Thank you for hiring me. I appreciate that. Every two weeks. I appreciated pretty. Im also the samuels Senior Historian at the museum which is perhaps my proudest post. Welcome to another installment of our author series will we bring you the best world war ii literature and the men and women who create it. People tonight author, the truly needs no introduction, we carry out that tradition. Any chance are there any veterans in the audience tonight. There we go. [applause]. I knew there were some. [applause]. To say that we thank you for your services is an understatement of the century. Any veterans of any other service or any other era, please stand and be recognized if you would. [applause]. Wonderful. And again, thanks to all of you for your support and service. We have an Incredible Group of friends with us here tonight in the museum. Cspan, the good folks from cspan are here filming the event printed that is always wonderful that wanted to be under your best behavior. Because cspan is forever. I would like to acknowledge those watching at home in our lifestream and up again as always the trustees in the audience. At the chairman of the board, i will ask paul to stand if you would. [applause]. Ted is here from friends from california. Robert pretty is in the audience. Areas. [applause]. And of course different we dont have an adventure without them, doctor mike. [applause]. It is good to see you as always. Rob finally friends, from the university of new orleans, friends, dear friends and colleagues are here. Proud to call you colleagues. I would 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 we will be hearing about the book that deals with the pacific war. When you analyze this huge library of world war ii books and what i do for a living, the first thing you notice is that the pacific war has not received the amount of tension that the war europe has in fact i think it is received far less than it deserves. Now unfortunately, here is 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 rich frank. Which is not employed by the music that you would not know it. He certainly worked in all of our Public Programs and advises us of any number of areas of expertise in areas of interest especially related to the pacific war. He is the author of defendants and accounts of the landmark battle. Downfall, and of the japanese empire amongst other works pretty he is asked me keep this short. I will try. But a list of accomplishments that i think is worth noting. Founding member of president ial counselors and Advisory Boards the kaiser museum and all we to content. Annual International Commerce of world war ii, fan favorite for sure. When he stands up to talk, people listen likely of hutton. He led and still leads many of our Museum Educational travel programs overseas and keep historical advisor for wonderful road to tokyo. Permanent exhibit. I guess i would call him our guy the side for all things specific. He graduated from the university of the missouri. In 1969. And afterwards he served four years in the u. S. Army during the vietnam war and he was a platoon leader. In 1976 graduated from the Georgetown University law center printed i met rich the first time in the way that historians made, the History Channel shoot printed on that it was pretty famous and pretty well established. And i thought that he was about 200 percent nicer than he had to be doing that to predict he is an expert in his field any make sure that you become an expert in the field as well. He is a compelling speaker but also one of the nicest people anyone is ever met. And i think that is one of the best things of all. Now tonight, which will be speaking about the first volume of his intended trilogy on the age of Pacific Theater. It is called tower of skills. Volume one, july 1937 through may 1940. Do keep it short. It is my pleasure to call my friend to the podium, ladies and gentlemen richard frank. [applause]. One of our traditions here is that we like to tell stories. Let me start with one. Leon grabowski, graduated from the United StatesNaval Academy in 1941. It was a survivor of the uss arizona and and was awarded the navy cross just below the medal of honor for his heroism off okinawa in the 1945. In the interview leon said tell us about your days at the academy and liana said actually i did very well at the academy when 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 in the first three years i spoke i spoke french and then we moved to the u. S. In the next three years i spoke yiddish then we moved to new jersey but they dont speak english there. [laughter] in a way that titan is that this is also about something we dont speak about and that is this trilogy that i have been preparing on what i call the asia pacific war. We have in world war ii the greatest story i think in human history. Literally and riddled the globe, touched almost all the estimated 2. 3 million human beings who lived at that time and an effects have cascaded down to succeeding generations right to today. We have in this historiography developed, what i call, the standard narrative. We use this in the u. S. And have used it for decades and was a world war ii began in september 1939 when adolf hitler invaded poland but then we have the other half and the other part of world war ii which we can mentally refer to as the pacific war that began december 1941 with japans attack on the u. S. At pearl harbor. What i am doing with this trilogy basically is to rewrite what we call that second part of world war ii and to call it in asia pacific war, not simply the pacific war and that is specifically intended to write in to the history what i call the ark of asia and in 1937 that ark, which basically ran in the west from what was in india which was also pakistan and bangladesh ran east across china to japan and also ran southeast to what is now called indonesia. In that region there were over a billion people, pretty close to half the population of the globe, if not half yet among that full population and that whole region most of those people lived in colonialism and there were only four nationstates with any claim to sovereignty and what was in the siam charlie became thailand had sovereignty and mongolia which was the soviet satellite and had no real sovereignty in china which had highly compromised sovereignty. Everywhere else it was a Colonial Institution in the one notable special case outside of the philippines they were effectively an american colony but had promised independence in 1944 and are 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. The story of how they got to where they are today is fundamentally connected to what happened between 1937 in 1945 and that is a longterm arc of this trilogy. Its not just about what happens from 3745 but 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 this ark of asia is this, we dont know exactly how many human beings perish in world war ii but we usually use about 60 million as a suitable figure and i have attempted to put together a number for academic sources and the work of various scholars and the total death total in the asia pacific phase of the war is about 25 million. Of that 25 million only about 6 million were combatants, soldiers, sailors and airmen. Of that number in fact in the number of americans combatants who perished our 110,000 or so counting merchant mariners bird that tells you that there are 19 million noncombatant deaths and the number of japanese noncombatants who died in the war i think probably is approximately 813,000 but for purposes of this discussion i called it a japanese totaled out about 1. 2 million. What that tells you that is for every job japanese noncombatant who died in the asiapacific war between 17, 18 other noncombatants died, about 12 of them were chinese. In fact, if you take the total number of chinese deaths and do a linear projection along the eight years of war 4000 chinese noncombatants die everything the day of the war for eight years. If you take the other part of asia that japan occupies mostly after december 1941 its about half as many about half the time and also works out to about 4000 deaths a day so by the summer of 1935 there are approximately 8000 nonjapanese noncombatants dying dying every day and who knows, 50, 60 million have already died when we get to that point in the war. So what im doing with this trilogy is attempting to write back into our standard narrative a billion people about 85 of the deaths or more in the asiapacific war which is 20 Million People which is a third of the number of deaths and also tying those events into where we are in the 21st century. I like to think the very gracious in answering questions, queries and even challenges to my work but the one thing to which i will not respond quietly is the charge that i lack ambition. There are four features of the trilogy that are also present in this book in the first is which most essentially a work of synthesis putting together the very best scholarship i can gather from literally 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 of other sources. Theyve also vetted the manuscript and ive drilled down wherever i can in certain areas of particular interest to me like radio intelligence, usjapan diplomacy in 1941 and various other areas to present my own work in this but fundamentally i would scrub this as synthesis. The second feature is that as i 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. The third thing that characterizes this work there is a wonderful quote from president Franklin Roosevelt that i used as an epigraph and he was asked by his investor to japan in december 1944 guidance as to how relationships between the u. S. And japan should be conducted. President roosevelt said, the fundamental thing to remember is that events in europe and in africa and asia are all part of one global war. What i have tried to do throughout this narrative is to be looking back and forth to what is going on in europe and what is going on in the asiapacific region to show where they do or do not affect one another. The final thing about this is the chronology and military events provide a basic skeleton of this whole thing and this narrative branches while out from that into Political Economic and social effects of the war because those are so critical as to how we will get to the story of how we ended up in the 21st century in this region. What id like to do tonight is simply take two instances or two examples out of tower of skulls to show how all these features linked together so the first thing i will talk about is china in 1937, 1938 and you will see the chronology and 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 manchuria in 1931 and had dominated leading to the great wall in the northeast of china. Beyond that it was not simply as commonly given and the notion that china has been divided between the nationalist under [inaudible] and the communist under mao and its of very much more complex picture. The rest of china is basically one gigantic mosaic, regional and local powerbrokers and the most dominant of those, however, is the nationalist party under [inaudible] and they occupied seven provinces in the lower yangtze valley and these are generally the most prosperous and china and they contain about 170 Million People which is somewhat over a third of the total estimate which is about 450 million chinese at that time. Once you get beyond what the nationalists hold it is 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 the dear, they come off what they called the long march where they were german out of their original base area and settle up around [inaudible] and at that point the area controlled by the mile and the chinese, and his party in the main area has 1. 45 Million People which is not a 3 of chinas population, it is three tenths of 1 of chinas population. The chinese are forces are likewise fractured and the nationalists have about 300,000 men under arms generally the best trained and best equipped in china and thats about one out of seven of the total of the 2. 1 million chinese under arms. The Chinese Communist at that point have 50000 men on the roles of the red army with only 31000 of them have weapons or about 1. 5 of all the chinese under arms. So, you are looking at a china not only fragmented in all these different leaders of regional and local level but the armed forces also are fragmented and shang basically should be viewed not as commanderinchief are one great chinese army but he is the preside are over this loose confederation which will take on japan. That brings us to shang himself. His reputation has gone through a roller coaster in the opinion of the public and among historians and what was predictably invaluable to me was in the last 15, 20 years theres been a great outpouring of fresh, new archival based history about china in this time. And one of the most important aspects of that is the diaries of shang were published in 2007 and its difficult to understate how dramatic those were in affecting peoples attitudes and understanding what shang was all about. Quite basically one part of the older narrative was that shang was the never interested in fighting the japanese but only interested in ultimately having a showdown battle with the Chinese Communist. In fact, when you get from the diaries and other documents that have come out is that after japan sees manchuria in 1931 shang knew that in order for china to ultimately gain its sovereignty there was going to have to be a showdown battle with japan that he understood it as a soldier what a formidable task it would be to take on imperial japan. He believed that china must seek unity before resistance which is part of the policy pursued and secondly he launched a great number of initiatives planning initiatives that prepare china for the moment when they would take on japan. We have documentary trail on that that that is exactly what he was doing. He gave a talk to senior nationalist leader in march 1934 in which he said they were only a thousand days left until war with japan and he was off by only 43 days with that statement. He also projected that basically when this war broke out between china and japan ultimately there 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. So thats a very different story slant on shang. Now, what happens in july 1937 is known outside of china is the marco polo incident which is a service between chinese and Japanese Forces which, through a chain of events, i talk about eventually going to lead to sustained combat for the next eight years. When this initially breaks out shang decides that the hour has come or he must now strike and can no longer ask forbearance in the policy of preparing for war and now he must make corporate as he looks around he looks at where the fighting first broke out and thats up in northern china which has a terrain which he believes greatly favors the japanese and greatly disfavors the chinese. He believes the correct place for the chinese to make their first stand is, in fact, in shanghai or its crowded urban areas will maximize the strength of chinese numbers of small arms and minimize the japanese strength and firepower ability your support and other things like that. There will be this tremendous battle in shanghai which goes on from august until november 1937 and before it is over three quarters of a million chinese troops are going to fight in and around shanghai and a quarter of a million japanese troops are going to fight in shanghai and this is by far, by far the biggest battle in a city then stale and grad in 1942. What you have to understand is when this battle breaks out is that the chinese Central Government has literally almost exactly a century and unable to sustain a war against a westernized power for more than at best a year, usually a lot less and most of these classes have ended in a humiliating chinese defeat. The fact that this fighting goes on in shanghai four days and then weeks and then months even as the chinese began to slip away the battle began to subway from them its establishing something about sustained resistance that they have and wanting for china for almost a century. This is a delicious moment and has black humor. New york times reporter was talking to a Japanese ImperialArmy Spokesperson called a spin doctor and the New York Times reporter basically says you know, this battle has been going on and on for a long time so why havent you routed the chinese by now . The japanese Spokesman Says well, the chinese knows a little of tactics but they dont know when to retreat. The chinese eventually do have to retreat and defeated and pretty much shredded by the end of the battle but not withstanding the fact that they lose the chinese perspective the fact that they have held out sustained resistance against the japanese and its like the norman the American Battle of bunker hill. Were sustained in the notion that we are ready to stand up and fight tote to toe with so it is with