The Gi War Against Japan

Based on numerous diaries and letters, this book depicts the story of America's soldier sin Asia and the Pacific during World War II. Combining social and cultural history, the author examines the GIs' encounters with Asia's environmental, sociocultural and racial otherness and the impact that these encounters had on them. The Americans' experience in Asia and the Pacific presaged the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title Even in the midst of World War II, Americans could not help thinking of the lands across the Pacific as a continuation of the American Western frontier. But this perception only heightened American soldiers' frustration as the hostile region ferociously resisted their attempts at control. The GI War Against Japan recounts the harrowing experiences of American soldiers in Asia and the Pacific. Based on countless diaries and letters, it sweeps across the battlefields, from the early desperate stand at Guadalcanal to the tragic sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at war's very end. From the daunting spaces of the China-India theater to the fortress islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Schrijvers brings to life the GIs’ struggle with suffocating wilderness, devastating diseases, and Japanese soldiers who preferred death over life. Amidst the frustration and despair of this war, American soldiers abandoned themselves to an escalating rage that presaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The GI’s story is, first and foremost, the story of America's resounding victory over Japan. At the same time, however, the reader will recognize in the extraordinarily high price paid for this victory chilling forebodings of the West’s ultimate defeat in Asia’and America’s in Vietnam.

As World War II rated in Europe and in the Pacific, the Associated Press reported the action. The AP was there as witness and recorder of history from Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, Midway and Okinawa, in the air, on the ground, and at sea, sending back stories and pictures under battle conditions. The author provides an incisive and penetrating narrative of the war, including quotes, anecdotes, and analysis. Over 100 photographs are featured from the AP archives.

With over 5,200 entries, this volume remains one of the most extensive annotated bibliographies on the USA’s fight against Japan in the Second World War. Including books, articles, and de-classified documents up to the end of 1987, the book is organized into six categories: Part 1 presents reference works, including encyclopedias, pictorial accounts, military histories, East Asian histories, hisotoriographies. Part 2 covers diplomatic-political aspects of the war against Japan. Part 3 contains sources on the economic and legal aspects of the war against Japan. Part 4 presents sources on the military apsects of the war – embracing land, air and sea forces. Religious aspects of the war are covered in Part 5 and Part 6 deals with the social and cultural aspects, including substantial sections on the treatment of Japanese minorities in the USA, Hawaii, Canada and Peru.

While previous writers have focused primarily on strategic, military, and intelligence factors, Walter Grunden underscores the dramatic scientific and technological disparities that left Japan vunerable and ultimately led to its defeat in World War II.

"The war against Japan: Pictorial record" by Kenneth E. Hunter, United States. Department of the Army. Office of Military History, Margaret E. Tackley. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Gruhl's narrative makes clear why Japan's World War II aggression still touches deep emotions with East Asians and Western ex-prisoners of war, and why there is justifiable sensitivity to the way modern Japan has dealt with this legacy. Knowledge of the enormity of Japan's total war is also necessary to assess the United States' and her allies' policies toward Japan, and their reactions to its actions, extending from Manchuria in 1931 to Hiroshima in 1945. Gruhl takes the view that World War II started in 1931 when Japan, crowded and poor in raw materials but with a sense of military invincibility, saw empire as her salvation and invaded China. Japan's imperial regime had volatile ambitions but limited resources, thus encouraging them to unleash a particularly brutal offensive against the peoples of Asia and surrounding ocean islands. Their 1931 to 1945 invasions and policies further added to Asia's pre-war woes, particularly in China, by badly disrupting marginal economies, leading to famines and epidemics. Altogether, the victims of Japan's World War Two aggression took many forms and were massive in number. Gruhl offers a survey and synthesis of the historical literature and documentation, statistical data, as well as personal interviews and first-hand accounts to provide a comprehensive overview analysis. The sequence of diplomatic and military events leading to Pearl Harbor, as well as those leading to the U.S. decision to drop the atom bomb, are explored here as well as Japan's war crimes and postwar revisionist/apologist views regarding them. This book will be of intense interest to Asian specialists, and those concerned with human rights issues in a historical context.