Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942

by Richard B. Frank

In 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean enclosed half the world’s population, all save a fraction enduring under some form of colonialism. Japan’s onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed about twenty-five million people. From just two nation states with real sovereignty, Thailand and Japan, and two with compromised sovereignty, China and Mongolia, the region today encompasses at least nineteen major sovereign nations. This extraordinary World War II narrative vividly describes in exquisite detail the battles across this entire region and links those struggles on many levels with their profound twenty-first-century legacies.

Beginning with China’s long-neglected years of heroic, costly resistance, Tower of Skulls explodes outward to campaigns including Singapore, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, India, and Burma, as well as across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor. These pages cast penetrating light on how struggles in Europe and Asia merged into a tightly entwined global war. They feature not just battles, but also the sweeping political, economic, and social effects of the war, and are graced with a rich tapestry of individual characters from top-tier political and military figures down to ordinary servicemen, as well as the accounts of civilians of all races and ages.

In this first volume of a trilogy, award-winning historian Richard B. Frank draws on rich archival research and recently discovered documentary evidence to tell an epic story that gave birth to the world we live in now.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Military History, War, Japan, China

751 pages, Hardcover

First published March 3, 2020

About the author

Richard B. Frank is an American lawyer and military historian.
Born in Kansas, Frank graduated from the University of Missouri in 1969, after which he served four years in the United States Army. During the Vietnam War, he served a tour of duty as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division. In 1976, he graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“As the Japanese company commenced the first part of the exercise…roughly a dozen small arms rounds went whizzing past them. It was the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the decade…Although who fired these shots remains unresolved, the most likely source was a soldier of the Chinese Twenty-Ninth Route Army – quite understandably on hair-trigger alert after years of repeated Japanese encroachments on China’s sovereignty. The Japanese returned fire, and then roll call was conducted. Private Kikujiro Shimura from Tokyo initially failed to answer – though he showed up soon after (popular history has enshrined the possibility that Shimura had gone off to relieve himself). The report of the ‘missing’ soldier reached higher commands, but not word of his return. [Maj. Kiyonao] Ikki mustered the main body of his battalion for a search. Near dawn, more shots were fired at the milling Japanese soldiers. Although [Col. Renya] Mutaguchi initially endorsed Ikki’s proposal to negotiate, not fight, Mutaguchi ordered Ikki to respond to the renewed firing with an attack and rejected Ikki’s protest that they should avoid escalating the episode into an international incident. Notwithstanding the prompt mutual apologies by Japanese and Chinese liaison officers over the incident, Mutaguchi declared his refusal to back down with artillery fire…”
- Richard B. Frank, Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937-May1942

Conventional histories of World War II pinpoint its opening act as occurring on September 1, 1939. That’s the date that Adolf Hitler’s German forces lunged across the Polish border, beginning a nightmarish cascade of events for the countries of Europe.

According to Richard B. Frank, however, we should move that marker back to July 7, 1937, when Chinese and Japanese forces exchanged gunfire at the Marco Polo Bridge, located eight miles south of Beijing. Tensions in the area had been high since 1931, when the Japanese had invaded Manchuria and set up a puppet state. Following the small-scale skirmish, a full-scale war erupted between Japan and China.

This war has been known to history as the Second Sino-Japanese War. In Tower of Skulls, however, Frank connects it to the larger conflict that embroiled much of the earth until 1945, causing tens of millions of deaths worldwide. Many of those deaths occurred in Asia, specifically China. The only nation to suffer more – in terms of total fatalities – was the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviet Union, which is given the lion’s share of the credit for ultimate victory (even though it participated in the invasion of Poland with Hitler), China’s contributions are often either ignored or deprecated.

Frank is here to set the record straight.

Tower of Skulls is the first of a proposed trilogy covering the Pacific Theater of World War II. It begins in 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge, and ends in May 1942, with the fall of Corregidor in the Philippines. In between, Frank covers Japan’s dramatic, bloody bid for Asian hegemony. Aside from capturing swaths of the Chinese mainland, Japan also invaded Burma (Myanmar), French Indochina (Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Philippines. Along the way, they threatened both India and Australia as well. When the book ends – with the Battle of the Coral Sea looming just over the horizon – Japan has reached the zenith of her empire.

For me, the best part of Tower of Skulls is the early going, when Frank is dealing solely with the conflict between China and Japan. Despite having read Rana Mitter’s Forgotten Ally, I’m still mostly ignorant of China’s desperate fight, and Frank does a good job of summarizing a massive struggle. In doing so, he adds his name to the list of historians who are reappraising Chiang Kai-shek, and raising his posthumous reputation. One of the more complex figures in history, Chiang made his share of mistakes, and took his share of ruthlessly pragmatic actions (such as destroying the Yellow River dikes, killing innumerable civilians). Despite the mistakes, the ruthlessness, there was an indomitability to him, to such an extent that today, China is reembracing the former capitalist “stooge” for his nationalism. Frank’s portrayal of Chiang, given the enormity of the challenges he faced, is generally sympathetic.

My only criticism of Frank’s handling of the beginning stages of the conflict is that he only deals with the battles at the strategic and operational levels. Unlike later engagements, such as Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and the invasion of Java, Frank does not provide any real tactical detail of the clashes on the Chinese mainland. I would have liked to have known more about how the ground-level combat unfolded at Shanghai and other places. I’m not sure why Frank chooses the wider view, though it may be due to space considerations.

Otherwise, Frank does an excellent job covering many different topics. For instance, he brings a dispassionate eye to the Rape of Nanking, carefully sorting through all the different proposed casualty estimates. He also discusses the mass refugee crisis in China, and proposes that it was this dislocation that led to the centralization of Chinese power, and the concept of Chinese nationhood. There is also a powerful evocation of the Japanese bombing of Chongqing, which has left posterity with some of the most shockingly unforgettable photographs of war ever taken.

(Ever sensitive to the ways that historiography has favored west over east, Frank astutely points out that the bombing of Guernica in 1937 – immortalized by Picasso – was small potatoes when compared to Chongqing in 1938).

Even in 1941, as the narrative begins to leave its China-centric focus in order to relate Japan’s decision to widen the war, Frank does a very good job of reminding the reader of China’s undiminished importance to events.

One example of this is Tower of Skull’s handling of Pearl Harbor. Frankly, I started to get a little antsy as the book approached this much-discussed historical turning point. After all, I’ve read literally dozens of books on Pearl Harbor, and didn’t feel the need for another iteration. Yet Frank – though he provides a standard account of December 7 – finds a new way to present this material. In particular, he makes a forceful counterpoint to modern historians who find that America brought the attack on herself by curtailing Japanese oil imports. Essentially, it is a blame-the-victim argument, in which Japan was given no other choice than to show up uninvited on a Sunday morning in Hawaii. Frank fires back by noting that Japan got most of their oil from America, and was using it to wage vicious, unrelenting warfare on China, warfare that encompassed poison gas attacks, sexual assaults, and industrial scale death that – by the time the Arizona exploded – had already killed close to eight million Chinese men, women, and children. I found this moral dimension to be bracing.

(Frank’s discussion of codebreaking and diplomacy leading up to the surprise attack are also excellent).

This is the second book of Frank’s I have read, the first being Downfall, a volume that essentially argued for the necessity of the atomic bombings. With that in mind, I was expecting that Tower of Skulls might be polemical. It is not. I found Frank to be scrupulously objective and fair to all the participants. He tries to see events through the eyes of the people living them, rather than assessing them only in hindsight, with all available information. Though there are plenty of atrocities, he does not wallow in them. I found it striking that Frank spent far more time discussing the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans – a stain on America’s reputation that seems to grow only darker with time – than he does on Japan’s post-Doolittle Raid reprisals (in which 250,000 Chinese deaths are dealt with in a paragraph) or the Bataan Death March (an already well-covered tale which gets about a page-and-a-half).

There are plenty of good books about the Asia-Pacific War. Heck, there are plenty of great books on the subject. Ian Toll just finished a magisterial trilogy that brilliantly captures the tide of war as it swept from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay.

Honestly, Frank doesn’t write as well as Toll, or James Hornfischer, or any number of other author-historians who have chronicled this period. He does fine with set-pieces, but is mostly lacking in artistry. (His repeated and idiosyncratic use of the term “mooted” also stands out). Still, what he lacks in literary panache he makes up for with methodical organization, extremely deep research, and clearly-presented propositions. Frank has opinions, but he backs them up. More than that – and unlike most other books I’ve read – Frank gives the Pacific Theater a new center of gravity. He persuasively demonstrates how Chiang’s ability to simply hold on, to keep going even when a collapse seemed inevitable, turned the tide of the war. By miring Japan in a costly stalemate, China kept the Japanese from invading the Soviet Union, which allowed the Soviet Union to stave off Hitler. Likewise, by diverting the attention of huge numbers of Japanese troops, the U.S. was able to island hop across the Pacific. When you start doing the math, China’s role becomes indispensable, her sacrifices criminally ignored.

Modern China’s emergence as a global force has shown some signs of slowing, but the 21st century may still end up belonging to her, regardless. This book interested me because I knew only the barest outlines of how this came to pass. In a relatively short period, China has transformed from a fractious land bullied by Western colonizers to a mighty nation casting a long shadow. In a way, Tower of Skulls is the first entry of the origin story of a superpower.

[Boudewijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tower of Skulls offers a fresh perspective, emphasizing China's role and diving deep into a specific timeframe that perhaps is often overlooked in other works spanning the entire Pacific War. Its profound exploration of China's role in the conflict sheds light on China's resilience, struggles, and pivotal impact on the overall course of the war.

Its relative short timeframe, from the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor allowed me to delve deeply into the events of this period. Although I must admit that Frank doesn’t write as well as Toll or James Hornfischer the focus on the lesser known parts of the Pacific War, especially the events in China leading up to Pearl Harbour, were very interesting.

[Grouchy Historian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give this book 6 stars if I could. It will truly change how you think about WW2. The interaction of China and Russia to the Pacific War and the way Japan mostly blundered into a war they knew they couldn’t win was eye opening to learn.

Can’t wait for the next book.

[Perato · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great start for a trilogy. Makes me want to buy the rest of it when they come out, and made me rethink about skipping the last of Ian Toll's trilogy. The comparison is necessary since Toll's trilogy was finished in 2020, and Frank's first was published the same year. While I. Toll is easy to read, almost like a story, it still falls flat in many cases. Both trilogies are sort of a synthesis type books rather than having plenty of new research. Yet Frank tries to have totally different view to whole Pacific war by focusing on more the Asian(not just Japanese) part of it rather than the American part of it, and for that reason I would recommend this to people more than the Toll's trilogy. In short, Toll makes you know about the war, Frank makes you also understand the war.

I have read so far over a hundred book's about World War 2 and I've hit a point where any "grand scheme" book is mostly just covering familiar terrain, I can almost guess the quotes the writers are going to use and the funny/peculiar events mentioned. Yet the first hundred pages of Frank's book is almost like I'm reading about subject I've never read before. There was so much new things and things I've maybe only once read about, that the book seemed very fresh instead of the same old. Of course the focus moves more to the American part of the conflict when relevant, but never does it forget Chinese and the three other BDA-countries. You don't get the usual feeling that the writer is rushing through less known parts of the war to get to write about the more famous parts, instead Frank gives enough detail to all aspects of the Asia-Pacific war. While the book is synthesis, Frank isn't scared of writing his own opinion and using sources to back them. There's also plenty of discussion type writing in end notes of the book.

In terms of focus, the book doesn't lean too much into stories of "great men", there's not enough pages to cover all the great people, so the focus isn't solely on politicians and generals. Frank focuses a lot on the civilian side of the conflict although he admits that the sources are very lacking on these. Nonetheless he gives anecdotes about the Yellow River flood of 1938 that makes me sort of shamed of not knowing much about it before. If I would have to guess, Tojo isn't mentioned in the last 100 pages of the book and Roosevelt isn't mentioned in the first 100 pages for more than once.

If would recommend this to anyone not familiar with Pacific War and it's background and to anyone who is familiar with it but only from the Japanese/American point of view.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Tower of Skulls: a history of the Asia-Pacific War, July, 1937-May, 1942,” by Richard B. Frank (Norton, 2020). Frank has already established himself as a superb historian of World War II, with “Guadalcanal” and “Downfall: the end of the Imperial Japanese Empire.” But this book, the first volume of a trilogy, is a stupendous achievement, greater than the predecessors (I have not read his biography of MacArthur). Frank begins at the beginning---Japan’s war in China---rather than Pearl Harbor, which Americans usually think of as the beginning. He doesn’t get to the date that lives in infamy until Chapter 10, P. 229 of a 522-page book. The first half is devoted to what happened in China, starting with the strange affair of the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937. Indeed, first Frank describes the state of China up to that point---not a single unified state but a set of fractured satrapies, with Chiang Kai-shek doggedly trying to create one nation. The Bolsheviks, especially Stalin, thought he was the right guy for the job and supported him. Mao Tse-Tung was barely an afterthought. Chiang was smart, tough, upright. But Japan, already ensconced in Manchuria, was out to build an empire. Or rather, some of its officers were. Some of the time. Among the disconcerting threads woven into this history are the strange tendency of Japanese generals, and even lower down the ranks, to disobey direct orders, or to lie about what they were doing, to advance their own careers and their dreams of what Japan should be. These tendencies flowed along with, and underneath, the rivalry (if not outright hatred) between the Army and the Navy. So Japan begins its war in China, which was considered to be so weak any resistance would melt away like tissue in a stream. And the Chinese armed forces were weak: poorly armed, badly led, untrained. Yet they did somehow manage to hold off the far superior Japanese armed forces, in, for example, the battle of Shanghai, a sanguinary Asian Stalingrad, which cost the invaders far more than they expected, and took longer to accomplish. The Chinese slowly learned how to fight the Japanese, whose logistics were tenuous: let them advance, then attack the flanks and rear. But the Japanese were obscenely brutal. They routinely beheaded, bayoneted, tortured anyone who resisted, and often not even when they resisted. The Rape of Nanking was exactly that. Throughout, Japanese soldiers killed their prisoners, often in the most despicable ways. They were far more vicious than the Germans, whose soldiers kept under control. While this warfare was going on, Chiang kept asking for help. At first he was supported by the Germans; then by the Soviets; ultimately by the Americans. The Americans did not want to get terribly involved, but they did not want to give the Japanese a completely free hand. Isolationism was very strong; Many, if not a majority, of Americans did not want to become involved in any war. Although the Navy had considered Japan to be its primary foe, and much of its planning involved a war with the Empire. Without myself going into the details, I will say that Frank swims deep in the weeds, describing not just the machinations of the politicians and generals, but the ---minutiae is the wrong word---his account is almost lapidary in its reconstruction of what was happening down to the company and platoon level. He gives an excellent account of the Nomonhan Incident, in which a Japanese invading force is slaughtered by the Soviets under Zhukov. As for Pearl Harbor: Frank describes what was involved not just in breaking the Japanese codes, but in trying to get usable information out of the messages. The Japanese used many levels of deception to keep their target secret. The Americans knew an attack was coming, and pretty much when. But they were never able to figure where---and they never once suspected Pearl Harbor. On the other hand, Admiral Kimmel and General Short were derelict in not responding to the warnings they were given by Washington, not scattering their aircraft, not putting crews on alert, etc. In any case, no way was it a plot by FDR. The Americans tried everything they could short of war to stop the Japanese assaults in China. And the Japanese knew they had a limited amount of resources and time to finish their plans before they ran out of fuel. Again, Frank’s detail of the attack is clear-eyed. He does not hesitate to call out earlier historians and chroniclers: there was no way the Japanese could have sent a third wave to destroy the fuel and ammunition dumps. That’s a myth, he says: it would have taken too long to rearm the planes, the fleet was short of fuel, any third attack would have ended in darkness with the subsequent loss of a lot of planes. In the Philippines, he has no patience for MacArthur’s egotistical incompetence; he also describes how weak the Philippine forces were. But he also shows that the Japanese were not so smart themselves. And then there is his account of the Singapore and Burma campaigns. He doesn’t think much of Stilwell, and considers that Barbara Tuchman bought into Stilwell’s own version. Oh, I could go on. What a book. I can’t wait for the next two volumes. It is not that Frank is doing for the Pacific what Rick Atkinson did for the European campaign. He is breaking new ground about a portion of the war that is essentially unknown in the US.

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002109

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, a weighty work of more than 500 pages of text, to say nothing of its massive endnotes, is a revisionist history, but not of the sort that I find a problem with. What the author is attempting here, and which largely succeeds, is an effort at turning a study of the first part of World War II's Pacific War into a Pacific history that integrates that concerns of the various people involved, with a high degree of interest in China and the influence of Chinese resistance to Japanese domination and Japan's maladroit efforts at diplomacy and brutal military tactics as being responsible for the larger conflicts that other areas got drawn into. Japan's attempt to extricate itself victorious from the self-inflicted Chinese quagmire that it got itself into only entangled it in further conflicts which it was able to deal with, at least in the short term, via opportunistic and tactical means but which ended up ensnaring Japan in increasingly difficult warfare on a logistical level that it would ultimately be unable to handle. The author handles this sprawling topic with skill, drawing upon sources that allow for a reassessment of China's achievements in self-defense and that also point out American unwillingness to betray its Chinese ally, which was necessary for the avoidance of war with Japan, in a way that avoids conspiracy theory while pointing to FDR's essential unreliability as well as the major shortcomings in leaders like Stillwell and MacArthur in their behavior.

This book is eighteen chapters long and it is divided into expressively titled chapters that deal in a chronological fashion with World War II from its beginnings in China to the peak of Japanese growth up to May 1942. So we start with the Marco Polo Bridge as a prologue (1), and then go through several chapters that detail the Japanese efforts in 1937 that were immensely successful at taking over cities like Shanghai and Nanking (1), killing many unprepared Chinese troops (2), forcing China to desperate straights like flooding the Yangtze to try to stop Japan's advance at horrific cost (3), and leading to a massive refugee migration of tens of millions of people away from Japanese rule (4). The author discusses the Japanese abuse of prisoners (5), Japan's efforts at diplomacy (6, 7, 8, 9), which combined tragedy and farce with inabilities to deal openly with others or present win-win options for others that only broadened the conflict. Then more combinations of tragedy and farce come in with the bungled nature of the American warning to Pearl Harbor for war and the failure of its local commanders to adequately prepare for the need to defend themselves (10, 11). After that comes a discussion of the litany of failures that occurred after the declaration of war, such as the fall of Hong Kong, Guam, and Wake Island (12), the setup and fall of Singapore (13, 14), the fall of the Dutch East Indies (15), the conquest of the Philippines (16), the fall of Burma (17), and the barbaric nature of the Japanese treatment of conquered areas as they reached the peak of their control in the Pacific (18). The book ends with acknowledgements, notes, a bibliography, map and illustration credits, and an index.

This book is a welcome one to those who want an in-depth look at the Pacific War that connects the various elements of conflict and diplomacy together in a satisfactory way, demonstrating not only the unity of the Atlantic and Pacific Wars as part of the larger World War, but also demonstrating the importance of politics, the general popularity of Japanese imperialism with the general public, and a judicious reassessment of Chiang Kai-Shek as a leader of considerable strategic genius even if it did not lead to his own benefit as Chinese leader. The influence of World War II in shaping Chinese identity as a national rather than a local one, and the dangerous nature of Japan's politics and its decision to wage war because it would have been unable to do so effectively later on based on America's late peacetime efforts at rearmament, suggest that FDR is not to blame for World War II and that a great many mistakes were made that hindered the Allied effort at the beginning, including a disastrously poor effort in Malaysia and major logistical failures in the Philippines.

[Laurence Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

There has been a problem for many years with general histories written about WW2 in the Pacific in that China is either hardly discussed or discussed badly – and yet an understanding of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, and its ongoing war against (in the main) the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek, is crucial to properly understanding not just the conflict in Asia and the Pacific but how and why WW2 was fought as it was globally. With Tower of Skulls, his remarkable first volume of his expected trilogy on the Asia-Pacific War, Richard B. Frank has aimed not only to give China its historical due but also to examine in detail all the political, economic and military issues at stake for all the major countries involved.

At approximately 700 pages (500 text, 200 notes), Tower of Skulls is not exactly an easy read. In the main it forgoes the current trend in popular history to enliven the text by recounting the personal experiences of a select group of individuals caught up in the stream of events. This is very much a military history that digs very deeply into the causes of the war and then into how the war was prosecuted by all those involved. However, that does not mean the text is difficult or unapproachable. Far from it. Though some paragraphs I had to reread to get the complete sense of what was being explained, and it seemed to me that some important points could have been put forth more forcefully as they are potentially easily lost in the mass of detailed information being presented, all in all I found the text to be very accessible: lucid, precise and, indeed, gratifyingly terse at times.

It should also be noted that Richard B. Frank is not messing about here. Not only has he chosen to deal with the Asia-Pacific War as a whole (including placing it in context of the global war), but he has also chosen to confront each and all of the myths that have sprung up about the war – for example, the conspiracy theories that continue to swirl in and about Pearl Harbor – and he pulls no punches in his assessment of the qualities and performances of those politicians and military personnel involved. The book is a supremely confident performance in itself, written by a historian who has made the Asia-Pacific War his life’s work. It certainly helps that much academic historical research has been conducted in the last twenty years (especially in regard to China and Japan) that Richard B. Frank has been able to utilise in the writing of this book. But this should not take away anything of his achievement in synthesizing all this research into one very accessible work.

The text in this first volume covers the period July 1937 to May 1942, from the Marco Polo Bridge incident to just prior to the Battle of Midway when at last the tide of war would turn for the allies. I thought I already knew much of the subject matter having read separate histories of the war in China and of the confused and confusing domestic politics of Japan in the lead up to Pearl Harbor. But Richard B. Frank has made me think again, not only about the devastation and forces of social change the Japanese brought to China by their invasion – which would eventually lead to the takeover in by Mao and the Communist Party in 1949 – but also about how Japan conceived of its place within Asia and the wider world and the difficult economic realities/choices that it faced. Richard B. Frank also takes us deep inside Roosevelt’s White House and the unexpectedly complicated politics of isolationalism within the United States as well as deep inside the politics and economics of the British, French and Dutch Empires in the Far East – all soon to be swiftly swept aside by the rapidly advancing Japanese forces.

Great and encyclopaedic in its scope as Tower of Skulls is, the text occasionally felt uneven to me as some incidents and battles were discussed in much more detail than others. A case in point is the Japanese attack on Pearl Habor in December 1941 where a lot of text is taken up on the planning and build-up to the attack as well as on the attack itself. However, this can and probably should be excused by the pivotal nature of the attack – it brought the United States definitely into the global war – but also (and this is important) because of the number of myths that needed to be laid to rest. In fact, later on in the text Richard B. Frank makes space to discuss long-forgotten lonely battles fought by Dutch, British, Australian and American soldiers together with indigenous forces on islands that many could not point to on a map and in the face of overwhelming odds, their sad fate to either die in battle or of disease, or so often as many did as prisoners through continuous maltreatment or brutal execution at the hands of a Japanese military that, for reasons explained, paid no heed to the usual rules of war.

In conclusion then, Tower of Skulls is simply a tour de force. At all times I felt Richard B. Frank to be wise and just, and in his analysis of the conflict extremely clear-sighted. Richard B. Frank should also be credited for being brave enough to properly get to grips with the wider conflict that has defeated so many for so long. I, for one, hope it won’t be too long before volume two comes along.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realise when i started this that this is only the first volume in a trilogy. Well i guess now i have to read the next two books.
Probably the most comprehensive account of the opening salvos of the Asia-Pacific War i have ever read. The chapters on the Sino-Japanese War alone are worth the price of admission. The account of the Malaya campaign and the fall of Singapore are so thorough and well written you feel as though you were there.
Overall and brilliant examination of a crucial period of history. Now i have to find the next two books somewhere.

[KB · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so much to praise here. Tower of Skulls is wonderfully organized. Author Richard B. Frank writes with authority on the subject. The importance of China comes through. Allied failures come through. Stunning Japanese successes that would not last come through. And, perhaps most importantly, I learned a lot from having read this.

I just wish it had been more of an engaging read. My mind wandered constantly as I read, meaning it probably took me longer to get through than it should have. I thought Pearl Harbor was handled particularly well, but other than that Frank's writing felt a little lifeless to me. I was also missing a final chapter to sort of sum up what I had just spent 500+ pages reading. As it is, the book just sort of ends.

I think Tower of Skulls is deserving of all its praise, and I'm ready and waiting for the next two volumes. But overall it's just missing that certain something to the writing that would've really made this an outstanding book in my eyes.

[Gregg Narber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rarely read and don't much like military history. So much detail about the actions and dispositions of individual units, their armament, what ships did what against what other ships, etc. This book certainly does all that in encyclopedic detail and follows the early Japanese actions against the Chinese through the loss of the Philippines and surrender of Corregidor and Bataan Death March. Presumably it will be followed by volumes that take the story of the Pacific War from the Battle of Coral Sea to at least the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and probably the end of colonial rule in Asia. I took on this large book because that was the war in which my father fought as part of a heavy bomber crew in the China-Burma-India Theater (B-24 stationed in India, in what is now Bangladesh). Why and what he and his friends fought for and often died, why they targeted what they did, why they flew supplies to China "over the hump" (the hump being the Himalayan mountains), are some of the questions I hoped to answer. In spite of all that detail, this provides so many of the answers to my questions that I was compelled to persevere reading this dense telling (and will no doubt read the future volumes if they are written).
Things about this book were helpful: First, there is a plethora of clear, well done maps that help the reader understand the mountain of information. Second, it is well written. Third, useful context is always provided so one can see the forest not just the trees: how the Japanese dreamed of an Asian world, one they would lead, free of colonial powers. Fat chance, at least with the Chinese, after the infamous "Rape of Nanking". On the other hand, the cheers of indigenous people in the Dutch East Indies who applauded the Japanese defeat of the Dutch (they hated the Dutch), and the ambiguous positions of the people and soldiers of British India who had long wanted independence, et al indicate why the puny defense provided by their colonial masters hardly supported a return to British/Dutch/French/Portuguese dominance.
In some respects, probably a level of detail that I did not really need, but recommended if you have any interest in how and why Asia went the way it has gone (so far).

[Adam Balshan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars [History]
(W: 2.91, U: 3.33, T: 3.27)
Exact rating: 3.17
#58 of 116 in genre
#37 of 75 on The World Wars

A respectable history of the Asia-Pacific theater of WWII. Frank described several scenarios or battles with acumen and verve, and his prose was almost excellent throughout. His sympathies seemed to be all in the right places as well.

Much was decent or good, especially:
-an accurate Chiang Kai Shek, somewhat a saint and somewhat a bungler, a charismatic personality but one who was unwilling to rein in abuses below him
-concerning Mao Zedong's intellectual influences, and desire for raw power
-the timing of the "14 Points" delivery and how plausible a pre-dawn amphibious attack on Malaya was rather than at Pearl Harbor
-the description of the Pearl Harbor attack was the best one I've heard(!)
-descriptions of rare Pacific battles, including an exciting one of the classical type: cruisers and destroyers of the Dutch and Australian fleets fighting the Japanese cruisers and destroyers, trying to bludgeon each other to death at the Battle of Java

Only a few minor errors, omissions, contentious claims, or other negative aspects:
-in Ch.12 said 19th-century racism was a mutilation of Darwinism (it wasn't)
-in Ch.18 seemed to assume too much about Japanese-American loyalty and the anomalousness of the Nihao incident. (The sociological likelihood of Japanese subversion amidst invasion or pre-invasion espionage contacts was considerable. It is not necessary to deny this in view of the policy of Japanese internment. The latter can still be morally wrong and tragic while the former remains entirely plausible.)
-some of the sections were mired in a few too many stale descriptions, lists, or enumerations.

Takeaway
Only some parts of the book were good enough for the casual reader. Frank spent plenty of time on China, but I didn't feel an intimacy of knowledge that, for instance, I felt when reading Kurtz-Phelan's The China Mission (on the immediate post-war period). So Frank's first volume of his A History of the Asia-Pacific War is probably not worth a purchase for the regular person. However, anyone considering themselves an aficionado or amateur historian would probably enjoy it.

[Simon Mee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You are building your conception of an Asia which would be raised on a tower of skulls."

Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali polymath responding to Japanese overtures of a "Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere", shines a light on the subject matter of Tower of Skulls:

Asia

and skulls

Chinese Finger Trap

Between 1933 and 1943, Japan would directly invest more capital in Manchukuo than Britain devoted to India in two hundred years of imperial rule.

China is popularly portrayed in histories as a place Japan got stuck in, like the mud to the side of a rural road you attempted to u-turn over. There's a passiveness to descriptions of Chinese resistance and an understating of China’s importance to Japan. Frank's explicit goal is to remedy that.

Tower of Skulls achieves this, running from the Xi’an Incident to the Wuhan Revival to the defence of Changsha. Praise for Chiang Kai Shek's strategic insights perhaps gets over-elevated over his failings, but its defensible in the context of him being a loser in most texts. Frank adds local factoids to the narrative, such an amended Chinese building code demanding stone and brick rather than wood and bamboo to reduce destruction due to Japanese bombing.

Frank provides good historiographical summaries where appropriate, such as the deaths during the "Rape of Nanjing". Frank generally isn't working from primary texts so I would be careful about considering any of his judgements determinative, but they are at least good for overviews. Frank can also be quite cutting of commanders and strategies which, if nothing else, is fun to read.

There’s plenty of coverage of the Pacific part of 1937-1941 but in terms of military campaigns, Frank’s narrative is interesting but not revelational, other than perhaps some of the reporting:

In Europe, the gallantry of airmen and sailors in these attacks would have been legendary; here it garnered virtually no notice.

Hidden Goal

Frank wrote Downfall, which is one of the leading books for the pro-atomic bombing argument. I believe that, with this trilogy, Frank is consciously or subconsciously going to take another shot at it using the wider timeframe to restate his position. Because it is not explicit and Frank is not over-the-top or obviously unbalanced in his narrative, I may be reading the tea leaves too closely. That he mentions that the factory that provided the Japanese with the torpedoes for Pearl Harbor lay right under the Nagasaki bomb is intended as a historical curiousity, so I may be doing too much with the parts I do read as indicative.

Japanese Brutality

Estimates of Chinese military and civilian deaths ran as high as 250,000 - if this figure is correct, it would likely exceed fatalities from the atomic bombs.

Measuring which Axis Power (and perhaps the Soviets – Frank really doesn’t like them) committed the “worst war crimes” in quality or quantity tends to be a fool’s errand, but Frank raises a good point or two. Up to 22 June 1941, both Japan and the Soviet Union were far and away the worst mass murderers, Japan with approximately 7.5 million Chinese deaths to its name. The death rates amongst prisoners of war are notably high and repeated, such as the survival rates of the sailors of sunken Allied ships or on the Bataan “Death March”.

There are also descriptions of specific atrocities against prisoners of war and civilians, the details of which are unnecessary here. In the totality of World War Two, the numbers are not always large for, as Frank writes, smaller batches of prisoners often fared the worst. The reader is left with a visceral revulsion to these events and Japanese conduct of the war (in fairness, Frank does praise Japanese feats of arms in battle).

It is my suspicion that Frank is priming the pump as to the brutality of the Asian-Pacific war right from 1937. Frank is within his rights to write about them: there’s no serious scholarly denial that these events happened, nor do I see them as particularly out of context. It is then a much smoother path of escalation to unleashing nuclear hellfire.

If Frank is doing what I suspect he is, he does still need to link the clearly criminal actions of the Japanese military to the punishment of atomic annihilation inflicted on Japanese citizens. After all, the Tokyo trials existed to punish the commanders in charge. The only half-hearted attempt I have read so far is an amorphous reference that the Japanese public would not be willing to accept defeat in China.

Moral Cowardice and Adventurism

The senior ordnance officer provided his verdict on the division's equipment as it marched off to battle: he killed himself.

Frank lays into Japan’s uncontrollable military adventurism in 1931 and 1937 (against China), 1939 (against the Soviet Union) and 1940-41 (against Vichy France). The theme Frank emphasises is that the Japanese military repeatedly cut across diplomatic efforts, even when the odds against success by way of force were clear, as the unfortunate ordnance officer realised. Frank, drawing heavily on earlier works, wants to make clear that war against the Allied powers took the same approach.

The numbers demonstrated that the most favorable ratio between Japan and the United States would be 76 percent. It would occur at the end of 1941.

The position Frank takes is that Japan, faced with unsustainable American economic pressure, took the hardest possible (and military dominated) line in negotiations with the United States to lift certain embargoes. The proposals required China’s defeat or abandonment by America. The critical element is that Japan would choose war rather than resile from its position even though, as Frank sets out, they knew that their chances were virtually nil. At best they would be at 76 percent of the fleet of a superpower that could generate war materials at will (and on top of that Japan would face the Royal Navy!). Frank considers the actions of Japan’s leaders to be moral cowardice, refusing to accept that they would lose.

Now think to 1944-1945. Again, there was resistance in the military to diplomatic action, in that case surrender to the Allies. Accounting for the context of Japan’s decision to declare war, how realistic were their overtures to the Soviets to end it? What terms would Japan have accepted prior to the atomic bombing (or, for completeness, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria)?

That is the direction I believe Tower of Skulls is pointing us. Frank wants to show that Japan had a long history of military leadership divorced from reality, and only the threat of absolute destruction would force surrender. I will be interested to see if I am guessing right when he comes to book three and whether the arguments Frank made in Downfall receive an update.

So while Tower of Skulls enters a crowded field, there are a couple of major themes that make it worth reading.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tower of Skulls is the latest work from Richard Frank. If this first entry in the trilogy is any indication, it will become the standard multi-volume history of the Asia-Pacific War. A superb survey, well-structured.

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know, Frank just doesn't do it for me.... the rare military history I'm not really keen on. his other book "Downfall" is also a 3/5.

[Zach Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrifying page turner. That is the best way to describe this book and the events of the Asian Pacific from 1937- May 1942. This book rightly and accurately puts aside substantial pages for the Chinese front in WW2. The Chinese played and essential role in the allied war effort and this needs to be talked about more often. They were shafted constantly by the Americans and the British which led to tensions after the war. This book also highlights British incompetence in Asia and American negligence towards the theater. The Japanese achieved astounding success in this time period, but this book does show that the allies lost these battles more than the Japanese won them (Especially the British). For anyone interested in this topic, a definite recommend. I am eagerly awaiting the next two books in the trilogy.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid retelling of the first part of the war in the Pacific, starting at its earliest origins with Japan invading China, before starting it westward expansion throughout the Pacific and finally clashing with the US in the early days of WWII.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent account of WWII on the Asian continent. Drawing from Chinese and Japanese resources, Mr. Frank presents a thorough history of the Sino-Japanese war. His telling of each battle is accompanied its analysis. This shows the battle's implications in the big picture of the war. Mr. Frank examines the diplomatic and political events that affect the military events. After reading this, my views of MacArthur and Stillwell went down bit and my view of Chiang rose.

[William Lexner · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Life is too short to read books that aggrandize the Imperial Japanese war criminals.

[Oren · Rating 5 out of 5]

approchable and extremely informative. The early stages of the Asian pacific war are not so commonly discussed compared with the later American victories, so I found this very informative.

[Craig Fiebig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, deeply detailed deep dive on the units and leaders of the early Asian and Pacific theaters. I wish the author’s second volume was available as an audio book! His book on Guadalcanal was also excellent!

[Andrew Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding history of the war in the pacific.

While engagingly written and based on very strong research, three elements stand out

1. It returns China front and centre in the story. The Pacific War began in 1937, not 1939 like the European war. And it was for a long time determined by the fighting between China and Japan, and the role and importance of China (with significant implications for Soviet ability to focus on the West, the role of Burma, the resource needs and capacity of Japan in south east asia etc)

2. It makes the war about Japan and not the US. Too many of these books would begin with Pearl Harbour and then work back. And the choices of US leaders would determine the order of the book. This one pays attention to US views and includes lots of coverage of US actions, but it is not the centre.

3. There are compelling portraits of some of the Generals and military leaders. Frank does well to sum up and capture the key figures. He also is willing to provide quotes and details and leave the reader to draw some of the more scandalous interpretations.

If you're interested in a fresh take on the war, this is a very good choice.

[Jim French · Rating 5 out of 5]

Groundbreaking, amazing book. Lots of new information on Japan's war in China and how it affected global war strategy. The author does a great job, succinctly and clearly, of arguing his case. He has some strange word choice though, about every page or two. Huh? Why in the world did he choose that word. That's my only nitpick.

[DanielL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942 is NOT a book for new or casual readers of WW2 history. This is NOT a “Rah! Rah!” onwards to victory for the Allies book. Instead, the book highlights the many political and military bad decisions by the Allies that contributed to devastating military losses. By the end of the book (May 1942), the Allies were thoroughly beaten and battered by the Japanese on land, air and sea.

Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942 is well written. I was very impressed by the research and details of this book, but at times, I found myself overwhelmed by details. Nevertheless, I still read all the footnotes which included more details.

Author Richard B. Frank begins Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942 with a chronological timeline from the 1937 Sino-Japanese war to the 1942 Bataan Death March. For the Japanese, 1937-1942 is a time period of successive military victories and enormous conquest of lands and people that has been unrivaled in history; and it exposed the political and military ineptitude of the Allies (especially the British who vastly underestimated the Japanese military and overestimated their own military prowess).

I had an expectation that military deaths would be high, but the staggeringly high death toll among civilians during the Sino-Japanese war was something that I did not expect. The book’s title Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942 is a metaphor to the many who were killed; and I was reminded of the photos of human skulls from the Khmer Rouge genocide stacked high as if they were a trophy display. The fact that more people died of starvation and disease than by direct military action during the entire Asia-Pacific war is astounding and mind-boggling to me.

Prior to reading this book, the Sino-Japanese war was relatively unknown to me, but its importance as a catalyst to pushing the entire world to total war is obvious. Nazi Germany’s success was a motivation and encouragement for Japanese military expansion in China, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the rest of Asia and the Pacific. The brutality, ruthlessness, and execution by the Japanese military of civilians and military POWs were exposed and somewhat explained, but they were still war crimes.

I wasn’t too thrilled that the book covered the attack on Pearl Harbor because I thought I knew enough about it, but I was wrong. Author Richard B. Frank shined some new light on the attack and the events surrounding it from the US and the Japanese.

Throughout the book, author Richard B. Frank de-bunked some conspiracy theories and second-guessing of military tactics / strategies. One of the most widespread conspiracy theories is that the US and/or Great Britain (Winston Churchill) knew beforehand that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor, but kept silent to force the US to join the war.

For me, the explanation on how the British and US broke the Japanese code was a little dull because I still couldn’t figure out how it was done. Except for this topic, I enjoyed and learned a lot more about WW2.

The Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: July 1937-May 1942 covered these key events and personalities from 1937-1942:

Sino-Japanese

Chiang Kai-shek vs. Mao Zedong

Russia vs. Nazi Germany

Pearl Harbor

Hong Kong

Wake Island

Guam

Malaya / Singapore

Dutch East Indies

The Philippines / General MacArthur

Burma / General Joseph Stilwell

Breaking of the Japanese code

Internment of Japanese-American citizens from the US West Coast, but not Hawaii

Rabaul

CNO Admiral Ernest King vs. Admiral Chester Nimitz

Salvage of US warships at Pearl Harbor

Inda / Ceylon (Sri Lanka) / Madagascar

Fall of the Philippine Islands and the Bataan Death March

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. A better title would be "Tower of Details." Only for the most dedicated WWII readers. It's just too much for my taste.

[Maduck831 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indeed, it is the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that immediately initiated a train of events ending with the dissolution of the Asian empires of Britain. (6)

The struggle would be known as "Kangri Zhanzheng": The War of Resistance Against Japan. (36)

...but many Chinese believed the random pattern of survival reflected "fate (yuanfen), the mysterious force that many Chinese believed guided their lives." (92)

Stalin immediately grasped the importance of China to prevent the Japanese from opening a potentially fatal second front in the Far East. (177)

Inevitably that meant that American oil largely powered the Japanese war machine that by now was ultimately responsible for approximately 7.5 million dead Chinese. (194)

By leaving behind normal carrier radio operations, the Japanese cleverly created the impression that the carriers remained in home waters...(235)

Thus, local decisions on the execution of the proposed redeployment of air units to Wake and Midway, not direct Washington orders, would ultimately result in the fact that Pearl Harbor held no carriers on the morning of 7 December. (247)

Dorn Report.

With his own hand, he scratched out the last two words and replaced them with one that would make the phrase immortal. (297)

Rayburn ignored her while a voice from another congressman shouted "Sit Down, Sister!" (299)

The eight army officers who accompanied him from Corregidor became known as "The Bataan Gang." (453)

Slim sought out a Changsha veteran Chinese general and listened attentively as this officer explained that the great Japanese weakness rested in their very thin logistical margins. (473)

In a macabre touch, the clouds of gorgeous butterflies, said to be the most beautiful ever in Assam, swarmed down on the dying and dead. (483)

But the critical triggers for the mass internment order emanated fundamentally not from broad forces but from the acts of specific men. This list starts with Maj. Gen. Allen W. Gullion...(490)

Roberts Commission.

For his performance, one of the greatest individual feats of the war, O'Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor. (502)

Not only should the British offer all their material possessions to the dictators but also "you will allow yourself, every man, woman and child, to be slaughtered." (510)

As the sun set on 6 May 1942, approximately 12,800 men and some nurses of the Corregidor garrison entered effective, if not yet official, captivity. This arguably marked the moment when the Imperial Japanese Empire reached its zenith. (521)

The Nimitz Museum.

[Steve Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

In more than fifty years of reading about the war against Imperial Japan I have NEVER encountered a book that went into such detail over the struggle. Given that this is the first in a trilogy of books that Frank intends to write about the conflict, he may well achieve top status as an historian of the Asian-Pacific war, if he hasn't already.

I listened to Barbara Tuchman's "Stillwell In China" some time back, and for those who are fans of it, I'd urge them to consider reading this account of Stillwell's performance in the Burmese campaign. Chiang Kai Shek comes off as being far more capable than Tuchman portrayed him, and Frank provides a compelling narrative to compete with Tuchman's work (which also should be read).

I listened to the audio version of this book, and it was very good, with but a few editing and pronunciation errors. The narrator struggled with Japanese names at times, but improved as time went on. At one point he gave two pronunciation variations of one name within minutes of each other, getting the second pronunciation down correctly. Editing at one point was choppy. At one point during the account of the siege of Wake Island the words "squall" and "February" appeared randomly in the account, suggesting that an editor hadn't paid proper attention when he was cut and pasting sections of the narrative.

I didn't care much for the level of detail that Frank went into in describing the construction of the Japanese communications codes. It made my eyes cross.

But all that didn't detract from the overall quality of the book. It taught me things that other historians elected to gloss over, things of which I had scant knowledge, if any at all. It seemed each chapter could have been a book all on its own.

A number of trilogies on World War II have come out lately. Rick Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy", Ian Toll's "Pacific War" trilogy, and Bruce Gamble's "Rabaul" trilogy were all outstanding. If Frank's second two books are as good as this first, he'll outpace those works...or at least join their ranks as compulsory reading for the World War II nerds. A few other stand-alone books I've reviewed on Goodreads also fit on that shelf.

Frank is no spring chicken, given he's over seventy. Toll commented that it took him longer to finish his trilogy than it took for the war to be finished. Atkinson could make a similar claim. I hope Frank gets the work done before he dies...or for that matter, before I die.

[Urey Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when you think the war in the Pacific has been well covered, Richard Frank proves us wrong… Tower of Skulls is masterful. It is comprehensive, exhaustively researched and narrated, and engagingly written. Frank accomplishes much – he reinforces some reputations, deflates some others. He puts actions, events and policies into perspective and explains their impacts on the wider war as well as the impacts of events and decisions in Washington, London, Moscow, China, Japan and across the German theater of war upon the evolution of the war in the Pacific. More importantly, he puts the Asian Pacific War into perspective, giving it the attention and importance that is so often overlooked in the conventional view of the history of World War II as it has developed over the past 50 years. The massive scale of the Asian Pacific War (to use Frank’s perfect label) was beyond human experience, unmatched in casualties, geographic scale and scope of titanic forces moving over vast distances and it has been poorly illustrated or understood in the many, often superb, histories of specific aspects of the conflict. Frank puts it all together in an overwhelming and compelling history of the whole global war – the Asian Pacific War in its grandiose scale and reach.

Frank is one of my favorite history writers – he is accomplished at weaving the narrative and fleshing it out with relevant, and pointedly selected, personal anecdotes and experiences of the participant along the way. This is a book I found hard to put down – so engrossing and interesting that I would occasionally lose track of the fact it is just the first volume of a planned trilogy… I would note the number of pages remaining and fret over how he could possibly fit in the rest of the war and do it the same justice… only to remember, oh yeah – trilogy!! Two more volumes to look forward to…. What a relief… as well as source of great impatience!!

I could go on at length, lauding this book or describing the astute and cogent observations, revelations and analyses that Frank offers throughout... suffice to say if you have interest in WWII and the Asian Pacific theater as a global event, read this book!

[Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and interesting history of World War II in the Asian-Pacific Theater from July 1937 to May 1942. This is the first volume in a planned trilogy that will cover the entire World War II period. The author, Richard B. Frank, has clearly created a thoroughly and extensively researched book. By beginning in 1937, the author provides insight into the importance of the impact Japan’s war with China had on the course and direction of the entire war. That conflict was not a backwater sideshow underserving of critical examination as most previous histories of the War with Japan have done because of their American focused look at the Pacific Theater of War. Reading this book will reveal how the war in China directly impacted Japan’s decisions (i.) to attack the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, (ii) expand of their Empire by force of arms into the South Pacific and (iii) not to aid their ally Germany’s invasion of Russia. You’ll also learn how Mao Zedong’s Red Chinese Army somewhat cooperated with Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist Army in fighting their common enemy Japan during those years. Also revealed are the intrigues between Mao and Stalin that wanted China to remain in the War against the Axis Powers but not be too successful so as to diminish Chiang’s appeal in China once the war was over. Plus, China’s ongoing battles with Japan tied down a huge amount of Japan’s resources that could not then be used against the Americans, Brits and Australians. So, insights into the ultimate strategies and course of the war with Japan can be discovered here, along with insights into such controversial and historic figures of World War II such as MacArthur, Stillwell, Nimitz, Yamamoto, Churchill, Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-Shek and many, many more. The only reason I gave this book a five-star rating was because the system doesn’t allow for six or more stars.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with all books I have read that were written by Frank, this is an excellent, objective history. I first encountered Frank covering the fall of the Japanese empire in the Pacific theater of WWII in Downfall, and this work (the first in a trilogy) is a more broad look at the Asia-Pacific theater of WWII. It has a strong focus on the often forgotten Chinese contribution to WWII, as well as an amazingly clear explanation of all the major conflicts involving Japan from July 1937 to May 1942, including Burma, Singapore, the Phillipines, and, of course, Pearl Harbor and the US.

Frank shows his work, explaining where the uncertainties in estimates are and giving his informed opinion on the numbers/facts, adding a great deal of nuanced details to the battles and about the participants. He also has a great focus on "Magic" and intelligence in general that helps us understand what the leaders knew when they were making decisions. This focus helps add that nuance to decisions that often seem strange from our current vantage point, but are explicable when you see what the people knew at the time (along with people's general perceptions about the world).

If you are a WWII fan, then this is a book you should read. Its focus on events outside the Japan-US Pacific war is far more detailed than any other general WWII book I have ever read, and it is presented clearly, calmly, and with excellent maps (excellent maps really help make excellent history books, esp. those involving battles). I highly recommend this volume and all of Richard B. Frank's work.

[Neil Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was deeply impressed by the author's book Downfall, which would convince anyone with an open mind that there was no alternative to dropping the bomb, and this one is even more rewarding. He starts with the view that the war really began in China in 1937 rather than at Pearl Harbor in 1941, which makes for a very different focus than traditional histories. The only book I ever encountered before about the land war in China is When Tigers Fight, and that one seems to have slipped away from notice. Frank has a deeply balanced view of the war, and some original views. For example, he does not buy into the majority view that Chiang Kai-shek was a slimy figure, or that Stillwell lived up to his reputation. He likewise has little use for Wainwright or a number of other generals whom history has treated kindly. He gives recognition to some figures who have been neglected by history, including Slim and Harry Hopkins. His views of Roosevelt and Churchill is deeply nuanced and reflects the bigger picture of an America allied with Britain but also anti-colonial.
The accounts of the campaigns are excellent. In keeping with his dedication to balance, he may praise Japanese tactics and perseverance, but he always notes the atrocities that followed every Japanese success.
Towards the end of the book he discusses at length the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1942, a topic that I have never seen included in a military history before.
This is the first volume of three; based on this I will definitely read the others.