Good evening, everyone. Im robert citino, executive director of the institute for the study of war and democracy here at the National WorldWar Ii Museum. Thank you. Thank you to the museum for hiring me. I appreciate that. Every two weeks i appreciate it. Im also the samuel Senior Historian at the museum which is perhaps my proudest boast. Welcome to another installment of our meet the authors heres here at the museum where we bring you the best new world war ii literature and the men and women who write and create it. For i have just two nights, a man who needs no introduction, let me carry out the tradition of the National WorldWar Ii Museum at all all of public programming. Are there by any chance any world war ii veterans or homefront workers in the audience tonight . There we go. All right. I knew there were two right up front. [applause] and to say we thank you for your service is an understatement of the century. In the veterans of any other service or any other era please stand and be recognized if you would. Thats always wonderful. [applause] thanks to all of you for your support and service. We have an Incredible Group of friends with us tonight here in the museum and i would like to mention it and it does each of them. Cspan, the good folks from cspan are here filling the nights events of its always one of the. I want you to be under best behavior because cspan is forever. I would like to knowledge of those watching at home on our live stream and again is always the trustees in the audience. We have the chairman of the board, paul hilliard, ill ask you to stand one more time if you would. [applause] ted waggling its year with some friends from california. Robert pretty is in the audience. I know this because ive just seen him, and there he is. [applause] and, of course, my dear friend and we dont have an anybody without them, dr. Mike. [applause] good to see you as always. Finally, friends professors alan and bobby dupont from the university of new orleans. Welcome to the two of you, dear friends and colleagues, proud to call you colleagues. [applause] id also like to thank the publisher ww norton for making this event the official launch for the book under discussion tonight and for covering the travel expenses associated with it. Tonight were going to be hearing a book about a book that deals with the pacific war. When you analyze a huge library of world war ii books and what it do for living, the first thing you notice is the pacific war is not receiving method of attention that the work in your past and, in fact, i think it has received far less than it deserves. Fortunately, here at the museum weve always had the services and the friendship of one of the leading scholars of the pacific theater, and that is our dear friend Richard Frank. He isnt employed by the museum but you would know it. He works on all our Public Programs and advises us on any number of areas of expertise in areas of interest especially related to the pacific war turkey is the author of guadalcanal, downfall, the end of the Imperial Japanese empire amongst other works. Richard has asked me to keep this short and going to try but the list of accomplishments i think is worth noting. Rich is a Founding Member onetime convener of the president to counselors Advisory Board that guides our museum and all we do related to content. Hes an annual presenter at our International Conference on one or two. A fan favorite for sure when rich stands up to talk people listen like ef hutton. He was a keynoter at a recent guadalcanal symposium and still its been over Museum Education travel programs, overseas key historical advisor for our wonderful road to tokyo permanent exhibit to keep involved at institutes and because i called and guide on the site for all things pacific. Just a quick bio, which graduated from university of missouri back in 1969 at which he served four for years and ys army during the vietnam war come served a tour of duty with the 101st airborne. In 1976 in 1976 graduated from the Georgetown University law center. I met rich in the way historians meet, on a History Channel shoot. Which was pretty famous, pretty wellestablished and i wasnt. I thought which was about 200 nicer then had to be doing that shoot at thats what i learned about it that that is an expern his field, he burns with a desire to make sure you become an expert in his field. Hes a compelling speaker but hes also one of the nicest people anyone is ever met and i think maybe thats the best thing of all. Tonight which will be speaking about the first volume of his intended trilogy on the asia pacific theater. Tower of skulls is called. Did that keep it short . Its my pleasure to call my friend to the podium, ladies and gentlemen, Richard Frank. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. I want to thank the museum for having here for this event for this kickoff event. This museum is just a fabulous institution. Its the perfect harmony of mission, vision and execution, and its a Great Institution in this entire country i think in terms of history. One of our traditions here is that we like to tell stories. Let me start with one. Leon graduate from the United StatesNaval Academy in 1941. He was a survivor of the uss arizona and was awarded the navy cross, just below the medal of honor for his heroism in 1945. The interviewer, was going through various things and finally, tell us about your days at the academy. Leon says actually i i did very well at the academy. I was very strong in math and science, but my downfall was english. You see, my parents were jewish and i was born in france come first three years i spoke i spoke french. Then we moved to the u. S. And the next two years i spoke yiddish. And then we moved to new jersey, but they dont speak english in there. [laughing] so in a way that tiein is that this is also not something we dont speak or speak about, and thats this trilogy that i have been preparing on what i call the asia pacific war. We have in world war ii the greatest story in Human History here it literally went over the globe. Touch almost all of the estimated 2. 3 million human beings who lived at that time and, in fact, has cascaded through generations right to today. We have in this developed what i call the standard narrative. And that standard narrative we use in u. S. And that used for decades we safe world war ii began in september 1939 when adolf hitler invaded poland. Then we have the other half, the other part of world war ii which we conventionally referred to as the pacific war and that beginning december 1941 with japans attack on the u. S. At pearl harbor. What im doing with his trilogy basically is to rewrite what we call that second part of world war ii, to call it an asiapacific war that simply the pacific war. And that is specifically intended to write in to the history what i call the ark of asia. In 1937 that arc which basically ran in the west from what was then india which is also pakistan and bangladesh, ran east across china to japan and it also ran southeast to what estelle called indonesia. In that region there were over a billion people, very close to half the population of the globe, if not half. Yet among that whole population, that whole region, most of those people live in the colonialism and the only four nationstates with any claim of sovereignty, two, siam which are shortly bee thailand, japan actually had sovereignty, and mongolia which was a soviet satellite and had no real sovereignty, and china which had highly compromised sovereignty. Everywhere else it was a colonial institution. The one notable special case, the philippines work effectively in American Government but theyve been promised independence and their acting as a commonwealth managing their own domestic affairs. Today in that exact same region we have at least 19 major nations, of course including india and china, and they all have sovereignty. And the story of how they got to where they are today is fundamentally connected to what happened between 19371945, and that is the longterm arc of this trilogy. Its not just about what happens from 3745. It is how those events formulated what happened with all these other nations and this enormous area of asia which now is so instrumental in the world we live in today. The other thing about talking about this arc of age is this. We dont know exactly how many human beings perished in world war ii. We usually use about 60 million as a suitable figure. I attempted to put together a number from academic sources and various scholars. I think the total death toll in the asiapacific phase of the war is about 25 million. Of that 25 million only about 6 million were combatants, soldiers, sailors, airmen. Of that number in fact, the number of americans, combatants who perish in the asiapacific theater was about 110,000. That tells you that there are 19 million noncombatant deaths. The number of japanese noncombatants who died in the war i think probably is approximately 813,000 but just for purposes of this discussion i just call the japanese total and million or 1. 2 million. What that tells your event is for every japanese noncombatants who died, and a asiapacific war between 17 and 18 of the noncombatants died, about 12 or chinese. If you take the total number of chinese deaths and do a projection along the eight years of war, 1000 chinese noncombatants are dying every single day of the war for eight years. If you take the other part of asia that japan occupies most after december 1941, its not half as many, about half the time. It also works out to about 4000 deaths per day. By december 1945 there are approximately 8000 nonjapanese noncombatants dying every day, and who knows, 16 million have already died when we get to that point in the war. What im doing with his trilogy is attempting to write back into our standard narrative a billion people, about 85 of the deaths or more in asiapacific war which is 29 people which is about a third the total number of deaths and also tying those events into where we are in the 21st century. I like to think im very gracious in answering questions, queries, even challenges to my work at the one thing to which i will not respond quietly is a charge that i lack ambition. There are four features of the trilogy that are also present in this book. The first of which is that is most essentially a work of synthesis putting together the very best scholarship i could gather from all over the world being guided by the Wonderful Group of colleagues i met over the years who frequently are the top leaders in their particular field and their guidance to other sources. They are also vetted the manuscript. Ive also drilled down wherever i can in certain areas of particular interest to me like radio intelligence, u. S. Japan diplomacy and 9041 and other areas to present my own work in this but fundamentally i would describe this as synthesis. The second feature is that as indicated this is an attempt to patch together in a single narrative with fair balance to all parties and all situations both what we used to call the pacific war between the u. S. And japan and this war across the ark of asia. But the third thing that characterizes this war, theres wonderful quote from president Franklin Roosevelt used as a epigraph and he was asked by his ambassador to japan in december 1940 for guidance and how relationships between the u. S. And japan should be conducted. President roosevelt said the fundamental thing to remember is that events in europe, in africa and asia are all part of one global war. And what i have tried to do throughout this narrative is to be looking back and forth to whats going on in europe and whats going on in the asiapacific region to show where they do or do not affect one another. The final thing about this is although colonel jim miller treatment provide the basic skeleton of this whole thing, this narrative branches while out from that into political, economic and social effects of the war because those are so critical as to how were going to get to the story of how we ended up in in the 21st century in this region. What i would like to do tonight is something take two instances or examples out of tower of skulls to show all these features linked together. The first am going to talk about is china in 1937 and 1938, 193d youll see the chronology, the military affairs and how this branches out. The first thing is to bear in mind that china in 1937, i call it the fractured state. At that time japan had occupied in 1931 and dominated provinces leading down toward the great wall in 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 the communists under mao zedong. Its a very much more complex picture. The rest of china is basically one gigantic mosaic of regional and local powerbrokers. The most dominant of those, however, is the nationalist party under shanghai check. They occupy seven promises in the lower valley. These are julie the most prosperous in china. They contain about 170 Million People which is somewhat over a third of the total of which is about 450 million chinese at that time. Once you get behind with the nationals hold, its just this incredible crazy quilt of various other powerbrokers both regional and local. At that time in july 1937 the Chinese Communist party is very nearly at its nadir. They have come up with call the long march winner driven out of their original base area. They set up around and at that point the area controlled by mao and the Chinese Communist party has about 1. 45 Million People which is not 3 of chinas population. Its threetenths of 1 of chinas population. The Chinese Armed forces at the time are likewise fractured. The nationalists have about 300,000 men under arms. Theyre generally the best trained and best equipped in china. Thats about one out of seven of the total of the 2. 1 million chinese under arms. The Chinese Communists at that point a 50,000 men on the roles of the red army only 31,000 have weapons, or about 1. 5 of all the chinese under arms. Youre looking at a china not only fragmented and all of these different leaders of regional and local level but the armed forces also were fragmented. And Chiang Kaishek should be viewed not as sort of the commanderinchief of one great chinese army come here sort of the preside over this loose confederation which is going to take on japan. That brings us to chiang himself. His reputation has gone through a roller coaster in the opinion of the public and also among historians. What was particularly bilevel or invaluable to me was that in the last 15, 20 years this been a great outpouring of fresh new archivalbased history about china in this period and one of the most important aspects about that is that they were published in 2007 and its difficult to understand how dramatic the war was affecting peoples attitudes and understanding what chiang was all about. Quite basically one part of the alternative was that chiang was never interested in fighting the japanese, old interested in having a showdown battle with the Chinese Communists. In fact, what you get from the diaries and other documents is after japan seized manchuria in 1931, chiang do in order for china to ultimately gain its sovereignty, there would have to be showdown battle with japan. He understood as soldiers just what a a formidable task woulde to take on imperial japan. And he believed china must seek unity before resistance which is part of the policy pursued and secondly launched a great number of initiatives, planning initiatives to prepare china for the moment when they would take on japan. We have documentary trail on that that shows thats exactly what he was doing. He gave a talk to senior nationalist leaders in march 1934 in which he said there were only 1000 days left until war with japan and he was off i only 43 days with that statement. He also projected that basically when this war broke out between china and japan ultimately they would be a world war and china would gain allies in this world war would be able to subdue japan which was beyond chinas basic capability at that time. Thats a very different story slant on chiang. What happens in july 1937 is known outside of china as a marco polo incident which is a skirmish between chinese and Japanese Forces which through a chain of events i talk about is eventually going to lead to sustained combat with the next eight years. When this initially breaks out, chiang decides the hour has come where he must now strike. He could no longer ask for forbearance in this policy are preparing for war. Now we must make war. As he looks around he looks at where the fighting First World War broke out and thats up in northern china which has terrain which he believes greatly favors the japanese and greatly disfavors the chinese. So he believes the correct place for the chinese to make their first stint is, in fact, in shanghai where its crowded urban areas will maximize the strength of chinese numbers and small arms and minimize the japanese strakes in firepower mobility, air support and other things like that. So there is going to be this tremendous battle in shanghai which goes on from august to november 1937. Before its over threequarters of 1 million chinese troops are going to fight in iraq shanghai. A quarter of the main japanese troops are going to fight in shanghai. This is by far by far the biggest battle in the city. What you have to understand when this battle breaks out is that chinese Central Government has for literally almost exactly a century been unable to sustain a war against a westernized power for more than it does to you, usually a lot less and most of these clashes that ended any humiliating chinese defeat. So the fact that society goes on in shanghai for days, then weeks and then months, even as a chinese began to slip aw