Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II

Marc Gallicchio

Aug 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer

About this audiobook

Signed on September 2, 1945 by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s-with the Korean and Vietnam Wars-when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the fiftieth anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.

About the author

Marc Gallicchio is professor of history at Villanova University and was a Fulbright visiting lecturer in Japan, 1998-1999 and 2004-2005. He is coauthor, with Waldo Heinrichs, of Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, which won the Bancroft Prize in History.

AudioFile Earphones Award winner Eric Michael Summerer is a voice actor and producer who has narrated numerous audiobooks as well as countless instructional recordings and video games. He earned an Audie Award nomination for Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke.