A great conclusion to the Pacific War Trilogy, this book covers just a year of time but is the longest of the books- Toll explains in his Forward that he wanted to get in material he had left out of the previous books, focused on things like the home front, politics in the US and Japan, the submarine actions of the war, etc.

Toll is a great writer, with the perfect blend of flowery prose and precise explication for a popular work of non-fiction. I rate this book a half star below the other two just because this volume seems a bit bloated- it seems like every time the battleships bombard an island prior to an amphibious invasion, he hauls out a slightly different version of the same observation, that "it's hard to imagine how anyone could survive such an awesome display of power". And there's time spent on unnecessary detail- I don't think we need to know where everyone stood for the signing ceremony ending the war.

But overall it's great, and a fast read in spite of it's length. Highly recommended (but read the first two books first) ( )

Outstanding read. The author works through the events from both the American's prospective and the Japanese. ( )

The last volume in Toll's great history of the war in the Pacific. He covers McArthur and Halsey's peculiarities, the invasion of the Philippines, the battle of Leyte Gulf, the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Kamikazies, preparations for the invasion of Japan (an amphibious assault that would have been larger than the D-Day invasion), the atom bombs, and a detailed account of the Japanese government and military's "decision" to surrender. There are also discussions of US submarine warfare and the B-29. I highly recommend the whole three-volume history. ( )

Mr Toll has producedan excellent Capstone to his pacific Trilogy, and it has won a place on my shelves. His admittedly cinematic pacing and moving focus points tell the story of the closing days of the Pacific War very well. It does not spend space n the efforts of the Allies, but that ws not a stated aim at the beginning, and, as it stands, this is a fit companion to Rick Atkinson's Trilogy about the War in Europe.
This third volume contains some material on little visited in other histories of the war, such as the publicity machinery of MacArthur, and a chapter on the occupation of Japan, as well as discussion of the occupation arrangements and the difficulties of the repatriation of the American forces, with some notice of the unrulyness of the American public at the war's end. There is a discussion of course on the use of the Atomic bombs, which seems pretty evenminded, given the information and attitudes available at the time.
The title seems particularly apposite as several actions, like the establishment of a Japanese constitutional government were quite far reaching. ( )

The third and final volume of the author's War in the Pacific is well worth the extra pages he crams into this last book. It is not quite the same as the first two volumes. For starters, especially at the beginning, he digs into a lot of "lose ends" that are worth knowing but were passed over in the first two volumes. In at least one case, he goes back and covers an armaments subject for which he must have dug up even more insight since he first approached the subject. At first reading, it seemed redundant, but a closer look revealed more data than earlier. The bulk of the rest of the book is in keeping with the author's past flair for placing the reader as fully into the various battles as can be had without reverting to just a series of memoirs. Speaking of which, this books notes show a huge list of first-hand accounts from which he derived a comprehensive impression of each and every major conflict on which he reports. The reporting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa are especially emotionally taxing, which comes from the many separate tellings by numerous participants. After finishing this book, I went back and rewatched Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" film. It now seems a distortion of what took place, while still capturing a limited part of the emotional struggles. Finally, the book's Epilogue is both a very suitable conclusion to the three part set, as well as a masterful summary of many often overlooked but essential issues about the Pacific War, Japan, and reveals differences from the much more often documented European Theater of World War II. Even if, as a reader, one would not want to dig through the various war engagements, I would still recommend general history readers to read through the final chapter. It's that good, in my mind. Overall, I highly recommend the entire series. ( )