Product Description: Hell to Pay is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the many complex issues that encompassed the strategic plans for the proposed 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...read more

Hell to Pay is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the many complex issues that encompassed the strategic plans for the proposed 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. In the first stage, Operation Olympic, the U.S. Sixth Army would lead the southernmost assault on the Home Island of Kyushu preceded by the dropping of as many as nine atom bombs behind the landing beaches and troop concentrations inland. Sixth Army would secure airfields and anchorages needed to launch the second stage, Operation Coronet, five hundred miles to the north in 1946. The decisive Coronet invasion of the industrial heartland of Japan through the Tokyo Plain would be led by the Eighth Army, as well as the First Army, which had previously pummeled its way across France and Germany to defeat the Nazis. These facts are well known and have been recounted-with varying degrees of accuracy-in a variety of books and articles. A common theme in these works is their reliance on a relatively few declassified high-level planning documents. In contrast, 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 in both familiar and obscure archives, as well as postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur's headquarters. Hell to Pay brings 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.

Product Description: Using the same format that made Eyewitness D-Day so unforgettable, this new volume offers an equally powerful look at the Vietnam War.The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial conflicts of the 20th century. It was also one of the most divisive...read more

Product Description: The war that may never end is the war on terror, and the most elite U.S. counterterrorism force are the DELTA troops. They receive intense, specialized training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and are deployed worldwide to help thwart terrorist activities...read more

Product Description: September 11 showed us that the face of war is changing. Today, armed forces must battle elusive enemies without traditional targets like military or industrial installations. As a result, special counter-terrorist teams from the armed forces and federal and local law enforcement assume a frontline position, employing sophisticated tactics to combat terrorist operations around the globe...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: On June 25, 1950, Communist North Korea launched a massive attack across the 38th Parallel against the Republic of Korea (ROK). Three years and over five million casualties later, on July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed, ending the war within miles of where it had started...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: "Taps into the Truman era in a way no other book has. It is a grand collection, lively, full of surprise, insight, humor, and humanity. In all, a very welcome event." --David McCullough (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

An in-depth look at the lives of Stealth Fighter pilots describes how they are selected and trained and how they prepared for the air campaign during the Persian Gulf War (view table of contents)

Uses photographs to trace the history of the Korean War, and depicts the experiences of the ordinary soldier, as well as the major battles

Explains how Berlin became a partitioned city, describes the reasons for the Soviet blockade, and depicts life in Berlin during the year-long blockade

Product Description: Book by Giangreco, D. M., Wood, Kenneth A.