25
" Increasingly, U.S. submarines preyed upon the dilapidated little trawlers, junks, and sampans that were always found teeming in those waters. Most were innocently laden with noncontraband cargoes such as rice, grain, fish, coffee, sugar, or salt, and manned by Chinese, Thai, or Malayan crews. But they were plying the coastal trade between ports in Japanese-occupied territories, and that was enough to doom them. In a July 1945 patrol off the east coast of Malaya, the submarine Blenny sank sixty-three small craft with her deck guns. In most cases, but not all, skipper William Hazard gave the crews a warning before opening fire, allowing them to evacuate their vessels and take to their rafts and lifeboats. "
― Ian W. Toll , Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
27
" History, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Who was this five-star admiral of the Second World War, who left barely a trace of himself in the historical record? In the literature he is usually painted with a few broad strokes of the brush, and the overall effect is unflattering. Four charges have been laid against King, growing simultaneously louder and less coherent as they have reverberated through the historical echo chamber. First, that he was a foul-tempered martinet who was utterly ruthless and as mean as a snake. Second, that he was a narrow-minded navy partisan, who cared only for the parochial interests of his service. Third, that he did not support the “Europe-first” policy, and campaigned to make the Pacific the main theater of the war. Fourth, that he harbored an obsessive animosity against the British, and did his best to undermine the alliance. There was some truth in the first of those four charges, though King’s abrasiveness and ruthlessness have been exaggerated, and were facets of a more complex personality. As for the second, third, and fourth, they do not stick. "
― Ian W. Toll , Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
30
" That day buried levees, birthdays, royal parades, and the arrogation of precedence in society by certain self-styled friends of order, but truly styled friends of privileged orders…. In social circles all are equal, whether in or out of office, foreign or domestic, & the same equality exists among ladies as among gentlemen. No precedence therefore, of any one over another, exists either in right or practice at dinners, assemblies, or any other occasions. “Pell-mell” and “next the door” form the basis of etiquette in the societies of this country. "
― Ian W. Toll , Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U. S. Navy
32
" In a crowded cave, one grenade might do the work of twenty bullets. Sword-wielding officers beheaded dozens of willing victims. There were reports of children forming into a circle and tossing a live hand grenade, one to another, until it exploded and killed them all. In a cave filled with Japanese soldiers and civilians, Yamauchi recalled, a sergeant ordered mothers to keep their infants quiet, and when they were unable to do so, he told them, “Kill them yourself or I’ll order my men to do it.” Several mothers obeyed.94 As the Japanese perimeter receded toward the island’s northern terminus at Marpi Point, civilians who had thus far resisted the suicide order were forced back to the edge of a cliff that dropped several hundred feet onto a rocky shore. In a harrowing finale, many thousands of Japanese men, women, and children took that fateful last step. The self-destructive paroxysm could not be explained by deference to orders, or by obeisance to the death cult of imperial bushido. Suicide, the Japanese of Saipan earnestly believed, was the sole alternative to a fate worse than death. The Americans were not human beings—they were something akin to demons or beasts. They were the “hairy ones,” or the “Anglo-American Demons.” They would rape the women and girls. They would crush captured civilians under the treads of their tanks. The marines were especially dreaded. According to a story circulated widely among the Japanese of Saipan, all Marine Corps recruits were compelled to murder their own parents before being inducted into service. It was said that Japanese soldiers taken prisoner would suffer hideous tortures—their ears, noses, and limbs would be cut off; they would be blinded and castrated; they would be cooked and fed to dogs. Truths and half-truths were shrewdly wedded to the more outrageous and far-fetched claims. Japanese newspapers reproduced photographs of Japanese skulls mounted on American tanks. A cartoon appearing in an American servicemen’s magazine, later reproduced and translated in the Japanese press, had suggested that marine enlistees would receive a “Japanese hunting license,” promising “open season” on the enemy, complete with “free ammunition and equipment—with pay!”95 Other cartoons, also reproduced in Japan, characterized the Japanese as monkeys, rats, cockroaches, or lice. John Dower’s study War Without Mercy explored the means by which both American and Japanese propaganda tended to dehumanize the enemy. Among the Japanese, who could not read or hear any dissenting views, the excesses of American wartime rhetoric and imagery lent credibility to the implication that a quick suicide was the path of least suffering. Saipan was the first Pacific battlefield in which Americans had encountered a large civilian population. No one had known what to expect. Would women and children take up weapons and hurl themselves at the Americans? "
― Ian W. Toll , The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944
33
" demands that civilians who do not fight back at us—whether they are Japanese or Korean civilians working as laborers or specialists for the military, or noncombatants in the armed forces, like doctors and nurses, or ordinary civilians with no connection with the military—must, whenever possible, be taken alive, and must not be injured or have their possessions taken from them except after a due trial by competent authority. Neither such a person nor his property are the property of any one of us who captures him. It is one thing to kill a Japanese soldier in battle; it is an entirely different thing to kill civilians who have not fought against us, whether they are Japanese or not. The latter is murder, nothing more nor less.96 "
― Ian W. Toll , The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944
35
" Observing his captors, Kojima was astounded by their racial and ethnic diversity: “Blond, silver, black, brown, red hair. Blue, green, brown, black eyes. White, black, skin colors of every variety. I was stunned. I realized then that we’d fought against all the peoples of the world. At the same time, I thought, what a funny country America is, all those different kinds of people fighting in the same uniform!”61 On "
― Ian W. Toll , Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
39
" Before dinner each night the two leaders, Hopkins, and various other members of the president’s official family gathered for cocktails in the Red Room. Roosevelt sat by a tray of bottles and mixed the cocktails himself. This was a cherished part of the president’s daily routine, his “children’s hour,” as he sometimes called it, when he let the day’s tensions and stresses slip away. “He loved the ceremony of making the drinks,” said Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames; “it was rather like, ‘Look, I can do it.’ It was formidable. And you knew you were supposed to just hand him your glass, and not reach for anything else. It was a lovely performance.” Roosevelt did not take drink orders, but improvised new and eccentric concoctions, variations on the whiskey sour, Tom Collins, or old-fashioned. The drinks he identified as “martinis” were mixed with too much vermouth, and sometimes contaminated with foreign ingredients such as fruit juice or rum. Churchill, who preferred straight whiskey or brandy, accepted Roosevelt’s mysterious potions gracefully and usually drank them without complaint, though Alistair Cooke reported that the prime minister sometimes took them into the bathroom and poured them down the sink. "
― Ian W. Toll , Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
40
" War is the tao of deception. Therefore, when planning an attack, feign inactivity. When near, appear as if you are far away. When far away, create the illusion that you are near. If the enemy is efficient, prepare for him. If he is strong, evade him. If he is angry, agitate him. If he is arrogant, behave timidly so as to encourage his arrogance. If he is rested, cause him to exert himself. Advance when he does not expect you. Attack him when he is unprepared. —Sun-Tzu, The Art of War "
― Ian W. Toll , Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942