Saul David Interview - Crucible of Hell

 

My interview with Saul David from 2020, in regards to his CRUCIBLE OF HELL book about the last great battle of WW2, Okinawa.

• What was the genesis for you to cover this vital battleground and portion of WW2? It actually came out of my last book, The Force, about an American/Canadian special operations unit that carries out its first mission in the Aleutian Islands against the Japanese. It reminded me how little I knew about the Pacific War, and it sparked my interest. At around the same time I read an excellent book about Truman’s first year as president, which begins with Roosevelt’s death a few days after the invasion of Okinawa and climaxes with the decision to use atomic bombs to end the war against the Japanese. Quite a baptism of fire, for which Truman has not received the credit he deserves.

• Do you feel as a historian, is the Pacific part of the war somewhat overlooked in terms of importance? Yes, certainly in the UK. We tend to think the war ended with Germany’s surrender, and the attention we give to VE Day (as opposed to VJ Day) is proof of that. Actually, there was no guarantee the war was going to end in 1945: most experts assumed it would carry on until late 1946, at the earliest, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed all that. There was a lot of very brutal fighting in the Pacific, and a number of hinge moments (Midway, Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Philippine Sea all come to mind), and it was far from a foregone conclusion.

• What amount of research did you do to gain the parts about each individual story where you go into such detail as mentioned? Research took me to archives in the UK, the US and Japan. I was very luck to find a lot of first-hand material that hadn’t been used before at the US Marine Corps archives in Quantico. It’s not an easy archive to gain access to: I had to get special dispensation from the British Foreign Office. But it was worth it. I also got wonderful material from the Truman and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries, including the diaires of the US commander Simon B. Buckner, and found some heart-breaking first-hand accounts of civilians in archives and museums in Okinawa.

• How long did it take to get the structure/draft right moving from American/Japanese perspectives? I was determined from the start to tell the story from all perspectives: American, Japanese and Okinawan, and also from ordinary people and soldiers up to generals, presidents and emperors. The best way to do this, I thought, was to keep shifting perspective in short, dramatic chapters. Most are 2,000-3,000 words long, which are quite short for a history book, but they give the reader a sense that the story is moving at pace.

• Have you always enjoyed history from an early age? Yes. I blame my father. He’s a great reader of military history and often discussed battles and generals over dinner with friends. I guess I wanted to contribute, because I started reading books about Victorian warfare by George MacDonald Fraser (the historical novelist and creator of Flashman), the biographer and historian Christopher Hibbert (author of The Great Mutiny), and others. I then moved on to books about the classical world: Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, that sort of thing.

• What is your lasting impression of the WW2 in the Pacific? The savagery of the fighting, which took me by surprise. It’s as bad as anything you see on the Eastern Front, which is usually the benchmark for barbarity in war. This can make some chapters of Crucible of Hell difficult to read – they were certainly difficult to research – but it’s important for historians to record the unvarnished facts, and for the public to read them.

• Was dropping the bomb on Hiroshima the only course of action left for Truman and the USA? Yes, in many ways I think it was. Of course, he had options. But all of these had been discussed by his senior political, military and scientific advisors, and rejected. They were united in their belief that if he didn’t drop the bomb, and demonstrate to the Japanese its terrible destructive power, the war would have continued for up to another year, and cost both sides millions of casualties. Other possibilities have been suggested: starving the Japanese out, waiting for the Russians to make a military contribution to Japanese defeat, using a demonstration explosion. None of them would have been enough to convince the militarists at the heart of the Japanese government to agree to unconditional surrender.  

• How long do you think the war would have carried on for before an eventual surrender by Japan? Up to another year.

• What has your life been like in this Covid-19 world? Being a writer has it been okay or have you missed researching extensively? Actually, I hate to admit this, but lockdown has been good to me because it’s enabled me to write without distractions. I was incredibly fortunate in terms of timing in that, when the first lockdown began, I was part of the way through one book – the authorized World War II history of the Special Boat Service – so was able to finish that in June. Normally you’d need to spend up to a year researching the next book. But I’d already done that research the year before – at the same time that I was working on Crucible of Hell – and was ready to move seamlessly from writing the SBS book to the new one, Devil Dogs, the story of a company of US Marines fighting its way through the Pacific. I’m already 75,000 words in and should finish it in early 2021.

• Can you talk about your relationship with your publisher William Collins? I’ve been published by a lot of the great names in British publishing, and some excellent non-fiction editors: Richard Beswick at Little, Brown, Eleo Gordon at Viking Penguin and Rupert Lancaster at Hodder & Stoughton. My current publisher, Arabella Pike at William Collins, is the perfect fit: hugely-experienced, much admired in the business, and from a military background. Her father, Hew Pike, commanded 3 Para in the Falklands. She understands the military mindset, and has publishes some wonderful military history by authors like Max Hastings and Patrick Bishop. I’m delighted to have joined her stable.

• What advice do you have for budding young historians? Don’t get bogged down in detail, however fascinating you might think it is. Add plenty of colour, keep the story moving at pace, and place people at the front and centre of your narrative. Readers like to imagine what it might have been like to be present at a dramatic moment in history. Help them to realize that.

• What are your hopes moving forward? To publish my next book in ‘normal’ times, so I can give it the publicity push – talks, interviews, events – that it deserves. I’m bursting with ideas for new books, so watch this space.

• What are you working upon now? Devil Dogs (see above). I’m also editing my history of the SBS. I was the first historian to be given access to the secret SBS archives in Poole. The book – provisionally titled ‘SBS: Silent Warriors – The Authorized Wartime History’ – will be published in September 2021.  A donation from the sale of each book will be made to the SBS Regimental Association, which looks after former and serving SBS operators and their families.

My thanks to Saul David for his time in this interview, and I can only apologise for not posting it sooner. 

Crucible of Hell is one of the best books I have read in recent years and is available still on all formats.