Lockdown Library – Saul David

Apr 30, 2020

Today on #LockdownLibrary we have award-winning historian Saul David reading from his gripping new book Crucible of Hell: Okinawa, the Last Great Battle of the Second World War.

PFD’s Lockdown Library is a new project bringing together our wonderful authors to offer up some fun, learning and relaxation during these strange times. We’ll be posting regular book readings, short talks and Lockdown Lunches from our chefs, so be sure to follow our Twitter and Instagram(both @pfdagents) to see when there’s something new in the #LockdownLibrary.

 

Saul David is an historian, broadcaster and novelist. His many critically-acclaimed history books include: The Indian Mutiny:1857 (2002), shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature; Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (2004), a Waterstone’s Military History Book of the Year; Victoria’s Wars: The Rise of Empire (2006); All the King’s Men: The British Redcoat in the Age of Sword and Musket (2012); and 100 Days to Victory: How the First World War was Fought and Won.  He has also written two bestselling historical novels set in the late Victorian period. The first, Zulu Hart (2009), was described by The Times as a ‘rattling good yarn’ with ‘a compelling, sexy hero who could give Cornwell’s Sharpe a run for his money’. His latest book, Crucible of Hell, was published on the 2nd April 20200 by William Collins.

For eighty-three blood-soaked days, the fighting on the island of Okinawa plumbed depths of savagery as bad as anything seen on the Eastern Front. When it was over, almost a quarter of a million people had lost their lives, making it by far the bloodiest US battle of the Pacific. In Okinawa, the death toll included thousands of civilians lost to mass suicide, convinced by Japanese propaganda that they would otherwise be raped and murdered by the enemy. On the US side, David argues that the horror of the battle ultimately determined President Truman’s choice to use atomic bombs in August 1945.

It is a brutal, heart-rending story, and one David tells with masterly attention to detail: the cramped cockpit of a kamikaze plane, the claustrophobic gun turret of a warship under attack, and a half-submerged foxhole amidst the squalor and battle detritus. The narrative follows generals, presidents and emperors, as well as the humbler experiences of ordinary servicemen and families on both sides, and the Okinawan civilians who were caught so tragically between the warring parties.

Using graphic eyewitness accounts and declassified documents from archives in three continents, Saul David illuminates a shocking chapter of history that is too often missing from Western-centric narratives of the Second World War.