I’ve seen a number of books talking about the final weeks of the War in Europe – Russians and Americans racing for Berlin, mopping up pockets of resistance, detailed timelines of the street battles in Berlin and the last hours in the bunker.
What book provides a similar perspective on the last weeks of the war in Japan? It obviously played out differently because there was no invasion, it was more sudden, etc. But where would I find an account of what the politicians, soldiers, and commoners were doing and thinking on an everyday basis right before, and in the few days after, the bombs dropped but before surrender?
Max Hastings: Nemesis * (sold as Retribution in the States): the Battle for Japan 1944-45*
It’s the companion piece to Hastings Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45 and covers the ground you’re interested in.
They don’t really concentrates that much on the everyday lives of commoners (although they do do so in part), but the two current “must read” books on the end of the Pacific War are Richard Frank’s Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (starts with a chilling ground-level perspective of the Tokyo fire bombings), and Hasegawa Tsuyoshi’s Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan.
The classic work on the end, Robert Butow’s Japan’s Decision to Surrender, is still well worth reading and provides a readable, in-depth account of the day-to-day actions of the Japanese decision makers at the end.
John Dower’s *Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II * is more about the ensuing occupation years, but starts with a good account of the final days and the surrender. It’s a great read, and the Pulitzer committee thought so to.
Was gonna recommend both these. Very readable.