Abstract
Despite the Japanese fighting a two-front war in China for eight years and for four years in the Pacific theater, with a dwindling amount of supplies, trained pilots, and resources necessary to wage war, the United States still did not like its chances in launching an invasion of the Japanese mainland. References to Japanese soldiers, which are relatively rare, often rely on depictions of them as fanatics who fought to the death: "[The Americans] were engaged in a war of annihilation against an enemy resigned to his own death and determined to fight on for the sole purpose of killing as many Americans as possible" (p. 8). Noting that the Battle of Okinawa netted the largest number of Japanese prisoners to surrender (over 3,700), the authors question whether the relatively high numbers illustrated a depleted morale or, "was it more significant that over 100,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors, like the young men who piloted planes on one-way missions, chose to die rather than surrender" (p. 412)? In this section, the authors' contention that neither the American public nor the government wanted to invade Japan in order to force it to surrender is not surprising considering the extensive loss of life the Americans had already experienced fighting in Europe and in the Pacific over the preceding four years.