Retribution Quotes

“Looking back later, we could see that the military code was unreasonable. But at that time, we regarded dying for our country as our duty. If men had been allowed to surrender honourably, everybody would have been doing it.”
― Max Hastings, Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45

“dominant feeling of the battlefield is loneliness, gentlemen.”
― Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“Soldiers may accept a need to be the first to die in a war, but there is often an unseemly scramble to avoid becoming the last.”
― Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“In Japan, no one could dictate effectively to either army or navy. To an extraordinary degree, the two services—each with its own air force—pursued independent war policies, though the soldiers wielded much greater clout. The foremost characteristic of the army general staff, and especially of its dominant operations department, the First Bureau, was absolute indifference to the diplomatic or economic consequences of any military action. Mamoru”
― Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“In the words of their best-known commander, the B-29 “had as many bugs543 as the entomological department of the Smithsonian.”
― Sir Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“Flat-trajectory naval gunfire was”
― Sir Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“The boat was scuttled after its crew was”
― Sir Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“radio-guided proximity shell fuses.”
― Sir Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“Nimitz remarked that when he sent Spruance out with the fleet, “he was always sure286 he would bring it home; when he sent Halsey out, he did not know precisely what was going to happen.” Halsey’s boldness was in doubt seldom, his judgement and intellect often.”
― Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

“Everywhere in Asia life is infused with a few terrible certainties—hunger, indignity, and violence.” This was the world Americans perceived themselves advancing to save, not merely from the Japanese, but from imperialists of every hue—including their closest allies, the British.”
― Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45