouraged Japanese to continue to fight.)

It was the firebombing that really brought around the Emperor and various other ministers to a peace position, not the atom bomb, which after all did not kill as many as some of the firebombing raids. They had to finagle around the military officials who wanted to fight to the last man. (It was the realization that the Americans were as willing to fight to the last Japanese subject as the Japanese were that brought about the willingness to surrender.) Indeed, some army officers tried to forcibly prevent the Emperor's broadcast, seizing and searching the Imperial Palace. (The recordings had been safely hidden.) They of course claimed they were trying to deal with his corrupt advisers who were all to blame.

Which brings me to the part I found most interesting. You have to read the entire book to get the full impression it gives of Hirohito. It's debatable, and in fact fiercely debated, but the picture of a monarch whose big problems are that he thinks too highly of his status as a constitutional monarch rather than an absolute one and therefore does not throw his weight around, and is too mild-mannered to keep his rage going and ensure that the military clean up its act after it enraged him. Certainly the attempt to prevent the broadcast showed that the military was willing to thwart him. It would perhaps be too subversive to actually have such a fictional monarch.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoyt was a journalist who wrote ‘popular’ (non-academic) books on a range of historical topics, including WWII military history. The book lacks gravitas, and is too long and, of course, is derivative. There is also a flippancy and lack of analytical probing. I’m still looking for that ‘right’ book on the Pacific War.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended for a Japanese view of events during World War II. Edwin Hoyt, a son of the publisher of Portland's Oregonian newspaper, spent years as a journalist overseas, eventually marrying a Japanese woman. He would die in Tokyo in 2005.

He outlines development of the military dictatorship in Japan in the pre-war years, when Japan was heavily involved in developing colonies in Korea, Manchuria and China following European and American colonial models. And he anchors that development in the culture of the mid-1800s when Japan was forced to open its borders to western influence and the culture of the samurai was replaced by a more modern militarism.

He pulls no punches in assessing blame or guilt at each step, including postwar war crimes trials by the allies of Japanese officials. However, sometimes it is hard to identify the sources (or accuracy) of information, even with footnotes.

But there are some interesting historical details that were long kept secret. Admiral Yamamoto's plan to attack Pearl Harbor was actually leaked to American Ambassador Joseph Grew:

"When Admiral Yamamoto showed this plan to Admiral Takajiro Ohnishi, the chief of staff of the 11th Air Fleet, Ohnishi thought he was mad. So did others, and they obviously talked among themselves, because in January Ambassador (Joseph) Grew had the rumor and reported it to Washington. Admiral Stark, the American chief of naval operations, reported to Admiral Husband Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, but appended the remark that he believe the report to be incredible. Why? Because naval battles were simply not fought that way. In the U.S. And British navies, the battleship was king. Some admirals still doubed the viability of aircraft carriers for naval warfare. So why should they believe so ridiculous a story?"

[Shaima Faisal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not enjoy reading this book, unfortunately.

I guess this book is more suitable for military education than a general read.. Besides, the chronological order of events was not very much in order for the general audience to keep track on the development of events.

[James Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with other books like this, I will only point out some of the most interesting information.

The book discusses Japanese history from about the mid-1800's. In talking about the Sino-Japanese war, the book notes that Emperor Meiji decided Japan would attack the Soviet fleet without warning, so the attack on Pearl Harbor was not the first time the Japanese had used this strategy. The attack was carried out, and then war was declared, in that order.

The anti-Japanese prejudice in California is discussed, especially in relation to newspaper articles of the time like “Japanese a Menace to American Women” and “Brown Asiatics Steal Brains of Whites.” The California legislature voted to exclude all Japanese. This upset the Japanese in Japan, of course, since they thought their culture was superior to the barbaric culture of the US and how dare the US try and keep them out of the country.

There was a thing called the “Peace Preservation Law” in Japan since 1887. It was used to quell riots, put down labor demonstrations and control political activity. The police network was used to control the population. The Ministry of Education helped try and mold the minds of the young, so both the young and the adults were targets of attempts at thought-control on the part of the Japanese government.

The Army was effectively in control of the politics of Japan by 1931. One of their goals was to get all the civilians to think the way they wanted, which was that it would be a privilege to die for the Emperor.

The training of the soldiers was strong in courage but lacking in common sense.

Part of the rationale Japan had for its expansionist policy was that they were just doing the same thing that had been done by Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the United States in the past. (They had a good point here; why was it ok for a white culture to pursue a policy of taking over other countries but an asian race couldn't do the same thing?)

The Army in Manchuria and China was not really under anyone's full control. The leaders in the field tended to do pretty much what they wanted to and didn't tend to pay a whole lot of attention to orders from those higher up.

The military basically deluded themselves into believing that Manchuria really belonged to Japan, and that they could take any steps to keep control of that area.

In relation to life at home in Japan, “No one could question any government decision without running the danger of immediate jailing either by the police or the Kempeitai. Even foreigners were no loner immune.”

(This type of thing helps to explain why the Japanese people worked so hard for the military and endured so much suffering without question; they had been effectively exposed to propaganda from the earliest age that Japanese were superior beings and that it was Japan's destiny to rule the world. If you dared speak out against that, you ran a good chance of disappearing forever.)

The author says that the US and Britain could have, if they really wanted to, forced Japan to withdraw from China but neither country was willing to. The US had turned isolationist, and England was concerned with her own empire, so neither country was willing to apply the necessary pressure to get Japan to back down from her Asian expansion.

In relation to the Rape of Nanking, the author says 500 Chinese were killed in front of the city's walls because the Japanese thought they might be soldiers. 13,000 prisoners were killed by one regiment in the next few days alone. “So Nanking was looted, the women were raped and murdered, and children were shot or bayoneted if they annoyed the Japanese. The disciplined Japanese soldiers, who would not move without an order, became a horde reminiscent of the Mongols.”

The number of deaths at Nanking is unknown. The Allied war crimes prosecutors put the toll at 200,000. Japanese revisionist historians put the toll at a tenth of that in the 1980's. Other Japanese and Chinese historians agreed with the original 200,000 toll of civilians killed.There are records of a minimum of 150,000 killed, and that very likely does not include every single person murdered.

This book, as others, notes that the Japanese government refused to face up to the reality that, in a war with the US, they stood little chance in the long run due to the ability of the US to produce war goods, an ability far beyond that of what Japan could do. No matter how strong a soldier's spirit is, it can't defeat groups of well-armed and well-trained soldiers, especially if that soldier is starving and has little if any ammunition.

At the end of 1941 the Japanese took Hong Kong. Troops entered St. Stephen's College and bayoneted to death all the prisoners in the hospital beds. The nurses were raped.

The leaders of the military units were not fully in control of their own soldiers, and thus the soldiers tended to engage in rape and murder. “The reason was largely that the militarists had been encouraging a hatred for foreigners, and particularly for white foreigners, for a long time. It did not take much encouragement. Foreigners had been maligned and mistreated in Japan from time immemorial. The natural attitude of the Japanese toward outsiders had always been jingoistic and hostile.”

This was not the same way at all that the Japanese soldiers acted during the Sino-Soviet war, though. In that they were much more under control.

General Tojo devised a policy to put prisoners of war to work. (Remember that Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention.) This program resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Allied and Asian prisoners.

What complicated things with the civilians was that, not only were they constantly exposed to the military propaganda of the militaristic government, but they were often lied to by the military. People were not told about some things, and were told bald-faced lies about others. The longer the war went on the more losses were reported as victories.

One example of this was Midway, which Radio Tokyo reported as a “great victory” even though they lost four aircraft carriers, various other ships, and were driven back from Midway. Their radio reported 1 carrier of theirs was sunk and 1 damaged. Japan had also lost 322 planes and valuable pilots, but this was overlooked by the radio reports.

Things had gotten so bad in the tell-no-truth department that General Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan, was not told the truth about Midway for a month.

All of this fell apart, of course, when the B-29s started to bomb Japanese cities. The civilians had been told by the military that US bombers would never bomb Japan (despite Dolittle's raid), so when the skies became full of allied bombers it came as quite a shock to the civilians.

Then the public was told about the kamikaze attackers, the “human bullets”, and the various forces that killed themselves rather than surrender, and they began to get an idea that the war was not going at all like they were being told.

In the summer of 1944, along with the promotion of the idea of kamikaze squads, new efforts were being made to keep the civilians under control. “...one immediate instrument was a fright campaign to instill in the Japanese people a new fear and hatred of the enemy.”

Unfortunately, this campaign was helped along by some American soldiers who sent back home to the states skulls of Japanese soldiers as souvenirs. This was picked up by the US press and thus by the Japanese press, and the people did not react well to this “desecration” of the remains of Japanese soldiers.

”The thought of a Japanese soldier's skull becoming an American ashtray was as horrifying in Tokyo as the thought of an American prisoner used for bayonet practice was in New York.”

The Japanese papers responded, saying the Americans were “morally inferior” to them.

The term “unconditional surrender” meant, to the Japanese, that their country would be under the control of foreigners which was something that had never happened to them before.

The Tai-atari was a ramming attack in which a Japanese plane would ram itself into a B-29 on purpose.

An argument in the US military developed over precision bombing vs. area bombing. The precision bombers felt that we should concentrate on targets related to the military, especially factories. The area bombers took the attitude of “destroy everything.” The area bombing group won, and the decision was made to concentrate on killing civilians and destroying as much of everything as they could.

US plane losses ran about 5% on into the bombing, whereas in Germany than ran around 25%.

The use of kamikzes was effective, but it couldn't offset the ability of the US to produce more and more military planes, ships, etc. They could be produced as fast as they were lost; even faster.

In relation to war atrocities, the book notes that the Chinese would have said the Rape of Nanking, among other things; the Americans would have said the Bataan Death march and the execution of captured US airmen, and the Japanese could easily claim the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population.

”Beginning with the great Tokyo fire raid... that murderous bombing continued, almost without regard for military targets.”

The book holds that the Japanese military believed that the atomic bomb was just another weapon designed to kill civilians, and that the war should keep going on.

[Andrew Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hoyt, the journalist, specialized in writing popular non-academic books covering various historical subjects, such as WWII military history. However, this particular book lacks seriousness, is excessively lengthy, and is clearly unoriginal. Moreover, it lacks depth and critical analysis. Personally, I'm still on the hunt for the perfect book on the Pacific War. Although it starts with a slight political bias, it marginally improves as you delve deeper into its pages. In my opinion, it would be wise to find another book on the topic to read.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gave me a good background into the beliefs of the Japanese that contributed to WWII and to the history of the nation. I was surprised to read about the different philosophies and training of the Japanese Army and Navy, information and about the interaction between the emperor and the governance of Japan by civilians and military personnel.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was excellent. Gave a good description of how Japan planned on dominaiing the world.

[Kyle Knapp-Pattee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat politically biased near the start, but it gets better deeper into the book

[Zach Dooley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can definitely tell it was written in the 80s

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the late 90's an excellent overview of the rise of the fascist military dictatorship who corrupted Bushido and created the cult of the Emperor. These two things combined a most powerful bond in the Japanese Psyche. It explains that no one but the Emperor (a Bi-Spectaled Thin Gardner), who was seen as something akin to God/Jesus/Mohammed could end the war....90 million as one...

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of the Pacific War from the Japanese side. Hoyt had access to Japanese archives, and he writes a vivid and nuanced story. Recommended for any student of the Pacific War who wants a new perspective.

[Ajj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and researched discussion of the rise of militarism in Japan in the lead up to the Second World War as well as an exploration of the logic behind the seemingly doomed campaign in the Pacific.

[Carlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice short read which provides a perspective most probably not seen in most American educational settings. Very refreshing, interesting, and engaging. Highly recommend.

[Robert]

This is an interesting book as it looks at Japan’s growth from 1853 through the end of WW2 from a Japanese perspective. Very helpful to understand the Japanese point of view and host they justified war. There seem to be many less books looking at the war in Asia from the Japanese point of view, this helps provide some context. There are some mistakes around dates, probably printing errors. IT was published in 1986 and i suspect there are more recent books with new information but worth the read for anyone trying to understand Japanese point of view as war evolved.