Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternate History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War
compiled by Peter G. Tsouras
Greenhill Books, 2001, 256 pages
The ten chapters in this book of alternative history present
scenarios that differ from what actually happened during the Pacific War.
Chapters include Japan's victory at Pearl Harbor, invasion of Australia, and
attack on Russia rather than Pearl Harbor. According to proponents of
alternative history, these speculative scenarios assist in historical analysis
to better understand what actually happened by exploring other possibilities.
The authors provide well-researched and documented alternatives of what may have
happened if circumstances had varied slightly or if different decisions had been
made by military and political leaders.
Each chapter includes a combination of many historical facts and some
fiction. The authors, all military historians, describe their scenarios with a
high level of technical details. As a result, most readers without an extensive
prior background knowledge will likely have difficulty to determine where
historical truth ends and fiction begins. The chapters each have a short section
at the end entitled "The Reality," but this short description of what actually
happened still will leave many readers uncertain regarding the factual
historical details. In the 20 to 30 pages for each alternative history, the
authors emphasize historical details and background rather than telling an
exciting story.
The last chapter by D. M. Giangreco, who served as editor of Military Review
for 20 years and authored 12 books on military and political topics, describes a
scenario where the dropping of four atomic bombs on Japanese cities did not
cause the Japanese government to surrender. Japan hid away many kamikaze planes
in preparation for the invasion of Kyūshū, Japan's southernmost main island. The
U.S. invaded Kyūshū on December 10, 1945, and the Japanese decided to expend the
bulk of their kamikaze aircraft during the first ten days of the invasion. The
press called the invasion "Pearl Harbor II," since 38 troop-laden Liberty ships
and LSTs, 20 destroyers, and 21 other vessels were struck by Japanese aircraft
in the first two days of the invasion. The kamikaze planes had much more success
off Kyūshū in comparison to the Battle of Okinawa because they only had to
travel short distances and because they could evade search radars with Kyūshū's
mountains. Six shin'yō speedboats loaded with explosives also crashed into
American ships in the first two days of Kyūshū's invasion.
Another chapter describes the Battle of California where Japan planned
to use the destroyer Mutsuki as a special attack ship that would rush
full speed into a lock of the Panama Canal and detonate 500 tons of explosives
aboard the ship in order to destroy the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal.
The attempt was unsuccessful when Mutsuki sunk after hits from torpedoes
fired by an American submarine. The center of the book has 16 pages of historical
photographs with alternative history captions. For example, the famous
photograph of smoke pouring out from the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill
after being hit on May 11, 1945, has the following alternative history caption
(p. 111): "Japan, December 12, 1945. Fires rage aboard the U.S.S. Antietam
after a Japanese suicider careened into aircraft refueling near the stern. The
resulting explosions destroyed additional aircraft on the hangar deck below, but
swift action by other crew saved the ship and kept casualties below 600,
including 146 killed. Minutes after this photograph was taken, another suicider
struck just below the bridge of the U.S.S. Midway cruising one mile to
starboard."
Almost all of the this book's ten scenarios show that Japan ends up getting
defeated without a significant change in the course of the war, although in some
Japan can negotiate better peace terms than those imposed in the unconditional
surrender that actually took place. Although alternative history has its niche,
the reading of actual history seems to be preferred to gain an understanding. I
enjoy historical fiction with an exciting plot and memorable characters set in
another time, but this book's short alternative history scenarios filled with technical military
details were sometimes difficult to get through.
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