Hell to Pay

Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the myriad complex issues that comprised the strategic plans for the American invasion of Japan. U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan was begun in 1943, two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In its final form, Operation Downfall called for a massive Allied invasion—on a scale dwarfing "D-Day"—to be carried out in two stages.

Hell to Pay examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents unearthed by the author, as well as post-war interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur's headquarters. Hell to Pay clarifies the political and military ramifications of the enormous casualties and loss of material projected by both sides in the climatic struggle to bring the Pacific War to a conclusion through a brutal series of battles on Japanese soil. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atom bomb and shows that President Truman's decision was based on very real estimates of the truly horrific cost of a conventional invasion of Japan.

About the Author
D. M. Giangreco served for more than twenty years as an editor for Military Review, published by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has written and lectured widely on national security matters, and is an award-winning author of numerous articles and eleven books, including Dear Harry...Truman's Mailroom, 1945-1973.