The Senior Historian at the National WorldWar Ii Museum in beautiful new orleans, louisiana. We have a really superb guest with us tonight, a friend of the museum, my friend and a wonderful writer and ahor, ian toll. Ian, welcome. Thank you, rob. Ian probably is one of those people who with, you know, doesnt really need an introduction, as we like to say. You all know what that means, the introduction should be really long. Ians an extremely accomplished scholar and writer. Hes the author of six [inaudible] the founding of the u. S. Navy as well as a trilogy called the pacific war, the third volume of which has just been released called twilight of the gods. Hes won the Samuel Elliot morrisonward from the naval orr of the United States, hes won the william e. Colby militaryriters award, hes won the other morrison award given by the uss constitutio museum. If theres any more morrison awards out there, i fully expect to see you winning one in the not too distant future. But thanks so much for spending some time talking with us about twilight of the gods. Its my pleasure and honor. Im always struck by how an author chooses the story. This is a big story, in the pacific 44, 45, the biggest naval battle of all time. Jam packed with action of every sort. But you begin this bk in an interesting way, in the realm of politics. I thought it was really nice lu done you nicely. You look especially at fdr and Douglas Macthur . Ill even expand on my question, a lot of people a opening up ians old book because they want to get [inaudible] so [inaudible] military history, theres an expectation that theres going to be lead in the air at least by the Second Chapter and, you know, in this case you really have to wait until the third, almost 100 pages into the book. You know, it is an unconventional way to begin a work of military history. My thought was id had a little bit of latitude in this case because its the third volume of the trilogy, and and a lot of people who are reading it have already read the first two, to theyre either committed to read it or not. But, you know, basically my observation was looking at the pacific war was that there was a lot of literature about fdr, a lot about macarthur. I like to say theres a pickup truck full of fdr biographies, you know, and i dont think thats an exaggeration. Theres a large wheel wheelbarrow full of macarthur biographies. These are two of the most fascinating figures of 20th century history. And biographers love them for obvious reasons. So the story of the Pacific Command conference which took place in oahu, the island of oahu in july of 1944, that story has just been told over and over and over again because of how frequently new biographies are coming out of both fdr and mcarthur and, of course, thats a featured incident, either of those two, because it was a dramatic meeting that took place. First time they had met in seven years. And two of, as i said, two of the most colorful figures of that period of American History. For that reason, and i think this actually started during the war in the way that the press covered this event, we have tended to look at that meeting through the prism of more than politics. Of american politics. Immediately before leaving on his trip that took him to hawaii, fdr had announced to nobodys surprise that he was going to run for an unprecedented fourth term of office for president and had been to the Democratic National convention on his way out to the west coast. So the way the press observed essentially, the way the country saw this trupp to hawaii was that it was a campaign stop, it was a publicity event. In fact, it was much more than that. It was a very substantive command conference, and fdr or was doing something which, i think, we would have expected any commander in chief to do, which is to visit the pacific theater. Its the only time he dud it. And for the he did it. And for the millions of men and women who were fighting under our flag in the pacific, that visit told them that they had not been forgotten, and i think that was important. So, you know, why begin it with a long account of press and that visit, i think that it was important to try to unite what had become these two, you know, very separate kind of strands in literature of this biographical and political kind of view of this meeting between macarthur and fdr and what was a very substantive and historically important military planning conference that involved fdr, macarthur, nimitz and also admiral leahy whos almost always forgotten, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a very low profile figure who was immensely important in this part of history. [inaudible] indeed. So well get to the [inaudible] before we sort of move away from the politics, tell us about macarthur in 1944. There was a move to make him president , wasnt there . How badly did he want to get to the al office in 1944 . Well, you know, mac arthur flirted with the presidency many times throughout his career beginning in the 1920s. His name had been sort of float in replican circles. And as you say in 1944, he alwed his supporters in the states these were powerful members of congress in th republican par, certainly conservative media owners and various other figures on the american right who saw macarthur as pentially their only chae do do feet fdr in a to defeat fdr in a wartime election. They essentially started this Dark Horse Campaign with macarthurs implicit connivance. The governor of new york, tom dewey, locked up the nomination early in the primary process. But, yes, the question has been asked can, and historians did marthur actually want to run for predent and would he have liked thave become president , was this just a withdraw of exerting pressure on the president and the joint chiefs to do what he wanted to do in the pacific which essentially involveed sending more assets. The pacific was divided, as you know, the northern half was essentially under the control of the navy, and then in the southwest pacific you had mcarthur whose divion of the macarthur, awe than mouse theater commanding was very controversial and was regarded as, essentially, a way of settling this rivalry between the army and the navy, satisfying macarthur i but leaving the navy in charge of [inaudible] and so this question of, you know, would macarthur entually gain supreme command of the pacific which was his goal, and secondly are, could he insure that our route back to tokyo e went tough the philippis and that he would get the green light to liberate the philippines including, critically, the northn island. So these were his goals. And this kind of Dark Horse Campaign for predent may simply have been a way of exerting pressure in order to fulfill those goals. How about fdr . You write marvelously early on in the book that the war has changed him. The happy warrior tube, his press conferences used to be one for the ages, earlier in his presidency, hed be joshing with the reporters, he knew whose birthday it was, whose children were having a birthday that day, making jokes back and forth. Its not really fdr by this point of the war,s it . No. Fdr of course, this was the longest esidency in American History andften i remember at the outset it of our current presidts administration there was a story, i believe it was in the washiton post, but it was about fdrs relationship with the press. And it was aut how clever he was at, essentially, using the sort of crm tactics that he was famous for to get the press on his side. And, you know, thats an accurate depicon of how fdr dealt with the press in his first term in office. By his third term, 1941 is, he had essentially had it with the press. He really was deeply offended, i think, in general at the way the press was covering politics. A number of husband bitterest his bitterest enemies were major media owners. And his, his twiceweekly press conferences were pretty cantankerous. He really had actually out on the campaign trail attacking the press constantly. And so i thought that was an important part of the perspective, and i wanted to get into the way the Different MilitaryServices Also developed publicity policies, how the army, the navy and mc macarthur and nimitz had their ways of dealing with and a larger dimension of what was happening in the pacific and the kinds of the environment in which militar leaders had to make their decisions and do their jobs during this bloody war. So you mentioned, again, at the oahu conference the b strategic decions have to be ma. Yes. I guess the way you writ, as i was reading you chapter on it, wed come to a fork in thed road, hadnt we . There was a big decision that had to be made, and i guess you could break it down and say lausanne versus formow e saw. Could you break it down . Yeah. To make a long story short, by june 1944, certainly july 1944 we had taken the mariana islands, we had taken sigh e pan, we were about to take guam. We were within bombing distance of the japanese industrl heartland of tokyo we the new b29 bomber, the Japanese Striking arm of the japanese fleehad been annihilated and the accompanying navalattle that took place during that campaign. So essentially, the japanese were finished. In terms of any hopes they might havead of winning this war, those wereone. And so this last stage of the war was, you know, how do you force the japanese to capitulate . And, you know, itas going to be unconditional surrender. Thatas our policy. I believe it was the right policyhat we were going to occupy and disarm japan, supervise the reconstruction of a democtic japan. An obvious, the japanese regime was very far away from that. So the question became in the last year how do you force them to surrender. Macarthur really had the philpines as the centerpiece of his conception. Of many said he wants to liberate the philippines more even than winning the war, and the navy in many of the powerful internal plaers of the chiefs of staff organation in washington saw a major role for china in thisast stage of the campaign. They wanted a foothold close the china. They wanted that for bases for the b29s, they also wanted the potential to draw upon chinese infantry manpower in the invasion of japan if that were to take place and the destruction of japanese armies on the mainland. So that pointed to formosa. So by mid 1944, i think its fair to say that we were going to takene of those two islands first. Even lausanne, Northern Island of the philippines where t capital cityas or formota, today we call formow e saw, today we call it taiwan, one of these two islands. And it was that and that was the immediate decision they faced in 1944. Beyond that, there was t question of can weorce the japanese to surrender without actually invading their homeland. And that played very much into the thinking that they were confroing at this time as well. Let me,et me try to pin you down for a what if. We le what ifs, dont we . I think our listeners know, our viewers know that, of crse, lausanne was the choice. How might it have been difrent if wed landed on formo e saw, turned it into a major formosa, turned itnto a major base, an air be, a base for b29s, maybe intervened in the fighting in the mainland . Of course, theres a civ war thats about to break out at the end of this war. I just wonder, any thoughts on that . I knowst its big. Well, i think if wead landed on formosa, it would be a good bet that we wouldtill have troops there today. And so the natur of the conflict between today the independent natn of taiwan and china would be that much more intense with a major American Military presence there. Of course, that is somewhat speculative. Its a what if, as you say. Theeally interesting and enormous question f the world is had we taken formosa in 1944, would that have led to a large or involvent of american troopsn the asian mainland, and might that have led to differt result in the chinese civiwar. Agn, its so speculati, its really har to make really persuasive arguments, and im noan accident on what happened in the chinese civil war. But 1949, y know, four years after the end of the secon world war mo had taken mao had taken control of i chew at, and the significance of that event for World History including day is just incalculable. So it is, you know, earst king who washe of chief of naval operations, the senior officer in theandahal during the Second World War, in 1949 looking back he raised this question. If we had done wt i wanted to do, he said, take formosa and bypass lieu san, this might have led to a different result. Perhaps mao wouldnt have gotten the upper hand in china and, of coursethat would have diverted the course of asian andorld history. Thas one of the fascinating what ifs. The pacific is was so large that almost any change you make it, changes theourse of our timeline, dramatically changes the course of war. It true. Its true in europe as well. Its one of the reasons the Second World War is so unique, so fascinating. It really has shaped the postworld really in asia and europe. And choices that were being made by the gerals and admirals in how to prosecute the war, those had major downstream for the postwar world, implications were still living with today. Definitely so. Leapt me so much of your book, and i would describe your book as an expertly written operation. Its my bread and butter to read operational history, and this is as good as it gets. You know what youre talking about when you say that, so i appreciate that. Well, thank you but, you know, much of what you de with here is somethinglse i think necessary, and its the personalities of the u. S. Commanders. Eyre unforgettable. Let me read you, ifou dont mind, a quote by viced miller mark mitcher in talking about admiral by mark mitcher. Theres just so many japanese planes on any island, well take it on the chin, well swap punchewith them. I know il have losses, but im stronger than they are. I dont give a damn if theyo spot me. If i desoy all their aircraft, their damn island is no better than any island. How does that stand up today in your analysis of a pacific war of 1944, 1945 . Well, it was certainly an accurate statement of the capabilities of our Carrier Task Forces by 1944. In the first year of the war, which i covered in pacific crucible, you had these carrier duels where you had battles between, you know, small Carrier Task Forces involving maybe three or four carriers at most in which really it was a question of hit and run, you know, try to attack, get your planes over your enemys fleet first, hide your ships in weather fronts if you can. If youre attacking an air base on an island, you know, you did it with complete surprise. You attack, you recover your planes aboard your carriers, and then you get the hell out of it before the landbased air can counterattack. By 1944 the size of our Carrier Task Force in the pacific, to this was task force 58, task force 38 when halsey had it, you know, youre talking about 1216 aircraft carriers, essex class and later independent class carriers, operating in semiautonomous task groups which are operating kind of within shouting distance of each other. And i i mean, theyre launching 1,000,1,2300 planes in a strike that is descending on the japanese air base on some island in the pacific marianas, for example and theyre just, theyre just wiping the skies clean of the japanese defending fighters and then going in there and bombing the living daylights out of their air bases, destroying their planes on the ground. Finish so what michener is saying there is that the carriers had gotten powerful enough by this stage of the war that the hit and run approach was no longer necessary. You could simply bring your Carrier Task Force into range of a major japanese air base and essential i essentially just destroy it, overpower it with their power and confidently fought off any counterstrike on the american fleet. So thats how carrier warfare changed in the late stages of the wa lets move over to admiral [inaudible] whos for some reason one of my favorite characters precisely because hes not so colorful, hesore the organization man. Every commander, he said, must be a exam brother. But he gambler. But he wanted to be the professional varian few. Right. So he wanted all the odds, i could get stacked in my favor. A little bit different than michener. Yeah. He was a black shoe in navy parlance which meant that he was a circus Naval Warfare officer. Ooh not an aviator, he had never skippered a carrier. And he wants this very pragmatic style, very much, as you say, organization man. Just the kind of guy you could see being the ceo of a Major Company today. A cool character. Cerebral, very, very smart by everyones account. But really didnt believe in the kind of blood and thunder sort of style of command. So hes often contrasted to halsey for that reason. And sperling had sort of ascended to the top seagoing command of the u. S. Navy by really a series of accidents. He had accidentally been thrust into the position of commanding one of the task forces at the battle of mud and was credited mid and was credited for winning midway. And then he had been recalled to shore duty, mihms chief of staff nimitzs chief of staff. And he said i trust this guy to take the fleet out and make the same decisions i would do if i was commanding at sea. Of course, nimitz never commanded at sea during the Second World War. He was shorebound at headquarters for the entire world. By 1944, i think what hes getting at in the quote is we have overwhelming naval superiority, we are going to win this war. Lets not take any unnecessary if chances that may allow the enterprising japanese to get in and kind of score a lucky evictly against us Lucky Victory against us. Lets play by the numbers. And i think that was the correct by correct approach by that late stage of the war, and that has certainly been the judgment of historians w have rated him as the best of the wartime commanders in the pacific. You reference hall su, and theres a lot halsey, and and theres a lot of [inaudible] following the action, of course, in this period of the pacific war. How would you rate him . And let me ask you that in two ways. First, his abilities as an