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

by Ian W. Toll

Some called Kuribayashi a tyrant, but the general showed genuine concern for the welfare of his subordinates. When visitors from the mainland brought gifts of food or vegetables, he ordered them distributed among his men. He was a family man who doted on his wife and each of his four children. Kuribayashi wrote them each separately, often dwelling on small details of their domestic life, and reminding the children of their particular duties around the house. He prophetically warned of the devastation to come in the bombing raids on Japan. To his wife, Yoshii, in a letter of September 12, 1944, he wrote: “When I imagine what Tokyo would look like if it were bombed—I see a burned-out desert with dead bodies lying everywhere—I’m desperate to stop them carrying out air raids on Tokyo.”