Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945-1947, Paperback

Hell to Pay examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents the author unearthed in familiar and obscure archives. It includes postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur's headquarters. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atomic bomb and shows that President Truman's decision was based on real estimates of the enormous human cost of a conventional invasion.

This revised edition of Hell to Pay expands on several areas covered in the earlier book and deals with three new topics: U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the war against Imperial Japan; U.S., Soviet, and Japanese plans for the invasion and defense of the northernmost home island of Hokkaido; and Operation Blacklist, the three-phase insertion of American occupation forces into Japan.

About author(s):D. M. Giangreco served at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for more than twenty years as an editor at Military Review, followed by work in the Foreign Military Studies Office. An award-winning author of numerous books on military and sociopolitical subjects, he has also written extensively for national and international publications and news agencies.