CRUCIBLE OF HELL EB

Saul David

• Publisher: William Collins
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780008342517
• eBook ISBN: 9780008342494
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

'Excellent' Antony Beevor

'Saul David is a brilliant historian … In shocking and jaw-dropping detail, he brings a battle that deserves far greater prominence and understanding vividly back to life' James Holland

From award-winning historian Saul David, an action-packed and powerful new narrative of the Battle of Okinawa – the last great clash of the Second World War, and one that had profound consequences for the modern world.

For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anything seen on the Eastern Front. When it was over, almost a quarter of a million people had lost their lives, making it by far the bloodiest US battle of the Pacific. In Okinawa, the death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide, convinced by Japanese propaganda that they would otherwise be raped and murdered by the enemy. On the US side, David argues that the horror of the battle ultimately determined President Truman's choice to use atomic bombs in August 1945.

It is a brutal, heart-rending story, and one David tells with masterly attention to detail: the cramped cockpit of a kamikaze plane, the claustrophobic gun turret of a warship under attack, and a half-submerged foxhole amidst the squalor and battle detritus. The narrative follows generals, presidents and emperors, as well as the humbler experiences of ordinary servicemen and families on both sides, and the Okinawan civilians who were caught so tragically between the warring parties.

Using graphic eyewitness accounts and declassified documents from archives in three continents, Saul David illuminates a shocking chapter of history that is too often missing from Western-centric narratives of the Second World War.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Maps
• Prologue: Love Day
• 1 ‘Where’s Douglas?’
• 2 Operation Iceberg
• 3 ‘Everybody go home!’
• 4 The Divine Wind
• 5 ‘More concerned with furlough than fighting’
• 6 ‘I’m going simply because I’ve got to – and I hate it’
• 7 ‘I was crying as I did it and she was crying too’
• 8 ‘Tomorrow is our big day’
• 9 ‘It was quite a show’
• 10 ‘There’s always some poor bastard who doesn’t get word’
• 11 ‘The smell of burnt flesh hung about for days’
• 12 ‘War is indeed hell’
• 13 ‘I could see him floating by, face upward’
• 14 ‘Gone? She’s gone?’
• 15 ‘They just knocked the heck out of us’
• 16 ‘I want to marry Shigeko’
• 17 ‘Harry, the president is dead’
• 18 ‘His eyes were rolling in panic’
• 19 ‘Three bullets had ripped into his temple’
• 20 ‘Progress not quite satisfactory’
• 21 ‘All Kaitens prepare for launch!’
• 22 ‘The most terrible weapon’
• 23 ‘Corpsman!’
• 24 Hacksaw Ridge
• 25 ‘We will fight to the last man’
• 26 ‘Doc, this one is worth saving’
• 27 ‘The happy dream is over’
• 28 Sugar Loaf Hill
• 29 ‘Hell’s own cesspool’
• 30 ‘I still hear those cries today’
• 31 ‘The entire enemy line appears to be crumbling’
• 32 ‘It is terrifying to think about’
• 33 ‘There is NO tactical thinking or push’
• 34 ‘I lost damn near all of them’
• 35 ‘You’re just going to have to hang on’
• 36 ‘We were so gullible, so innocent’
• 37 ‘We are down to the final kill’
• 38 ‘I haven’t come up to the front to hide’
• 39 ‘Every man will … fight to the end’
• 40 ‘Suppose it doesn’t go off?’
• 41 ‘What a splendid last moment!’
• 42 ‘All he talked about was you’
• 43 ‘The most terrible thing ever discovered’
• 44 ‘My God, what have we done?’
• 45 ‘We were going to live!’
• Epilogue: ‘Those dark corners are still there’
• Picture Section
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Also by Saul David
• About the Author
• About the Publisher