Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

Many Allied military commanders stated flatly that no Japanese ground force would ever willingly surrender, even if the government in Tokyo gave up—and predicted that they would have to be eradicated root and branch in whatever territory they occupied. If that was the case, the Americans badly wanted the Soviets to invade Manchuria and destroy Japan’s million-man Kwantung Army. Likewise, they wanted the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek to do most of the fighting (and the dying) in China. On the other hand, if Hirohito could be persuaded to order his far-flung armies to capitulate, and if those armies would obey the distant man-god’s command, the Pacific War might be won more quickly and with less bloodletting than the pessimists anticipated. In that case, the Russians might not be needed in the war against Japan, which meant that the Americans need not horse-trade with Stalin for his commitment,