Killing the Rising Sun

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ISBN-10: 1427275866
ISBN-13: 9781427275868
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Full Title: Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan

Killing the Rising Sun was Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard's attempt to provide a general summary of the final months of the Pacific War. I would cut to the chase: I did not like the book and had a difficult time (though successful) maintaining the discipline to complete the book. From a history perspective, because the authors had chosen such a vast scope, they had to pick and choose topics to include, and in that persuit they made some interesting choices that I would not necessarily agree with. For example, the pages devoted to Iwo Jima and Okinawa seemed to be disproportionally few when compared to Peleliu, which was generally agreed as relatively an inconsequential endeavor. The authors also seemed to have trouble separation drama and fact. In one balatant instance, while describing the Operation Meetinghouse bombing of Tokyo, in one sentence they wrote that the river water was "boiling" due to the intense heat of the conflagration, but a couple of sentences later they talked about dead bodies floating in the "icy waters" of the river. In the forward, O'Reilly wrote that "We live in a time of spin and deception. It is important to know the truth." Was the boiling river the truth, or was the icy river the truth? If I could not trust the authors' description of a simple landscape, could I trust the more complex core material of the book?

I had reviewed this title in its audio book format. Robert Petkoff did a decent job reading.

O'Reilly and Dugard's Killing the Rising Sun would certainly be on my list of books to avoid.



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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Doug Barnett says:
20 Oct 2021 10:59:34 PM

According to "www data jma go jp/" the average minimum temperature @ lat. 35deg.41.5'N, 139deg.45.0'E (Tokyo) was 1.9 deg.C for March of 1945 and 8.3 deg.C for March in 2021. Disclaimer: My Father was awarded the LOM by the USAAF for his work designing the firestorm. He was OSS-USNavy

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More on Killing the Rising Sun
Related People:
» Showa
» Basilone, John
» MacArthur, Douglas

Related Events:
» Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
» Bombing of Tokyo and Other Cities
» Preparations for Invasion of Japan

Affiliated Link:
» Killing the Rising Sun
Famous WW2 Quote
"With Germany arming at breakneck speed, England lost in a pacifist dream, France corrupt and torn by dissension, America remote and indifferent... do you not tremble for your children?"

Winston Churchill, 1935


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