Free A World at Arms by Gerhard L. Weinberg

key figure in the Imperial Japanese navy, Ugaki Matome, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1991). The best works on Douglas MacArthur are D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol. 2: 1941–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), and Carol M. Petillo, Douglas MacArthur: The Philippine Years (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 1981). There are useful tactical details, even if a lot of political nonsense, in Ohmae Toshikazu, “Die strategischen Konzeptionen der Japanischen Marine im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” Marine-Rundschau 53 (1956), 179–203. On submarines, the best introductions are Carl Boyd, “The Japanese Submarine Force and the Legacy of Strategic and Operational Doctrine Developed between the World Wars,” inLarry Addington et al. (eds.), Selected Papers from The Citadel Conference on War and Diplomacy 1978 (Charleston, S.C.: The Citadel Development Foundation, 1979), and Wilfred J. Holmes, Undersea Viaory: The Influence of Submarine Operations on the War in the Pacific (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966).
    On specific engagements in the Pacific, it is still wise to start with the official histories. In addition, Brian Garfield, The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969), provides an excellent survey of that campaign; John J. Stephan, Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan’s Plan for Conquest after Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1984), is essential reading on the early part of the Pacific War; Bert Webber, Silent Siege: Japanese Attacks against North America in World War II (Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1983), provides the most comprehensive coverage of the Japanese effort to burn down the western portions of the United States and Canada; and three of the critical battles are brilliantly handled in the books of Harry A. Gailey: Bougainville, 1943–1945: The Forgotten Campaign (Lexington, Ky.: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991), Howlin’ Mad versus the Army: Conflict in Command, Saipan 1944 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1986), and Peleliu, 1944 (Annapolis, Md.: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1983).
    On the war in South and Southeast Asia, once again the official histories are most useful. On India in the war, there are Milan Hauner, India in Axis Strategy: Germany, Japan and Indian Nationalists in World War II (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), and Johannes H. Voigt, Indien im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978). Of the vast literature on the campaign in Malaya and the fall of Singapore, I have found Louis Allen, Singapore 1941–1942 (London: Davis-Poynter, 1977), most helpful; certainly his Burma: The Longest War 1941–1945 (London: Dent, 1984) is the most comprehensive and thoughtful account of that campaign. The theater is also covered by the official American army histories of Charles Romanus and Riley Sutherland; focusing on the central American figure is the very readable book by Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911–1945 (New York: Bantam, 1972, and other eds.). The final land campaign in Asia is most effectively handled by David M. Glantz, August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 1983).
    As records pertaining to intelligence operations and weaponry have been declassified in recent years, there has been a substantial literature of a serious type slowly, but far too slowly, replacing the fanciful inventions of earlier publications. On intelligence activities, see Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds.), The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984); Horst Boog, “German Air Intelligence in the Second World War,” Intelligence and National Security 5 (1990), 350–424; John W.M. Chapman, “German Signals Intelligence and the Pacific War,” Proceedings