Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

by Max Hastings

Until the last day of the war, MacArthur and his staff continued to plan for Olympic. Yet nobody, with the possible exception of the general, wanted to launch the operation. A British infantryman, gazing at bloated corpses on a Burman battlefield, vented the anger and frustration common to almost every Allied soldier in those days, about the enemy’s rejection of reason: “Ye stupid sods! Ye stupid Japanni sods! Look at the fookin’ state of ye! Ye wadn’t listen—an’ yer all fookin’ dead! Tojo’s way! Ye dumb bastards! Ye coulda bin suppin’ chah an’ screwin’ geeshas in yer fookin’ lal paper “’ooses—an’ look at ye! Ah doan’t knaw.” However the statistics of the Japanese build-up on Kyushu were interpreted, they promised heavy American casualties—of an order of magnitude of at least 100,000.