Museum, thank you to the museum for hiring me. I am the Senior Historian at the museum. Welcome to another installment of our meet the author series where we bring you the best world war ii literature and the men and women who write and create it. Before i introduce tonights offer, a man who needs no introduction, let me carry out the tradition of the National World war ii in museum. Are there any world war ii veterans or homefront workers in the audience tonight . There we go. I knew there were two right on top. To say we thank you for your services be understood that understand of the century. Any other era, please stand and be recognized. That is wonderful. Thanks to all of you for your support and service. We have incurred a group of friends with us in the museum and i would like to acknowledge each of them. Cspan, the folks from cspan are filming tonight. I want you to be on your best behavior because cspan is forever. I want to acknowledge those watching on our live stream and the trustees in the audience. The chairman of the board, i will ask you to stand one more time. Ted waggle and is here from california. Robert pretty is in the audience, there he is. And my dear friends, we dont have an event without him, doctor mike carey. Good to see you as always which finally, alan millet and bobby dupont. I see alan here and body over there. Welcome to you, dear friends and colleagues. I would like to thank ww florence and for making this event the official launch for the book under discussion tonight and covering the travel associated with it. Tonight we are going to hear about a book dealing with the pacific war. When you analyze the huge library of world war ii books, first thing you notice is the pacific war has not received the attention the war in europe has an far less than it deserves. Fortunately at the museum we always had the services and friendship of one of the leading scholars of the pacific theater, rich frank, he is employed by the museum but you wouldnt know it. He worked on Public Programs and advise us of any number of areas of expertise and interest especially related to the pacific war. He is the author of the definitive account of the landmark battle, downfall, end of the Imperial Japanese other and other works. Richard asked me to keep this short and im going to try. The list of accomplishments is worth noting. Rich is the Founding Member of the president of counselors Advisory Board that guides our museum and all we do is the contents, hes annual presenter at the international conference, a fan favorite, when rich stand up to talk people listen. The keynote at the recent guadalcanal symposium, still leads many educational travel programs, key historical advisor for the wonderful road to tokyo exhibit, involved with summer teacher institutes and our guide on the side for all things rich graduated from the university of missouri in 1969, serve four years in the u. S. Army during the vietnam war and a platoon leader in the Airborne Division and in 1976 graduated from Georgetown University law center. I met rich the way historians meet on History Channel shoot and rich was pretty famous and wellestablished and i wasnt. I thought rich was nicer to me than he had to be during that shoot and that is what i learned. Hes an expert in his field, he burns with desire to make sure you become an expert in his field. He is a compelling speaker but also one of the nicest people anyone has ever met and that is the best thing of all. Tonight which will be speaking about the first volume of his intended trilogy on the asia pacific theater, a history of the asia pacific war, tower of skulls a histoy of the asiapacific war. Did i keep it short . My pleasure to call my friends to the podium, richard frank. [applause] thank you very much. I want to thank the museum for having me for this event. This is a fabulous institution, perfect harmony of mission, vision, execution, in terms of history. We like to tell stories. Leon graduated from the naval academy, survivor of the uss arizona and was awarded the navy cross for his heroism of okinawa in 1945. Leon was going to say until us about the days of the academy. I did very well at the academy. I did well in math and science but my downfall was english. You see, my parents were jewish. I was born in france, first three years i spoke i spoke french. Moved to the us, next two years i spoke you dish, then moved to new jersey. They dont speak english a. In a way, the tiein is this is about something we dont speak about and that is this trilogy i have been preparing for what i call the asia pacific war. In world war ii, the greatest story in human history. It touched almost all of the 2. 3 million human beings who lived at that time, cascaded through the generations right to today. We have developed the standard narrative, world war ii began in september of 1939 when adolf hitler rated poland and the other part which we refer to as the pacific war, that began in 1941 with japans attack on pearl harbor. What im doing with this trilogy is to rewrite the second parts of world war ii, to call in asia pacific war not simply the pacific war, specifically intended to write into the history, the ark of asia and 1937 that arc which basically ran in the west from india which was also pakistan and bangladesh, east across china to japan and southeast to what is now called indonesia and in that region there are 1 billion people close to half the population of the globe if not half, yet among that region most of those people live in colonialism and only four nationstates with any claim of sovereignty, siam surely became thailand and japan had sovereignty and mongolia which was a soviet satellite and had no real sovereignty in china which had highly compromised sovereignty. Everywhere else was a colonial institution. The one notable special case is in the philippines they were effectively a colony but promised independence in 1944, acting as commonwealth managing their own domestic affairs. In the exact same region we have 19 major nations including india, china, and all have sovereignty and the story of how they got where they are today is fundamentally connected to what happened 19371945, that is the longterm arc, not just 4745 but how those events, with this enormous area of asia which is instrumental to where we live today. The other thing is this. We dont know how many human beings in world war ii, we usually use 60 million is a suitable figure. I attempted to put together a number from academic sources, the total death toll in the asiapacific phase is 25 million. Only 6 million work on battens, soldiers, sailors, airmen. Of that number the number of americans who combat, 1000 or so counting and that immediately tells you there are 19 million noncombatant deaths. The number of japanese noncombatants, approximately 813,000 but for purposes of this discussion i call it 1 million or 1. 2 million. What that tells you is for every japanese noncombatant who died in the asiapacific war, 17 or 18 noncombatants died, 12 were chinese. If you take the total number of chinese deaths and do a linear projection, 4000 chinese noncombatants are dying every single day of the war for eight years. If you take the other part of asia, japan occupies in december of 1941, not half as many half the time but also works out to 4000 deaths per day. By 1945, the summer, there are 8000 nonjapanese noncombatants dying every day. And who knows, 15, 16 million have already died at that point. What im doing with this trilogy is attempting 1 billion people, 85 of the asiapacific war, 20 Million People which is the total number of deaths, and where we are in the 21st century. I would be gracious in answering questions, queries and challenges to my work but one thing i will not respond to quietly is the charge that i lack ambition. There are four features of the trilogy present in the book. Most essentially a work of synthesis putting together the best scholarship from all over the world being guided by Wonderful Group of colleagues i met over the years who frequently are the top leaders in their field and their guidance in other sources and they vetted the manuscript. I drilled down wherever i can in certain areas of interest to me like radio intelligence and diplomacy of 1941, to present my own work but fundamentally i would describe this as synthesis. As i indicated this is an attempt to put together in a single narrative with all situations what we used to call the pacific war between the us and japan and the war across the ark of asia. The third thing that characterizes this work is wonderful quote from Franklin Roosevelt i use as an epigraph, he was asked by his ambassador to japan in december of 1940 for guidance for how relationships should be conducted and president roosevelt said the fundamental thing to remember in europe, africa and asia are all part of one global war. What i tried to do throughout this narrative is look back and forth at what is going on in europe and the asiapacific region, where they do or do not affect one another. The final thing is although chronology and military events provide the basic skeleton of this whole thing this narrative branch is well out from that, political and economic social effect, those are so critical how to get to the story of how we ended up in the 21st century in this region. I would like to take two instances, two examples to show how these features linked together. I want to talk about china in 193738, how this branches out. The first thing to bear in mind is china in 1937, i call the fractured state. Japan occupied mention area in 1931 and dominated provinces leading to the northeast of china. Beyond that it was not simply as commonly given the notion that china has been divided between the nationalists under shanghai check and communists under mouse a tongue mao see tongue. It is a mosaic of regional and local powerbrokers, the most dominant of those is the nationalist party under shanghai check, these are the most prosperous in china. They contain 170 Million People which is over a third the total estimate which is 450 million chinese of the time. Once you get beyond what nationalists hold, it is a crazy quilt of reasonable and local powerbrokers. The Chinese Communist party is very near its nadir. They were driven out of the original base area, and at that point the area controlled by mao and the chinese, which is not 3 of chinas population, it is 3 tenths of one of chinas population. The Chinese Forces were likewise fractured. Chang and the nationalists had 1000 men under arms, the best trained and best equipped in china, one of 7 of the total of the 2. 1 million chinese underarms. Chinese communists have 50,000 men on role in the red army and 31,000 of them have one. 5 . Looking at china not only fragmented in all these different leaders at regional and local level but the armed forces are fragmented and Chiang Kaishek should be viewed not as the commander in chief of one great chinese army but the preside are over this loose confederation which will take on japan and that brings us to Chiang Kaishek himself. His reputation has gone through a roller coaster and the opinion of the public and historians. What is particularly valuable to me was in the last 15 or 20 years theres been a great outpouring of fresh archival based history about china and one of the most important aspect of that is the diaries were published in 2007 and it is difficult to understate how dramatic were the attitudes and understanding of what Chiang Kaishek was about. He was never interested in fighting the japanese, he was only interested in having a showdown ballot with the Chinese Communists. What you get from the diaries and other documents is after japan seized manchuria, Chiang Kaishek new that for china to ultimately gain its sovereignty there was going to have to be a showdown battle with japan but what a formidable task it would be to take on in. Japan and he believed china must seek unity which is part of the policy pursued and launched a great number of planning initiatives to prepare china for the moment they would take on japan. We have documentation that that is what he was doing. 1000 days left, he was off by 43 days with that statement. He projected when this war broke out between china and japan there would be a world war, china would be able to subdue japan beyond the basic capabilities so that is a different slant on Chiang Kaishek. What happened in july of 1937, the marco polo bridge incident, a skirmish between chinese and Japanese Forces which through a chain of events will eventually lead to sustained combat for the next eight years and when this breaks out, Chiang Kaishek society must ask forbearance in the policy of preparing, now he must make war. He looks at where the fighting broke out in northern china which has terrain he believes favors the japanese and disfavors the chinese. He believes the place for the chinese to make their first stand is in shanghai with crowded urban areas maximizing strength of small arms and minimize japanese strength in firepower and capability. There is going to be a tremendous battle in shanghai which goes on from august to november of 1937. Before it is over, 3 quarters of 1 million chinese troops fight in and around shanghai. This is by far the biggest battle in a city, stalingrad in 1932. What you have to understand when this breaks out is the chinese Central Government has for exactly a century been unable to sustain a war for more than at best a year, usually less. Most of these clashes have ended in chinese defeat. When the fighting goes on in shanghai in days and weeks and months as the chinese slip away, it is establishing effective sustained resistance that have been wanting china for almost a century. This a delicious moment in this black humor. New york times reporter talking to Japanese Imperial spokesperson, we call now a spin doctor and the New York Times reporter saying this battle has been going on a long time. Why havent you routed the chinese . The japanese Spokesman Says the chinese know so little of tactics they dont know when to retreat. The chinese eventually do have to retreat. They are defeated and are shredded by the end of the battle but notwithstanding the fact they lose from the chinese perspective. The fact they held out sustained resistance against the japanese. Like the American Battle of boot hill, we lose the hill but we are sustained in the notion we demonstrated we are ready to stand and fight so to tell with the british, the chinese and japanese. China will go through one enormous period of pain and suffering and that begins when the Japanese Armys lead from shanghai and march to the nationalist capital where they commit what is referred to as i have a chapter on that. I wont touch on that except to say the japanese get there and the chinese are not given in. They continue up the Yangtze River heading towards the wuhan cities where Chiang Kaishek evacuated his military headquarters battle that takes most of 1938. When this battle begins the chinese achieve a notable victory which is like recharging their battery. They are Senior Leaders believe if we hang on and tough it out we will prevail. The japanese one of their fronts breakthrough in june of 1938 cents for a moment knockout and get to wuhan and knockout military headquarters was in one of the most devastating decisions Chiang Kaishek will make in his lifetime hes convinced by his subordinates the only thing to stop the japanese advance is to breach the yellow river dikes. He gets the order and in june of 1938 these dikes are breached and unleashes an incredible torrent and kills somewhere between half 1,000,900,000 chinese by various counts, the greatest environmental disaster of world war ii by a large margin. Can you imagine an event of this magnitude of this nature occurring in europe and you never heard of it . One of the most striking examples of how little we have recorded the history of the asiapacific war. This halts that particular breakthrough in the fighting continues through the summer. The japanese are superior in firepower, military craft, air support they also use poison gas. They are the only major combatant who uses poison gas on the battlefield as far as we know and they use that as their trump card when they are in a difficult situation. The chinese are recipients of poison gas was in october of 1938 the japanese close and capture wuhan. Rather than regarding this is a disaster for the chinese, the chinese side, a reinforcement of the notion that if we just tough it out and hang on eventually we can prevail and we found out many years later that in tokyo, imperial general headquarters, the most Senior Operations officer, they record at that point that basically it looks as though it is impossible for japan to prevail by military means alone. They purchased a quagmire, not a victory for success. I talked about 3738, highlighted the military affects and what i want to get into is what is happening internally, domestically, politically and economically as a result of these campaigns. The first thing we notice is in the summer of 1938 is an event, identified by historians as the most open period, the freest expression period on Mainland China that is going to occur in the twentieth century. There is a united front that is more than a slogan at that time, free expression, publications across the political spectrum, no editor of any publication is killed in wuhan, as a result of the japanese advances there has been tremendous mingling of chinese intellectuals and this is the biggest mingling that had taken place in chinese history after that so this is a seminal moment although it is a wistful one. What might have been. The second thing that is significant that comes into play is there is a stupendous generation of refugees as a result of japans war on china.