And we finally come to the end of the war against both Germany and Japan, rather curiously combined into a single chapter. The start is the last gasp of the Battle of the Atlantic, which now is sharing not only with invasions in Europe but also with an entirely different ocean's war. I feel like noting that while the Type XXI and its successors were a serious problem for ASW forces postwar, the sheer number of escorts available and the inexperience of the German skippers probably made it somewhat less of a threat than it sounded like. As for the Type XXVI, hydrogen peroxide may be a relatively mild substance by the standards of rocket oxidizers, but it's still nasty, nasty stuff to be trapped in a submarine with, and I don't think the Germans would have been able to get it working as their war machine collapses, given the failures of the victorious Allies to make it functional postwar.
Back in the Pacific, we see the battleships getting into the action against the Japanese mainland, as well as the sad tale of Indianapolis, by far the most overdone story of the Pacific War relative to its importance. (I have seen libraries where their entire naval section was three SEAL memoirs and two books on this tragedy.) More fun is the discussion of the massive underway replenishment effort, a subject I've always loved.
I would describe Morison's take on the Japanese surrender as pretty accurate to more recent scholarship, although with a bit of Hirohito-mythologizing thrown in, as was standard at the time. We simply don't know what Hirohito actually thought, basically as a result of a conspiracy by both Japanese and Americans in the immediate postwar years to protect him from any war guilt. (There's probably more evidence in favor of him being reluctant than gung-ho, but we don't know much either way.) There's also decent evidence that in the days before the Japanese surrender, as the scale of casualties from an invasion became apparent to American planners, the idea of a direct invasion of the Japanese home islands was being reevaluated, and probably wouldn't have actually taken place.
Morison also skips over Truman's scandalously nepotistic decision to hold the surrender ceremony aboard Missouri, thus denying Iowa her rightful place. And I don't love that he dates the start of the war to the attack on Pearl Harbor, instead of the Japanese attack on China in 1937.
Because it's short, I'm also going to cover the conclusion here. This is where Morison seems to fully switch to editorial mode and start polishing the halos really hard, although I was also amused by his comments on the need for gunfire support in amphibious landings and confused by his complaints about the lack of torpedoes on ships bigger than destroyers. King's section seems the most overtly political, with references to the postwar situations in Malaya and Indonesia, as well as a tiny bit of MacArthur-bashing. Beyond that, it's mostly a catalog of Admirals who did a good job (Fletcher being notable by his absence, which is better than the alternative) and a call for a strong Navy, which I can't really disagree with.
Hope everyone has enjoyed this series. I'm going to take a couple weeks off before I start another book.
Comments
OTOH once they got nuclear power the major powers basically abandoned AIP for quite a bit of time.
Yes, but they spent a decade plus trying to get AIP working before nuclear showed up and swept the field. The British actually commissioned two peroxide submarines in the mid-50s, and the experience is best summed up by a comment from one of them: "I think the best thing we can do with peroxide is to try to get it adopted by potential enemies."
(Note to self: Friedman has like 20 pages on the British HTP adventure in one of his books. I should use this.)
The events in Japan from mid-August up until the formal surrender signing are pretty fascinating including the palace coup, B-32 flights, landings at Atsugi and Yokosuka, sailing into Tokyo bay, return of Gen. Wainwright. A lot to unpack.
@bean: WWII After WWII just did a post about the Walter system and HTP work after the war a few months back. Interesting stuff, if horrifying. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2026/03/21/walter-u-boat-technology-after-wwii/
Re: the Japanese surrender. Frank’s Downfall is on my list and I’ve only seen extracts from it on Twitter, but one of my takeaways is that not enough appreciation/credit is given to PM Suzuki for asking the Emperor what His Majesty’s would have them do (an act essentially unprecedented in the Meiji era and maybe not something anybody would have thought of doing since before the Daimyo era, actually) and the Emperor in ordering them to accept whatever terms they could get and end the war, because “him being tried and executed for war crimes” was still very much in play as an outcome at that point. I actually do think it’s an incredibly brave decision on his part to save his people.
Relatedly, it’s why I think the Demonstration Option would have partially worked in forcing the Japanese to surrender-I think that ultimately you had to force the Emperor to act to get the Army to accept it-although I still think you’re nuking one city to prove that you can make multiple bombs (so the chain ends up being “Demonstration Option in Tokyo Wan so the Emperor sees the mushroom cloud to show we have The Bomb, nuking a city to show we can make more than one of them. The problem with that option as put forward by the revisionist camp is that it was ended as an option even when FDR is President, so it was never really in play anyway).