1992, ISBN: 9780932294074

Simon & Schuster. Very Good. Paperback. 1992. 432 pages. <br>From the author of The Atlantic Campaign comes a h istoric account of the greatest naval conflict: the Pacific campa… More...

Simon & Schuster. Very Good. Paperback. 1992. 432 pages. <br>From the author of The Atlantic Campaign comes a h istoric account of the greatest naval conflict: the Pacific campa ign of World War II. Dan van der Vat's naval histories have bee n acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as definitive, extraord inary, and vivid and harrowing.Now he turns to the greatest naval conflict in history: the Pacific campaign of World War II. Drawi ng on neglected archives of firsthand accounts from both sides, v an der Vat interweaves eyewitness testimony with sharp, analytica l narration to provide a penetrating reappraisal of the strategic and political background of both the Japanese and American force s, as well as a major reassessment of the role of intelligence on both sides. A comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the war in the Pacific, The Pacific Campaign promises to be the standard work on the U.S.-Japanese war for years to come. Editorial Revi ews Review The Philadelphia Inquirer Fast-paced, meticulously re serarched...has all the elements of a spy thriller. The New York Times Book Review Belongs on the bookshelf of every American who contemplates the meaning of the greatest sea war in history. St ephen E. Ambrose author of Eisenhower A vivid account of the grea test naval battles ever fought and a thoughtful analysis of why w ar came...marked by fresh insights and new material. The Chicago Tribune An unsparing indictment of Japan's culpability in bringi ng about the Second World War....It blows away the rubbish....Van Der Vat writes with clarity and understanding. About the Author Dan van der Vat is the author of The Atlantic Campaign, The Ship That Changed the World, Gentlemen of War, and The Grand Scuttle. He lives in London, England. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission . All rights reserved. Chapter One THE VIEW FROM THE EAST Japan 's southward advance, even though it was in the opposite directio n from all its previous expansion, derived directly from its mili tary adventures, political scheming and economic ambitions on the Asian mainland. This is not to say that the move south was immut able fate, either for Japan or for its victims: the Japanese were and are as responsible for their own actions and choices as ever yone else, regardless of foreign provocations and errors. Neverth eless, the short but brutish and nasty story of Japanese imperial expansion has features only too familiar to the students of past empires, whether the ancient Roman or the modern Russian. A powe r on the make begins to expand by absorbing its immediate neighbo r (in Japan's case, Korea in 1910); to protect its acquisition, i t conquers its neighbor's neighbor (Manchuria), sets up a buffer state (Manchukuo), creates another buffer (northern China), and u ses that as a base to move against its next victim (China), and p ossibly its most deadly rival (the Soviet Union). We see imperial ism imitating scientific principles such as Newton's first law of motion whereby movement continues unless halted (imperial inerti a); the abhorrence of nature for a vacuum is parodied by imperial ist opportunism, which drew Japan first into China, then down upo n the Asiatic empires of the European powers involved in the war with Hitler's Germany. It is not customary to refer, in the cont ext of the Second World War, to Tojo's Japan, or even Hirohito's; nor do we equate the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, forme d in 1940 to absorb all Japanese political parties, with the Nati onal Socialist party, the only legal one in Hitler's Germany, eve n though the former was in some respects a conscious imitation of the latter. The truth is that the Japan which took on the world at war and lost was run by a military junta of no fixed compositi on -- a shifting, authoritarian oligarchy rather than a totalitar ian dictatorship. It came to the fore in Manchuria in 1928, when the Kwantung Army, as the Japanese garrison was called, killed a n intractable local warlord by causing an explosion on the Japane se-controlled South Manchurian Railway (SMR). The junta won the s upport of most Japanese admirals in 1930, after the perceived hum iliation of Japan at the London Naval Conference, about which mor e later. Japan was easily humiliated: rejection of any of its dem ands was enough. Aggravated by Japan's severe suffering in the Sl ump, which helped to undermine moderate, civilian influence in go vernment, the rising junta's Kwantung branch staged another explo sion on the SMR at Mukden in September 1931 as an excuse for conq uering the rest of Manchuria in a few months. This euphemisticall y named Manchuria Incident led to the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo under the Emperor Pu-yi, scion of the deposed Manchu dynasty, which had ruled China until 1911. Encouraged by this cheap success and undeterred by international condemnation, which merely provoked Japan to flounce out of the tottering Leagu e of Nations in 1933, the junta ran off the rails altogether in 1 937. At the Marco Polo Bridge outside Peking, the Japanese China Garrison Force, in place since the international suppression of t he xenophobic Boxer Rebellion of 1900, engineered a clash with a Chinese Army patrol. This was then used as an excuse to attack no rthern China -- all without consulting civilian or military super iors in Tokyo. The latter managed, however, to do what was expect ed of them: they sent reinforcements. The ensuing war, unwinnable for either side, spread across China; to the Japanese it always remained simply the China Incident. It is not unreasonable to see in the manufactured clash of July 7, 1937, so similar to Hitler' s ploy against Poland two years later, the true start of the Seco nd World War, because these two participants fought each other co ntinuously from then until 1945. In its bid to become the USA of the western Pacific (a strictly economic ambition), Japan classe d itself as a have-not nation with a legitimate grievance. What i t really had not, like Germany and Italy among the larger powers, was territorial acquisitions to exploit -- the only contemporary yardstick of greatness, even more important than a big navy. The rest of the world soon came to see Japan as an acquisitive aggre ssor, inordinately ambitious and completely ruthless. Japan came late -- indeed, last -- to old-style colonialism, but chose to le arn nothing from its predecessors in this pursuit. Like them, it cared little for the feelings of the colonized; unlike them, it w as never deterred by the views of the other powers, which it eith er ignored or used as grounds for more aggression while it built up its own empire. In this outlook it was very similar to Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and even more under Hitler: unable or u nwilling to distinguish between its needs and its wants, Japan he lped itself to what it fancied and was quite often genuinely perp lexed by the hostile reaction. Like Germany, where almost everyon e who could walk and talk hated the Treaty of Versailles, Japan h ad an almighty bone to pick with the rest of the world. Most Japa nese people regarded anyone who questioned their country's ambiti on as hostile and did not try to understand any other party's poi nt of view. Where the rest of the world went wrong was in foolish ly underestimating the unique capacity for self-sacrifice with wh ich ordinary Japanese supported their country's aim to be a first -rate power. There was much less disagreement among the Japanese (or in Germany) on the end than on the means of achieving the fu lfillment of their country's just demands. Hitler came to power o n the back of the German national sense of grievance, and was as conscious as the Japanese military of the lessons of 1918. Like t he Japanese, he thought his country was overcrowded and needed mo re territory, a rationalization of imperial ambition throughout t he ages. The Nazis, like the Italian fascists, were a mass moveme nt that rose to power from the grass roots under a populist leade r, whereas the Japanese junta manipulated a complaisant emperor t o impose its will from the top. But each Axis regime drew the sam e conclusion from Germany's defeat in 1918: the next war would be long, and therefore autarky, economic self-sufficiency, was the key to national security, military success and world domination. That was the only way to avoid a repetition of the blockade by se a and land which defeated Germany in 1918. So, while Hitler sche med to acquire Lebensraum and Mussolini concentrated on empire-bu ilding in northeastern Africa, the Japanese were busy inventing t he New Order in East Asia (1938) and the Greater East Asia Co-Pro sperity Sphere (1940), both designed to subordinate the region to the perpetual benefit and glory of a self-sustaining, greater Ja pan. Tokyo had some success at first in presenting this as a crus ade against Euro-American domination of Asia. It won over many in digenous nationalists in British, French and Dutch colonies -- at least until the Japanese Army arrived and lent new vigor to the old military customs of rape and pillage. The Germans made exactl y the same error in the Soviet Union: each army behaved as the ma ster race in arms; each used the stratagem of surprise attack wit hout declaration of war, and then Blitzkrieg tactics, to get its way. But whereas Hitler dominated his generals and admirals the J apanese general staffs dominated Japan. The consequences for thei r victims were remarkably similar. There was, for example, not mu ch to choose, except in such matters as climate and language, for the doubly unfortunate Dutch between life in the Netherlands und er Nazi rule and in the East Indies under the Japanese. Small wo nder that Reich and Empire were to become allies regardless of re ciprocal racial disdain. The first concrete sign of things to com e was Japan's decision to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germa ny in November 1936 (the Comintern -- Communist International -- was the Soviet mechanism for controlling foreign communist partie s). A secret provision required each signatory not to help the So viet Union if the other went to war against it; the published tex t was a vague commitment to oppose communism and all its works wh erever they might be found. The future Axis partners had identifi ed their overwhelming common interest: the Soviet Union, principa l potential enemy of each. For Japan this was just one of many f ateful decisions that led to its disastrous war with the United S tates. The Slump became a time for taking tough measures at home -- and taking sides abroad. The Pacific Campaign cannot be proper ly understood unless it is seen in the context of Japan's prewar domestic and foreign policies and the links between the two, as s ummarized below. Foreigners had (and have) great difficulty in u nderstanding how Japan worked as a state and who was really in ch arge. The Japanese had gone so far as to imitate the West in havi ng a symbolic head of state and an executive, a legislature, a ju diciary, an army, and a navy all formally answerable to him. The fact that the Army and the Navy were, as centers of power in the state, at least equal to the civilian organs of government rather than subject to their authority was not outside Western experien ce. In making this ultimately disastrous arrangement in the const itutional changes of 1889, the Japanese were only copying the Pru ssians who dominated Europe as the world's strongest military pow er for more than half a century, until 1918, on just such a basis (the Japanese chose to copy the British in establishing a House of Lords and a battle fleet and imitated the French in such areas as law and education). The independence of the military dated fr om the creation, in 1878, of general staffs for Army and Navy dir ectly under the emperor and outside the control of the Diet (parl iament) or even the Cabinet. The paradox was that the emperor, un like the Kaiser, did not feel free to intervene in government. He exercised his influence through his personal advisers or in priv ate meetings with those, such as key ministers and chiefs of staf f, who had the right of access to the throne. Thus his divine sta tus was protected by noninvolvement in day-to-day policy with all its disputes, errors, and corruption; by the same token, those w ith real power could hide behind the façade of imperial rule when ever convenient, an excellent incentive for irresponsibility on a ll sides. This gave very broad latitude indeed to leaders whose actions were rendered immune from challenge by the simple device of being declared as done in the name of the emperor. A general c ould tell Hirohito, with the customary groveling and outward resp ect, what he was planning; the emperor had no power to stop him, so the general could then inform the Cabinet of what he was about to do, overriding any objections by laying claim to imperial san ction. From the turn of the century, the ministers responsible fo r the Army and the Navy had to be officers from the relevant serv ice. After 1936 they had to be on the active list, to prevent the appointment of men from the retired list as a means of getting r ound the wishes of the serving generals and admirals. This gave t he general staffs not only the decisive say (or veto) on individu al appointments to these posts but also the power to prevent the formation of a new government, simply by refusing to supply servi ng officers to fill them. If they did not like a prime-ministeria l nominee, they would decline to provide a general (as the Army d id in 1940, for example) or an admiral as Army or Navy minister - - even if the would-be premier had found favor with palace advise rs and been recommended by them to the emperor. The three key men in each service -- minister, chief of staff, and inspector-gener al of education and training -- were thus free to pick their own successors without consulting any outsider, whether emperor, prim e minister or the rival service. The two armed forces were not r equired to inform the Cabinet of their strength and dispositions, in peace or even in wartime. Thus the claims by such as ex-Prime Minister Tojo and ex-Foreign Minister Togo at the Tokyo war-crim es trial that they were not told in advance of the Pearl Harbor p lan (or of the great American victory at Midway for weeks after t he event) are not as ludicrous as they seemed when they were firs t made. With this kind of contemptuous conduct as the norm in the highest ranks, it is hardly surprising that the Japanese forces were more Prussian than the Prussians, not to say medieval, in th eir approach to discipline. Brutality was institutionalized to a degree probably unparalleled, Simon & Schuster, 1992, 3, Al Capone's Devil Driver (Alleged Wheelman...St. Valentine's Day Massacre)by George H. Meyer (Author) as told to Chaplain Ray & Max CallPublisher: Acclaimed Books (January 1, 1979) - stated First EditionISBN-10: 0932294073ISBN-13: 978-0932294074Paperback4.1 x 7 inches, 149 pagesCapone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre. The massacre was an attempt to eliminate Bugs Moran, head of the North Side Gang, and the motivation for the plan may have been the fact that some expensive whisky illegally imported from Canada via the Detroit River had been hijacked while it was being transported to Cook County, Illinois.Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors, Weiss and Vincent Drucci, had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion.To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone's men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at 2122 North Clark Street, which served as Moran's headquarters. On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled four gunmen disguised as police officers to initiate a "police raid". The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall and signaled for accomplices armed with machine guns and shotguns. Moran was not among the victims. Photos of the slain victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's image. Within days, Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend. In an effort to clean up his image, Capone donated to charities and sponsored a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Depression.The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre led to public disquiet about Thompson's alliance with Capone and was a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931.Capone was primarily known for ordering other men to do his dirty work for him. In May 1929, one of Capone's bodyguards, Frank Rio, uncovered a plot by three of his men, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph Giunta, who had been persuaded by Aiello to depose Capone and take over the Chicago Outfit. Capone later beat the men with a baseball bat and then ordered his bodyguards to shoot them, a scene that was included in the 1987 film The Untouchables. Deirdre Bair, along with writers and historians such as William Elliot Hazelgrove, have questioned the veracity of the claim. Bair questioned why "three trained killers could sit quietly and let this happen", while Hazelgrove stated that Capone would have been "hard pressed to beat three men to death with a baseball bat" and that he would have instead let an enforcer perform the murders. However, despite claims that the story was first reported by author Walter Noble Burns in his 1931 book The One-way Ride: The red trail of Chicago gangland from prohibition to Jake Lingle, Capone biographers Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz have found versions of the story in press coverage shortly after the crime. Collins and Schwartz suggest that similarities among reported versions of the story indicate a basis in truth and that the Outfit deliberately spread the tale to enhance Capone's fearsome reputation. George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself.In 1930, upon learning of Aiello's continued plotting against him, Capone resolved to finally eliminate him. In the weeks before Aiello's death Capone's men tracked him to Rochester, New York, where he had connections through Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, and plotted to kill him there, but Aiello returned to Chicago before the plot could be executed. Aiello, angst-ridden from the constant need to hide out and the killings of several of his men, set up residence in the Chicago apartment of Unione Siciliana treasurer Pasquale "Patsy Presto" Prestogiacomo at 205 N. Kolmar Ave.On October 23, upon exiting Prestogiacomo's building to enter a taxicab, a gunman in a second-floor window across the street started firing at Aiello with a submachine gun. Aiello was said to have been shot at least 13 times before he toppled off the building steps and moved around the corner, attempting to move out of the line of fire. Instead, he moved directly into the range of a second submachine gun positioned on the third floor of another apartment block, and was subsequently gunned down., Acclaimed Books, 5<

1987, ISBN: 9780932294074

Al Capone's Devil Driver (Alleged Wheelman...St. Valentine's Day Massacre)by George H. Meyer (Author) as told to Chaplain Ray & Max CallPublisher: Acclaimed Books (January 1, 1979) - stat… More...

Al Capone's Devil Driver (Alleged Wheelman...St. Valentine's Day Massacre)by George H. Meyer (Author) as told to Chaplain Ray & Max CallPublisher: Acclaimed Books (January 1, 1979) - stated First EditionISBN-10: 0932294073ISBN-13: 978-0932294074Paperback4.1 x 7 inches, 149 pagesCapone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre. The massacre was an attempt to eliminate Bugs Moran, head of the North Side Gang, and the motivation for the plan may have been the fact that some expensive whisky illegally imported from Canada via the Detroit River had been hijacked while it was being transported to Cook County, Illinois.Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors, Weiss and Vincent Drucci, had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion.To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone's men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at 2122 North Clark Street, which served as Moran's headquarters. On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled four gunmen disguised as police officers to initiate a "police raid". The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall and signaled for accomplices armed with machine guns and shotguns. Moran was not among the victims. Photos of the slain victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's image. Within days, Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend. In an effort to clean up his image, Capone donated to charities and sponsored a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Depression.The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre led to public disquiet about Thompson's alliance with Capone and was a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931.Capone was primarily known for ordering other men to do his dirty work for him. In May 1929, one of Capone's bodyguards, Frank Rio, uncovered a plot by three of his men, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph Giunta, who had been persuaded by Aiello to depose Capone and take over the Chicago Outfit. Capone later beat the men with a baseball bat and then ordered his bodyguards to shoot them, a scene that was included in the 1987 film The Untouchables. Deirdre Bair, along with writers and historians such as William Elliot Hazelgrove, have questioned the veracity of the claim. Bair questioned why "three trained killers could sit quietly and let this happen", while Hazelgrove stated that Capone would have been "hard pressed to beat three men to death with a baseball bat" and that he would have instead let an enforcer perform the murders. However, despite claims that the story was first reported by author Walter Noble Burns in his 1931 book The One-way Ride: The red trail of Chicago gangland from prohibition to Jake Lingle, Capone biographers Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz have found versions of the story in press coverage shortly after the crime. Collins and Schwartz suggest that similarities among reported versions of the story indicate a basis in truth and that the Outfit deliberately spread the tale to enhance Capone's fearsome reputation. George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself.In 1930, upon learning of Aiello's continued plotting against him, Capone resolved to finally eliminate him. In the weeks before Aiello's death Capone's men tracked him to Rochester, New York, where he had connections through Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, and plotted to kill him there, but Aiello returned to Chicago before the plot could be executed. Aiello, angst-ridden from the constant need to hide out and the killings of several of his men, set up residence in the Chicago apartment of Unione Siciliana treasurer Pasquale "Patsy Presto" Prestogiacomo at 205 N. Kolmar Ave.On October 23, upon exiting Prestogiacomo's building to enter a taxicab, a gunman in a second-floor window across the street started firing at Aiello with a submachine gun. Aiello was said to have been shot at least 13 times before he toppled off the building steps and moved around the corner, attempting to move out of the line of fire. Instead, he moved directly into the range of a second submachine gun positioned on the third floor of another apartment block, and was subsequently gunned down., Acclaimed Books, 5<

1987, ISBN: 9780932294074

Al Capone's Devil Driver (Alleged Wheelman...St. Valentine's Day Massacre)by George H. Meyer (Author) as told to Chaplain Ray & Max CallPublisher: Acclaimed Books (January 1, 1979) - stat… More...

Al Capone's Devil Driver (Alleged Wheelman...St. Valentine's Day Massacre)by George H. Meyer (Author) as told to Chaplain Ray & Max CallPublisher: Acclaimed Books (January 1, 1979) - stated First EditionISBN-10: 0932294073ISBN-13: 978-0932294074Paperback4.1 x 7 inches, 149 pagesCapone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre. The massacre was an attempt to eliminate Bugs Moran, head of the North Side Gang, and the motivation for the plan may have been the fact that some expensive whisky illegally imported from Canada via the Detroit River had been hijacked while it was being transported to Cook County, Illinois.Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors, Weiss and Vincent Drucci, had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion.To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone's men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at 2122 North Clark Street, which served as Moran's headquarters. On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled four gunmen disguised as police officers to initiate a "police raid". The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall and signaled for accomplices armed with machine guns and shotguns. Moran was not among the victims. Photos of the slain victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's image. Within days, Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend. In an effort to clean up his image, Capone donated to charities and sponsored a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Depression.The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre led to public disquiet about Thompson's alliance with Capone and was a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931.Capone was primarily known for ordering other men to do his dirty work for him. In May 1929, one of Capone's bodyguards, Frank Rio, uncovered a plot by three of his men, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph Giunta, who had been persuaded by Aiello to depose Capone and take over the Chicago Outfit. Capone later beat the men with a baseball bat and then ordered his bodyguards to shoot them, a scene that was included in the 1987 film The Untouchables. Deirdre Bair, along with writers and historians such as William Elliot Hazelgrove, have questioned the veracity of the claim. Bair questioned why "three trained killers could sit quietly and let this happen", while Hazelgrove stated that Capone would have been "hard pressed to beat three men to death with a baseball bat" and that he would have instead let an enforcer perform the murders. However, despite claims that the story was first reported by author Walter Noble Burns in his 1931 book The One-way Ride: The red trail of Chicago gangland from prohibition to Jake Lingle, Capone biographers Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz have found versions of the story in press coverage shortly after the crime. Collins and Schwartz suggest that similarities among reported versions of the story indicate a basis in truth and that the Outfit deliberately spread the tale to enhance Capone's fearsome reputation. George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself.In 1930, upon learning of Aiello's continued plotting against him, Capone resolved to finally eliminate him. In the weeks before Aiello's death Capone's men tracked him to Rochester, New York, where he had connections through Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, and plotted to kill him there, but Aiello returned to Chicago before the plot could be executed. Aiello, angst-ridden from the constant need to hide out and the killings of several of his men, set up residence in the Chicago apartment of Unione Siciliana treasurer Pasquale "Patsy Presto" Prestogiacomo at 205 N. Kolmar Ave.On October 23, upon exiting Prestogiacomo's building to enter a taxicab, a gunman in a second-floor window across the street started firing at Aiello with a submachine gun. Aiello was said to have been shot at least 13 times before he toppled off the building steps and moved around the corner, attempting to move out of the line of fire. Instead, he moved directly into the range of a second submachine gun positioned on the third floor of another apartment block, and was subsequently gunned down., Acclaimed Books, 5<