by Ian W. Toll
First published 2020
Ian W. Toll examines the final twelve months of World War II in the Pacific theater, from 1944 to 1945. His account covers the U.S. Navy's victory in history's largest naval engagement and Douglas MacArthur's successful return to the Philippines. Toll documents the kamikaze attacks that struck Allied naval forces and the fierce Japanese resistance on Pacific islands where defenders fought until death. He describes the B-29 bombing campaigns that destroyed Japanese cities and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The author moves between battlefield action in air, sea, and amphibious operations to the decision-making centers of Washington and Tokyo. There, military leaders and politicians wrestled with strategic choices and diplomatic questions that would determine the war's outcome. This concluding volume of Toll's Pacific War trilogy combines detailed combat narratives with analysis of high-level wartime leadership.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, military-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: military-fiction
Setting: Pacific, Philippines, Tokyo, Washington
Period: 1944-1945
944 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton Company
Content warnings: war