To The End Of The Earth

The Us Army And The Downfall Of Japan, 1945

By John C. McManus, and Reviewed by Ivan Zasimczuk

Article published on: March 1st, 2025 in the Army History Spring 2025 issue

Read Time: < 5 mins

Dutton Caliber, 2023 Pp. v, 437. $35

To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945 completes John C. McManus’s trilogy immortalizing the exploits of the U.S. Army in the Asia-Pacific Theater during World War II. He has done for the Asia-Pacific Army what Bruce Cat-ton did for the Army of the Potomac, Rick Atkinson for the World War II U.S. Army in Europe, and Ian W. Toll for the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. He takes his place alongside the heralds of these other storied U.S. forc-es. As with the two preceding volumes, this splendidly detailed coda cements this Army and its soldiers rightfully in the pantheon of American fighting forces. He carries over into this final chapter of the war the threads, themes, and personages of the previous vol-ume, Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944 (Dutton Caliber, 2021). In 1945, the action, from the tactical to the strategic level, climaxes. Consequently, the scope and scale of this last piece of Mc-Manus’s historical triptych is narrower than the first two. Yet, the range of topics remains impressive. The balance between facts and analysis is perfect. Above all else, the prose is elegant and beautiful.

McManus divides this text into five long chronological and thematic chapters, followed by a touching epilogue. The core of the narrative revolves around the campaigns for the Philippines and the Ryukyu Islands, emphasizing the battles of Manila and Okinawa, respectively. Woven throughout are other ancillary, but important, topics covered in the previous volumes—the experiences of the prisoners of war; race relations in the ranks; the perspectives of the Women’s Army Corps and of the medical professionals; and the fate of the American mission to Chiang Kai-shek in China. Mc-Manus begins by asking the central Allied question about Japan in 1945: how much will it “cost the Allies, and most notably the Army, in lives, treasure, and time to subdue Japan?” (4). In the next 362 pages, he answers that question in great and gritty detail.

By 1945, General Douglas MacArthur had at his disposal one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled. It included two armies of four corps, with fifteen divisions, and many separate regiments, independent brigades, guerrilla units, and necessary attachments (6). Chapter 1 begins with a description of Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army invasion plans for Luzon, code named Mike I. Highlighted is the ongoing friction between MacArthur and Krueger over the latter’s perceived slow but careful rate of march (21), which was exacerbated by the continued incompetence of MacArthur’s intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby. Willoughby, despite controlling a highly functioning intelligence apparatus complete with aerial reconnaissance, access to Japanese signals communications, and guerrilla units, still managed to underestimate the strength of the Japanese on Luzon by 135,000 troops. According to McManus, “Luzon was Willoughby’s magnum opus of inaccuracy” (11). To spur on Krueger, MacArthur moved his headquarters 47 miles ahead of Krueger’s position, expecting that Krueger would advance more rapidly (26). The low estimate of Japanese forces on Luzon “mentally imprisoned” (63) MacArthur and caused him to develop an unrealistic narrative in which he could deliver the liberation of the Philippines with minimal costs.

The cost to liberate Luzon was the near- total destruction of Manila and the death of an estimated 100,000 Filipinos. McManus describes this as an “orgy of destruction against [the Filipino] people and [their] property” (65). Most died cruelly at the hands of the Japanese, but many perished in the crossfire or from American firepower. Also lost was an incalculable amount of cultural, historic, and scientific heritage accumulated over centuries (88). Despite the carnage and destruction, the campaign was successful and perhaps only equaled by the parallel exploits of Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichel-berger’s Eighth Army.

Under Eichelberger, between 28 February and mid-April, the Eighth Army executed thirty-eight audacious amphibious invasions, ranging from company- to division-level landings, across the southern Philippine Islands. Known as the Victor operations, Eichelberger’s troops averaged a landing every thirty-six hours (153). However, despite the impressive display of operational art and superb tactics, the capture of these islands was of no strategic value; it was a backward movement away from the final objective, the Japanese home islands to the north (157).

By April 1945, with the Philippines firmly under Allied control, attention turned to capturing Okinawa and the rest of Ryukyu Islands, the first of the Japanese home islands. This operation, however, belonged to the Central Pacific Theater Commander, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and his Tenth Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. The strategic value of these islands cannot be overstated. They were essentially “Japan’s front doorstep” and would provide valuable air and seaports within a mere 360 nautical miles from Kyushu and 850 miles from Tokyo (196). After shockingly meeting no resistance on the beaches of Okinawa, the divisions of the Tenth Army pushed inland and captured two airfields within five days, key objectives of the campaign (212).

This initial lack of resistance soon gave way to a ferocious defense of Okinawa, on land, at sea, and in the air. At the peak of the fighting, six infantry divisions, two Marine and four Army, devised new tactics, called the “corkscrew and blowtorch” approach, to smash their way forward from one ridge to the next (241–42). These tactics were especially adapted to root out the deeply entrenched and tenacious Japanese from their sophisticated fighting positions. The result was carnage on a new scale. Infantrymen used combinations of bulldozers, firepower, flamethrowers, fire tanks, combustible barrels, and satchel charges to destroy the Japanese. Enroute to capturing Okinawa, the Tenth Army crushed two profligate and wrongfully optimistic Japanese counterattacks on 12 April and 4 May (230, 254).

The human toll was astonishing. The U.S. forces suffered over 49,000 casualties, of which 12,520 were fatalities. The Japanese lost a catastrophic 107,539 killed (284), a consequence of the belief that surrender was dishonorable. Using this battle as a gauge, the Allies projected and feared that the invasion of the home islands would require enormous Allied sacrifices and generate casualties of catastrophic proportions for both sides (297). The Allies had begun making extensive preparations for the invasions, codenamed Operation Downfall, when President Harry S. Truman authorized the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, essentially ending the conflict.

Although this work is dominated by battle narrative, there is much additional content related to medical care; logistics; naval operations; prisoners-of-war survival stories; race relations; the opening of the Ledo Road into China; Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer and the American mission to Chiang Kai-shek; and an epilogue telling the fates of the major characters and, most poignantly, the story of Public Law 383. The 1946 law allocated over $190 million to return the remains of service members interred overseas to their homeland. Sixty-one percent of the families chose to repatriate their deceased loved ones and eventually some 170,000 were brought (359– 60). This additional content adds depth and contour to the Army’s history. With extensive sources and engaging prose, To the End of the Earth will have broad appeal—from a general audience to the military scholar. Readers will find it no coincidence that McManus begins with a question about the cost of the war and ends with a stark reminder of that cost. It is a reminder that we are all better served to remember.