Summary

Chapter 11 takes place on Okinawa in May 1945. At this point the Germans have surrendered and Adolf Hitler has committed suicide, never fulfilling the nuclear ambitions Roosevelt was warned of in 1939. On the other side of the world, the American military forces have nearly brought their island-hopping strategy to fruition, arriving at the Okinawa islands. As bloody and costly as previous Allied victories had been in territories once occupied by the Japanese, Okinawa represents a new level of brutality, as the Japanese fight to “total extinction” (101), knowing that the fall of the islands would put the Allies only a few hundred miles from the mainland.

Elsewhere, MacArthur begins his plot to invade Japan, certain that an invasion of unprecedented size would convince Japan to surrender. However, at that moment, Hirohito oversees the construction of new army divisions and supplies. In parallel with MacArthur, Hirohito...