Book Review of Images of War Allied Victory Over Japan 1945
Rare Photographs From Wartime Archives
Author: Jon Diamond
Pen & Sword Ltd.
ISBN: 978-1-39904-288-8
By Ray Mehlberger
Copyrite: 2023
MSRP: $34.95
ISBN: 978-1-39904-288-8
By Ray Mehlberger
Copyrite: 2023
MSRP: $34.95
HISTORY:
In 1944, with the war in Europe turning in the Allies’ favour, Japan still occupied vast swathes of South East Asia and the Pacific. In Burma, the seemingly unstoppable advance was halted at Kohima and Imphal in June and July 1944. Six months later, the advances made by British-led forces enabled the re-opening of the supply routes from India to Sino-Americans in China. It was not until spring 1945 that British-led forces seized first Mandalay and then the port city of Rangoon after a year of grueling fighting.
Admiral Nimitz’s and General Macarthur’s forces meanwhile were overcoming fanatical Japanese resistance as they invaded Saipan. Guam, Tinian, Leyte and Luzon in late 1944. Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell to the Allies in early 1945.
These successes enabled USAAF Superfortresses to bomb mainland Japan. Late Spring/early Summer 1945 saw the steady recapture of the Northern Solomons and Brunel, Borneo and the former Dutch colonies. The Soviets were advancing into Manchuria and Korea.
The atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 finally forced the Japanese to surrender without the inevitable carnage of an invasion of their mainland. The tumultuous events of the final year of the Second World War in the Far East are brilliantly described here in contemporary well-captured images and succinct text.
THE BOOK:
Pen & Sword Ltd. is based in the UK.
This book is of soft-cover of 233 pages (2 pages are blank), in 7 ¼” x 9 ½” page format.
The cover art shows a black and white photo, at the top, of a Matilda II Infantry tank, attached to the 19th Australian Brigade, moving over obstacles set by the Japanese at the Royal Dutch Shell Oil refinery.
Below are 4 small black and white photos.
The first one is of an American Dauntless fighter in flight above the clouds.
The second one is of an Atomic bomb going off.
The third one is of an American B-24 in flight.
The fourth one is of a crashed American B-29.
The back cover shows 3 more black and white photos.
The first one shows 7 Japanese soldiers and an officer in a room.
The second one shows a 25-pounder gun of the Australian 18th Brigade’s 2/4th Field Regiment firing on Japanese positions 5,700 yards away.
Victory address on the steps of the Municipal Building in Singapore on 12 The third one shows SEAC Commander Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten September 1945.
The book contains:
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
Chapter One:
A map that is a strategic overview of the Pacific War 1941-1942
A map of Allied Counter-offensive Axes in the Central, South and South-west Pacific areas of operation 1943-1945
A map of the planned invasion of Japan 1945-1946.
A map of combat in Burma, 1942-1945.
Chapter two:
Combatant Forces Plans, Leaders and Troops
Chapter three:
Allied aerial and Naval Interdiction of the Japanese home islands.
Chapter four:
Australian-American Invasion of Borneo.
Chapter five:
Atomic detonations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The first pictures are of Japanese infantry attacking Shanghai.
There are photos of Japanese, American, British and Russian leader Joseph Stalin
For the Japanese there is Emperor Michinomiya Hirohito, General Hideki Tojo, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and Admiral Chuichi Nagumo.
For the British there is Prime-minister Winston Churchill.
For the U.S. there is Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Truman.
For the Soviet Union there is Joseph Stalin.
There are photos of the sneak aerial attack on U.S. Navy’s Pearl Harbor.
LG Arthur Percival signing the surrender at Singapore.
Japanese soldiers brutally executing prisoners with a firing squad.
Japanese soldiers with a flame-thrower, a Japanese Type 89 I Go medium tank column, the surrender of Corregidor, captured American troops, General Joseph W. Stilwell and men marking through the jungle, photos of the U.S.S. Hornet, launching B-24’s for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
Aircraft shown is a U.S.M.C. Vought SB2U-Vindicator, a U.S.N. SBD-Dauntless, a Grumman (TBF) Torpedo-bomber Avenger, Lockheed P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolt, B-24, C-47, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, a Waco CG-4 glider, B-29, a Japanese Yokosuka MXY-7 that is dropped by a G4M Betty, F6F Hellcat, P-51 Mustang,
There are many photos of Japanese, British, American and Sikh infantrymen, officers, marines, pilots etc.
This book will be of interest to both modelers and military historians.
I sincerely wish to thank Casemate Publishers for this review sample. They are the N. American distributor of Pen & Sword books and all their titles can be viewed on their website at:
In 1944, with the war in Europe turning in the Allies’ favour, Japan still occupied vast swathes of South East Asia and the Pacific. In Burma, the seemingly unstoppable advance was halted at Kohima and Imphal in June and July 1944. Six months later, the advances made by British-led forces enabled the re-opening of the supply routes from India to Sino-Americans in China. It was not until spring 1945 that British-led forces seized first Mandalay and then the port city of Rangoon after a year of grueling fighting.
Admiral Nimitz’s and General Macarthur’s forces meanwhile were overcoming fanatical Japanese resistance as they invaded Saipan. Guam, Tinian, Leyte and Luzon in late 1944. Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell to the Allies in early 1945.
These successes enabled USAAF Superfortresses to bomb mainland Japan. Late Spring/early Summer 1945 saw the steady recapture of the Northern Solomons and Brunel, Borneo and the former Dutch colonies. The Soviets were advancing into Manchuria and Korea.
The atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 finally forced the Japanese to surrender without the inevitable carnage of an invasion of their mainland. The tumultuous events of the final year of the Second World War in the Far East are brilliantly described here in contemporary well-captured images and succinct text.
THE BOOK:
Pen & Sword Ltd. is based in the UK.
This book is of soft-cover of 233 pages (2 pages are blank), in 7 ¼” x 9 ½” page format.
The cover art shows a black and white photo, at the top, of a Matilda II Infantry tank, attached to the 19th Australian Brigade, moving over obstacles set by the Japanese at the Royal Dutch Shell Oil refinery.
Below are 4 small black and white photos.
The first one is of an American Dauntless fighter in flight above the clouds.
The second one is of an Atomic bomb going off.
The third one is of an American B-24 in flight.
The fourth one is of a crashed American B-29.
The back cover shows 3 more black and white photos.
The first one shows 7 Japanese soldiers and an officer in a room.
The second one shows a 25-pounder gun of the Australian 18th Brigade’s 2/4th Field Regiment firing on Japanese positions 5,700 yards away.
Victory address on the steps of the Municipal Building in Singapore on 12 The third one shows SEAC Commander Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten September 1945.
The book contains:
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
Chapter One:
A map that is a strategic overview of the Pacific War 1941-1942
A map of Allied Counter-offensive Axes in the Central, South and South-west Pacific areas of operation 1943-1945
A map of the planned invasion of Japan 1945-1946.
A map of combat in Burma, 1942-1945.
Chapter two:
Combatant Forces Plans, Leaders and Troops
Chapter three:
Allied aerial and Naval Interdiction of the Japanese home islands.
Chapter four:
Australian-American Invasion of Borneo.
Chapter five:
Atomic detonations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The first pictures are of Japanese infantry attacking Shanghai.
There are photos of Japanese, American, British and Russian leader Joseph Stalin
For the Japanese there is Emperor Michinomiya Hirohito, General Hideki Tojo, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and Admiral Chuichi Nagumo.
For the British there is Prime-minister Winston Churchill.
For the U.S. there is Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Truman.
For the Soviet Union there is Joseph Stalin.
There are photos of the sneak aerial attack on U.S. Navy’s Pearl Harbor.
LG Arthur Percival signing the surrender at Singapore.
Japanese soldiers brutally executing prisoners with a firing squad.
Japanese soldiers with a flame-thrower, a Japanese Type 89 I Go medium tank column, the surrender of Corregidor, captured American troops, General Joseph W. Stilwell and men marking through the jungle, photos of the U.S.S. Hornet, launching B-24’s for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
Aircraft shown is a U.S.M.C. Vought SB2U-Vindicator, a U.S.N. SBD-Dauntless, a Grumman (TBF) Torpedo-bomber Avenger, Lockheed P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolt, B-24, C-47, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk, a Waco CG-4 glider, B-29, a Japanese Yokosuka MXY-7 that is dropped by a G4M Betty, F6F Hellcat, P-51 Mustang,
There are many photos of Japanese, British, American and Sikh infantrymen, officers, marines, pilots etc.
This book will be of interest to both modelers and military historians.
I sincerely wish to thank Casemate Publishers for this review sample. They are the N. American distributor of Pen & Sword books and all their titles can be viewed on their website at:
Highly recommended.