The Burning Mountain: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan

The saying goes that for the want of a nail a kingdom was lost. While a fanciful notion (what about the chain of circumstances that left a kingdom so dangerously dependent on a small piece of iron?), it does capture well the idea about how small twists of fate can have momentous consequences. This premise serves as the starting point of Alfred Coppel's alternate history novel. In it, a lightning strike on the eve of the Trinity atomic bomb test in July 1945 destroys the tower holding the device. With the Manhattan Project now delayed by months, the United States has no choice but to go forward with the planned invasion of Japan. Coppel skips over Operation Olympic (the invasion of the southern island of Kyushu) to focus on its successor Operation Coronet, the invasion of the main island of Honshu planned for February 1946. Using the real-world plans of both the Americans and Japanese, he sets out just how such a battle might have unfolded. The invasion is seen through the experiences of several characters, with historical personages such as Douglas MacArthur, Hideki Tojo, and Harry Truman making brief appearances that provide a broader political and strategic context for the novel's events. An accomplished novelist, Coppel does a superb job of bringing his imagined invasion to life. The research invested into developing his scenario is readily evident, giving the novel a considerable amount of verisimilitude. Yet in doing this Coppel does not sacrifice character development in developing the plot, as he develops well-realized people that readers can care about. The combination results in an alternate history novel that ranks with David Westheimer's Death is Lighter Than a Feather as one of the best examples of the genre, a compelling read about the horrors of a battle that never took place.

Nuclear weapons have only been used in anger twice: at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States has to live with the burden of being the only nation that has ever used them, and against civilians at that. The justification was that, according to the best military estimates, invading the Japanese mainland would result in as many as 750,000 US casualties - and three times as many Japanese. The butcher's bill at Okinawa, Iwo Jima and many other islands had been appalling, and if foreign soldiers set foot on the home islands resistance would surely be even fiercer. Alfred Coppel hangs this towering story on a single "what if": suppose the Trinity atomic bomb test had failed? Rather than waiting many months for another test, might not President Truman have ordered the invasion to go ahead? Coppel draws on the actual plans that were drawn up for Operation Coronet (the invasion) and Ketsu-go Number 3 (the Japanese defences). As well as the notorious kamikaze flyers, he puts us in the tiny, cramped cockpit of a kaiten suicide submarine, and shows us a column of troops unexpectedly attacked by schoolchildren with bombs hidden in their clothing. Poison gas, flamethrowers... all the horrors of total war. In case any self-righteous Westerner should think such self-sacrifice belongs only to the fanatical Orient, Coppel quotes from Macaulay's "Horatius": "And how can a man die better/Than facing fearful odds/For the ashes of his fathers,/And the temples of his gods?" As in all the best fiction, a thread of human warmth runs through the apocalyptic scenes. Lieutenant Harry Seaver spent many childhood years living with a Japanese family near Tokyo, as a result of which he is bilingual and deeply familiar with the Japanese way of life. Far more so, in fact, than Lieutenant Jim Tanaka, who (apart from his name) is all-American. With tragic inevitability, Seaver's outfit captures the Maeda village - home of the family with which he grew up. While Colonel Kantaro Maeda is away conducting the defence, his sister Katsuko is still at home, and her reunion with Seaver - her childhood friend - encapsulates the gulf between East and West. The best book by Alfred Coppel that I have read - which is saying a lot - this is a real tragedy on many different levels. It's not an easy read, nor a happy one, but it is fascinating, thrilling and deeply rewarding.

July, 1945: As the scientists and military men who have built the atomic bomb prepare to test the ultimate weapon, an unexpected thunderstorm arrives at the Trinity test site near Los Alamos, N.M. Lightning strikes the tower where the first bomb -- code named "Fat Man" -- is tethered, and in a literal flash, history is changed. There are still two nuclear weapons left, but until the more complex plutonium bomb can be tested, their use is postponed until 1946. In the meantime, the conventional operation of the Japanese home islands, code named DOWNFALL, is launched as scheduled on Nov. 1, 1945.With this almost Shakespearean touch, novelist and World War II veteran Alfred Coppel (Thirty Four East, The Dragon) begins his "what-if" account of the invasion of Japan in 1945 and 1946.Instead of covering the entire two-part campaign (OLYMPIC, the landing on Kyushu, and CORONET, the final landing on Honshu) in the main body of The Burning Mountain, Coppel starts his tale by dispensing with the aftermath of the failed TRINITY test with an "excerpt" from a history of the 1941-46 Pacific War, covering the strategy and tactics used by both sides up to and during the OLYMPIC campaign. The bulk of The Burning Mountain centers on the March 1946 landings as seen through the eyes of various Japanese and Allied participants, including a Marine sergeant who is unsure that his platoon commander will perform well in combat, a B-17 crewman who finds himself in dire straits when his bomber is shot down, an American Ranger officer whose connections with a Japanese family begin to affect his perception of the war the closer he gets to places he knew as a child, and the Japanese soldiers and civilians who desperately fight to defend their homeland from the invading "gaijin."Basing most of his account on actual American and Japanese battle plans for the home island campaign, Coppel blends historical speculation along the lines of Peter Tsouras' Disaster at D-Day with some melodramatic elements involving the Japanese-raised Harry Seaver and his Japanese paramour; I would have preferred that the author would have focused on the invasion rather than sidetracked into the mind-bending Seaver storyline. Everything else, from the description of historical characters (Gen. MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz) and the hardware (including the seldom-mentioned Alaska-class battle cruisers, which did indeed exist but were launched too late to see major combat in the real Pacific campaign) and units involved ring true. Coppel vividly depicts the yard-by-yard and often savage fighting that might have ensued had President Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff been forced to greenlight Operation DOWNFALL.

A well-written alternative history by a science-fiction writer, this is the best of the fictionalized accounts of Operation Downfall. It skips over Operation Olympic (the invasion of Kyushu)and concentrates upon Operation Coronet (the invasion of the main island of Honshu). The emphasis upon a somewhat limited cast of characters, while necessary for dramatic effect, in a sense glosses over the horrific cost of the planned invasion of Japan. Potential American casualties were estimated at about a million, with four to ten million Japanese deaths. It is all too easy to forget that the estimated 180,000 deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki literally saved the lives of millions. This book paints a gory portrait of what might have been, and the horrors that the atomic bombs actually prevented.

What if the atomic bomb was not built in time? How would WWII in Japan have ended? How would Japan have reacted to landings on their home islands? These questions are answered in this well-written novel by Alfred Coppel. The characters (both Allied and Japanese) are fully developed, and the story places them in rather interesting situations. The story is extremely depressing, however, and leaves the reader wishing for a happier ending. Great story for a movie.