Twilight of the Gods, the third volume of Ian Toll’s Pacific War trilogy. It covers the last year of the war including the naval battles around the Philippines including the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The reconquest of the Philippines with harrowing descriptions of utterly depraved behaviour of the Japanese army in Manila. The amphibious attacks on Iwo Jima and the final climatic battle of the war, the invasion of Okinawa. It concludes with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender. Toll’s descriptions of the battles are incredibly gripping and include lots of first hand reporting. He’s quite graphic in his drawing of the horrors of the intense battles on confined islands and the almost inconceivable lengths the Japanese went to fight to the very last man in most cases. The horrors for the poor civilians caught up in the maelstrom are also described in tragic detail. As in the first two volumes he provides very good descriptions of the home fronts in both the US and Japan, and the political and strategic leadership of both sides. Throughout there’s a clear distinction between the US’s methodical application of clear strategy and overwhelming industrial capacity against Japanese magical and wishful thinking and prioritising avoiding shame over practical strategic and tactical thinking. The suicidal way they threw away their largest battleship the Yamato in the battle for Okinawa is perfect example of this. As with Nazi Germany, inevitable defeat was clear for over a year (probably two) before final nemesis, but the leadership could not, or would not admit it, and as a result caused more than a million unnecessary deaths. I have hugely enjoyed the whole trilogy. I thought Toll was very fair and generous for a US writer. He didn’t reduce the Japanese to mindless fascist automations but draws them as fully human, while at the same time condemning where condemnation is justified. I felt that he rather liked Yamamoto for example. The writing is excellent, more of a page turning thriller than a work of history, perhaps because the history itself is so gripping. I do love a good WWII history and these have been some of the best.