Books finished, December 2010

I enthused about volume one of Running Through Corridors by my chums Robert Shearman and Toby Hadoke the other day.

One thing I didn’t mention is that, like a lot of small-press publications it’s got a fair few typos. That’s less a criticism as an acknowledgment that my own work has been blessed with some extremely accomplished editors. Developments in publishing in recent decades mean that books are produced by an every smaller team of people. That has a whole load of benefits to the industry, but it also means they are checked by ever fewer eyes. Good subs are therefore worth more than ever.

Good sub questions like ‘Who is this aimed at?’ kept bothering me as I read through my next two books. Richard P Feynman's Six Easy Pieces is not quite what it says on the cover. The word “easy” suggests it might be entry-level stuff, physics for the plebs. But even with all my recent reading and study, a lot of it went over my head. It's certainly not as layman-friendly as Feynman's Fun to Imagine series at the BBC Archive, which was what prompted me to pick up the book.

It’s taken from a longer collection of lectures on physics, which Feynman delivered back in the early 1960s. And the thing that sticks in my mind is that these lectures weren’t exactly a roaring success:

"Through the distant veil of memory, many students and faculty attending the lectures have said that having two years of physics with Feynman was the experience of a lifetime. But that's not how it seemed at the time. Many of the students dreaded the class, and as the course wore on, attendance by the registered students started dropping alarmingly. But at the same time, more and more faculty and graduate students started attending. The room stayed full, and Feynman may never have known he was losing some of his intended audience. But even in Feynman's view his pedagogical endeavor did not succeed. He wrote in the 1963 preface to the Lectures: 'I don't think I did very well by the students' ... Even when he thought he was explaining things lucidly to freshman or sophomores, it was not really they who were able to benefit most from what he was doing. It was his peers - scientists, physicists, and professors - who would be the main beneficiaries..."

David L Goodstein and Gerry Neugbauer, 'Special Preface (from Lectures on Physics) in Richard P Feynman, Six Easy Pieces, pp. xx-xxi.

Despite failing his intended audience, Goodstein and Neugauer speak of Feynman's "magnificent achievement" and continue in the very next sentence that,

"Feynman was more than a great teacher..."

Ibid.

He might have been all very clever, but this jobbing freelancer muttered at that last statement.

JP McEvoy’s A Brief History of the Universe (in the same series as Jonathan Clement's book on the Vikings) is a more pleb-friendly volume, taking us through the discoveries and developments in science since ancient times.

The history of discovery is a good way for explaining science to lay people as it makes it about people and drama. Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man does the same thing very effectively.

And yet McEvoy’s book is very oddly ordered. He’ll use technical terms such as the ecliptic several times before explaining what they mean, and discusses both Kepler and Newton’s three laws in some depth before listing what they are. A good few times, a late explanation had me flipping back a few pages to read a whole section again.

At first I thought this was down to the author not knowing quite what level of knowledge to assume from the reader. But there’s also a lot of odd repetition through the book. On page 228, McEvoy tells us that,

"Hubble changed our view of the universe more than any astronomer since Galileo",

and a page later makes the same point:

"[Hubble] changed man's view of the universe as much as Copernicus and Galileo".

The Whirlpool Galaxy is another example: it’s first mentioned on page 150:

"Rosse was the first to see the spiral structure of what was later known as the Whirlpool Galaxy."

A paragraph later:

"[Messier's Catalogue of Nubulae and Star Clusters] was useful to Rosse who listed several of the nebulae on Messier's list, including M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy."

Two pages later, there's a mention of the,

"famous Whirlpool Galaxy (classified by Messier as M51), one of the most conspicuous, and best known spiral galaxies in the sky. M51 was of one Charles Messier's original discoveries in 1773 and was sketched by Lord Rosse in 1845."

It's not merely the three mentions in as many pages that's so clumsy, but that the detail is in the last one: we could have just had that to begin with. (A later reference on page 237 wisely reminds us of Messier and his classification system when referring to the M51.)

This sort of thing shouldn’t matter but it's distracting. It's also indicative of a tendency to jump back and forth through the subject which can make it difficult to follow. That’s a shame because the subject is thrilling and McEvoy’s prose style usually simple and vivid.

And then on to made-up science. Brian W Aldiss and David Wingrove’s Trillion Year Spree, is a comprehensive history of science fiction published in the mid 1980s (and a follow-up to an earlier volume). The authors argue that sf is a sub-genre of the gothic and began with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. They trace the highs and lows of the form through the next nearly two centuries, mostly focusing on US and UK work.

As a leading figure in sf himself, Aldiss is able to provide plenty of insights and gossip. Opinions of authors are often as much about what they were like in person as analyses of their work. There are a few fun jokes and bits of wordplay – one author is described as “more syndicated than sinning” – and quite a lot of bad ones.

There's an odd habit of paragraphs that only last one sentence.

But there’s not a great deal of depth, I felt. Rather the authors provide an annotated reading list of the “good stuff”. It’s telling, then, that Doctor Who gets one mention in passing while Star Trek's television series gets 6 entries and its four movies separately. A modern history of sf – especially one with such a British focus – wouldn’t do that now. And last year, Aldiss made his Doctor Who writing debut with a short story for the Brilliant Book. There’s a small schoolboy part of me that still can’t quite believe how much things have transformed.

There are other signs of the period in which this was written – such as that Iain Banks will be writing an explicitly sf novel next – but my main impression on reading titbits of the many authors’ lives is how little had changed. As Aldiss and Wingrove say themselves,

"It's evident, then as now, that the authors most eager to write for the quick buck are the ones most easily exploited by publishers."

Brian W Aldiss and David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree, p. 168.

And, so perfectly put, the “rules of labour” in writing splendid hokum remain entirely unchanged:

"Write fast, do the unexpected, deliver on time, collect the cheque."

Ibid., p. 468.

For the record, that’s 48 books finished in 12 months, which is not too shabby (December - 4; November - 4; October - 4; September - 7; August - 0; July - 4; June - 4; May - 5; April - 4; March - 5; February - 3; January - 4). Not going to do these monthly things any more - they're too much of a bother. But have some more blogging 'bout books to come. Oh, aren't you fortunate?

Books finished, November 2010

Catching up on the books of 2010. Goldfinger deserves a post of it's own sometime - and I certainly made loads of notes. But blimey, it's an odd book, with a interminably dull golf match that stretches over chapters being followed by an equally dull drive to Switzerland. So many of the iconic moments from the film - such as the girl killed by being painted gold - are reported rather than seen, and even for a Bond book there's a lot of casual racism.

Some of that is the time in which it was written - Fleming also need to explain to the reader what karate is, and the term "'hit' - mobese for murder" (p. 186). But that will only go so far. Bond's thoughts on a girl who's not interested in him, and on where gayness might come from, are quite a surprise:

"Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterson was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality'. As a direct result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits - barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them."

Ian Fleming, Goldfinger, p. 189.

Of course, later Bond will convert the lesbian Pussy Galore so that she throws off a life of crime and ladies to help Bond stop the villains and get into his bed. We learn that Pussy is only a lesbian because she was abused by her uncle, and that all this time she's been waiting for a real man.

That this man turns out to be Bond is not merely reactionary fantasy but also a massive cheat in the plot. Pussy has only met Bond once - and briefly - before she switches sides. That's during a meeting between Goldfinger and America's fiercest hoodlums, where Bond is being Goldfinger's secretary. He doesn't say anything, let alone do anything to attract her attention. The 'real man' she falls for is the quiet one doing shorthand in a room full of toughs. Really not good enough, 007.

GCSE Astronomy - A Guide for Pupils and Teachers (1999) relates to an older version of the syllabus than the one I'm doing, but outlines the main topics and homework projects which is all very useful.

The Cosmos - A Beginnner's Guide is also me swotting up for class. Accompanying the TV series, it's an enthusiastic trawl through some of the big ideas and newer theories, with a particular pleasure in big machinery and diagrams.

Her Fearful Symmetry is sort of The Graveyard Book as told by Richard Curtis. The male hero is an embarrassed, slightly rubbish Hugh Grant type who falls under the spell of an American girl. He lives alone in a large flat in an expensive part of London without having to work, and is doing a PhD without apparently having to see a supervisor or, you know, actually do a lot of work or anything.

In fact, most of the characters idle along, going to museums and strange bits of London not in their lunch hours and stolen moments of the day but because they're filling time. There's none of the urgency, the effort, to earn enough for the costly capital city, and little of the noise and richness and mixture.

Highgate is just a stone's throw from Archway but is apparently an oasis of old-skool Englishness where no one is Black or gay. Everyone speaks English apart from two eccentric linguists - we get some wry stuff about the differences between American English and the local vernacular, but that's about it.

The volunteers running the cemetery are all sweet and understanding old dears - there's none of the petty jealousies, intrigues and empire-building that bother any place of work, especially one run by enthusiasts. As a result, it's an idyll of London which never quite rings true.

At one point, the book seems to notice this:

"Julia began to play a game that entailed travelling on the tube and randomly popping out at stations with interesting names: Tooting Broadway, Ruislip Gardens, Pudding Mill Lane. Usually the above-ground reality disappointed her. The names on the tube map evoked a Mother Goose cityscape, cosy and diminutive. The actual places tended to be grim: takeaway chicken shops, off-licences and Ladbrokes crowded out whimsy."

Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry, p. 255.

But this may all be intentional, as the veil of unreality about the world matches the strange and sad and beautiful ghost story. It reminded me chiefly of the death of Simon Callow's character in Four Weddings - with the same awkwardness of feelings amongst a group of decent but unfulfilled people, the same peculiar peccadilloes and the knowledge that there can't be a happy ending, only one that's bittersweet.

It's an odd book, and haunting, but not quite as brilliant as The Time Traveller's Wife.

Telescope cherry

Of no interest to anyone else I am sure, but yesterday I looked up at space through a telescope for the first time.

My astronomy GCSE course has attempted this before, and again last night we trooped up to the famous 28" inch refracting telescope (the one used by Karen Gillan in Doctor Who Confidential earlier this year) only to find the view again obscured by clouds. The proper astronomer and our teacher filled time, explaining the history and mechanisms and testing our new-learnt knowledge. We waited and waited, and used a clever gadget called a 'window' to check if the sky might be clearing, but eventually decided to troop back into the warm.

Once we'd watched the telescope get put to bed and trooped down the steps and outside the Moon couldn't have been clearer - the tease. So the intrepid Nick who organises our group quickly found us an 8" inch reflector built by Meade: a bucket-shaped thing about the length of my forearm.

As the experts put this contraption together, Nimbos and grabbed a cup of tea and were then out in the cold again to queue up for a look.

The waxing gibbous moon looked shiny bright to the naked eye and, as thin cloud occasionally brushed over it, produced a glowing halo. This is due to icy crystals in the wintry cold atmosphere, which refract moonlight. The centre of the halo is bluish, the edge of it red - for the same reason as the different colours of the rainbow.

Looking through the telescope was something else entirely. At first I could see nothing but a white blur - as we'd been queuing the Earth's rotation had moved the telescope a bit. The helpful astronomer adjusted the setting and then - oh blimey - I saw.

A curved, gleaming surface of white, splotched with little craters, so bright it looked like plaster of Paris that had not quite set, the splotches made just a moment before I looked. The edges of these feature cast long, distinct shadows, picking out the details. The surface rippled slightly, as if I was looking through clear water - an effect of Earth's atmosphere refracting the light, something astronomers call 'seeing'. But another world, and in plain sight, tantalising, just out of reach.

Once we'd all wowed at this incredible view, the astronomers moved the telescope and trained it on Jupiter. With the naked eye, the huge planet looked like a bright star, hanging at about five o'clock below the Moon. Before we'd ventured out into the cold, we'd look at it using the free - and cool - Stellarium software which gave us an idea of what to expect: Jupiter in a line with its four largest moons.

But to actually see it! I took a moment to realise what I was looking at - the telescope flipping the image upside down, a reflection of the Stellarium cheat. A murky, stripey ball hanging in the darkness at the centre of the eyepiece. To the left (in reality, to the right) three bright stars - just the same size as Jupiter appeared to the naked eye. On the right, another star.

These moons, first seen by Galileo 400 years ago, transformed our understanding of our place in the universe. For more than 2,000 years the assumption had been that the Earth was at the centre of everything, that the celestial bodies looped slowly around us. Galileo tracked the positions of his four Galilean moons and showed why they moved and sometimes vanished. Now here was evidence of Moons circling something else: proof that we're not at the centre of things, the first sign that we live and toil on an insignificant sticky rock circling an insignificant star.

That is, except for something that's not insignificant: we look up.

Monument to certainty

This is the Monument, built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London.


Climb the 311 steps to the viewing platform – as I did on Tuesday – and as well as the nice views you get a certificate. But the Monument is more than just a memorial to the fire. It was built by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke – members of the Royal Society.


This is Hooke in a modern painting by Rita Greer. He deduced the wave theory of light and the law of elasticity – which is named after him. He was a pioneer of surveying and map-making. He wasn't a little guy in science. But it was to Hooke that Isaac Newton wrote his famous remark, “If I have seen further [than others] it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

It's a back-handed compliment: Hooke had come close to deducing – before Newton – that gravity follows an inverse square law and that this explains the movement of the planets. Newton developed Hooke's ideas but – Hooke felt – didn't credit him sufficiently. So perhaps Newton's remark is rubbing Hooke's nose in it: the “giant” Newton was standing on had a stoop and may have been a hunchback.

The remark though, is often seen as a testament to scientific endeavour – scientists and mathematicians building on the work of their peers and predecessors. That's why it's engraved on £2 coins (though perhaps that's not the best example of engineering prowess - the coin also shows a a series of cogs in a circle, but there's an odd number so the machinery would not be able to turn as it would pull against itself). As Jacob Bronowski said in The Ascent of Man,

“Year by year, we devise more precise instruments with which to observe nature with more fineness.”

Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man (1973), p. 356.

This is Hooke's drawing of a flea from Micrographia, published in 1665. It was the Royal Society's first major book – and the first scientific bestseller.

Micrographia isn't just about looking at tiny things through a microscope. It includes drawings of distant objects, such as the Moon and the star cluster Pleiades (see below). Large and small, these observations changed our view of the universe and our place in it. Theories on gravity needed more and better data about the stars – that meant better telescopes.

In principle, the mathematics of improving a telescope are simple. A lens defracts the light so when you look through it things seem bigger. Look through two lenses at once and they're bigger still. The easiest way to do that is to place a lens at either end of a tube. Increase the distance between the two lenses and you increase the magnification. So to really study the stars, Hooke needed a really long tube...


The Monument was built as a zenith telescope – one that looks straight up. By looking at a fixed star, Hooke hoped to gain evidence that the Earth moved round the Sun. Maths provided the theory: now Hooke would prove it for certain.


The spiral staircase inside means there's a clear view all the way up to the top of the Monument, where a trapdoor would open to reveal the sky. To make the telescope even longer, Hooke worked down in the small cellar – you can see it through the grill in the floor as you begin your climb.

Sadly, though, the telescope didn't work. The vibration from London's traffic meant the readings were never accurate enough. The mathematics of lenses is simple, but the reality is more complicated.


The Monument was used for other experiments. The steps were designed to be used in pressure studies, and are all exactly six inches high.

Hooke continued to study the stars. He worked on the design of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the first purpose-built research facility in the country. And the more we've discovered since Hooke about space and the position of the stars, the more we come back to the problems that vexed him.


This is me at the 76-metre Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. It's the third-largest steerable radio telescope in the world. But, like the Monument, size isn't everything. Just beside it is a 38-metre Mark II dish which turned out to be much more accurate and better at listening to higher frequencies.


There's also the accuracy of the observations we make. “Astronomical instruments have been improved,” says Jacob Bronowski.

“We look at the position of a star as it was determined then and now, and it seems to us that we are closer and closer to finding it precisely.

“But when we actually compare our individual observations today, we are astonished and chagrined to find them as scattered within themselves as ever. We had hoped that the human errors would disappear ... but it turns out that the errors cannot be taken out of the observations. And that is true of stars, of atoms, or just ... hearing the report of somebody's speech.”

Ibid., p. 358.

Bronowski called this,

“the crucial paradox of knowledge ... we seem to be running after a goal which lurches away from us to infinity.”

Ibid., p. 356.

Since Newton, we tend to assume that the laws of nature are regular, simple and mathematical, and that any deviation from that regularity in our measurements is likely to be our own error. Mathematics can help clarify our observations.

“When an observer looks at a star, he knows there is a multitude of causes for error. So he takes several readings, and he hopes, naturally, that the best estimate of the star's position is the average – the centre of the scatter.”

Ibid., p. 358.

Johann Gauss (1777 to 1855), sometimes known as the “Prince of Mathematicians”,

“pushed on to ask what the scatter of the errors tells us. He devised the Gaussian curve in which the scatter is summarised by the deviation, the spread, of the curve. And from this came a far-reaching idea: the scatter marks an area of uncertainty.

We are not sure that the true position is the centre. All we can say is that it lies in the area of uncertainty, and that the area is calculable from the observed scatter of the individual observations.”

Ibid.

The folly of the Monument is not that it didn't work as a telescope but that Hooke, looking up through it from his cellar, was looking for certainty, for proof of the mathematical theory. It's not that maths or physics are uncertain, but measurement is. Bronowski described measurement as "personal". Maths doesn't prove with certainty, but it can show the extent of what we don't know.

(Thanks to Simon Belcher, Danny Kodicek and Marek Kukula who looked this over, and Marcus du Sautoy who pointed out the cogs on £2 coins.)

Work, rest and play

Scott pointed me in the direction of a new pic from NASA: sunset on Mars. Cor.

I'd assumed at first glance it was a new one from Phoenix. (You know that lander designed by Damien Hirst with a landing bleep composed by Blur? The one that pinged off the Sycorax space-asteroid a couple of Christmases past? Well, Phoenix is just like that, only it didn't break.)

Phoenix is very exciting. It sifts Martian sand not for alien life, but evidence of Ice Warriors and Ambassadors...

... of Death. I half expect Phoenix to have been secretly stashed with clever sci-fi lichen that will transform the atmosphere, like what happens in the Mars Trilogy.

And you look at the pictures from Phoenix, of black and white dust and equipment, and no you can't spot the monsters. But, to quote Rob from last week:

"While some see a disappointingly familiar, Earth-like desert, when they were secretly hoping for tangerine trees and marmalade skies - I can see an Earth-like desert, but with no life of any kind. How weirdly, wildly fantastical is that?"

Rob Stradling, 27 May 2008.

Etymological space

My friend Suetekh once told me that she collects definitions of science fiction. Ones where Star Wars isn’t allowed, or that start with Frankestein, Poe or the Iliad. Ones that try to draw a line between sf and fantasy or sf and magic realism. Ones that try to impose some moral purpose on stories, underlining science, speculation or gedankenexperiment. Ones that even have the balls to argue sf is everything, and all other writing merely its sub-genres.

We laughed. We had more cake. We went on to talk about the mad-looking things that live at the bottom of oceans.

I must admit, I was never very bothered by any of that definitions stuff. Sure, it helps to be able to ring-fence an area that you’re writing or talking about, but there’s a fundamental difference between something being about rockets and it being any good or interesting. Too often definitions are merely a territorial marker, the definer staking a claim to the kind of stuff he likes, as a tiger might mark a tree.

In my own recent researches, I’ve noticed all kinds of effort to define the sub-genres of sf, or even to explain – as if to a sick relative – that they’re not sub-genres at all.

The main one is what we call the “what if” sorts of story, set in worlds where Hitler wins the Second World War or where Martin Luther ended up Pope. Just as with sci-fi, there’s those who argue that this isn’t just about coming up with wheezes for good and strange stories. Oh no, they say, if Winston Churchill was writing this kind of thing, it’s got to be serious, academic history.

But what are these kinds of stories called?

Those who call it “alternate history” need to look in a dictionary. Alternate means “every other”. “Alternative history” is better, but still carries a sense that there’s only one possible other option.

“Counterfactual” makes me think “lie”. “Parallel universe” misses the point that most of these kinds of stories include a revelation about where their history diverged from our own. In geometry, parallels don’t ever meet. (Hence the title of “Parallel Lives”; people who are not as close as they seem, so that [Spoiler] falls through the cracks.)

I quite like “allohistory” – meaning “other” in the same way as “allegory”. But people don’t use this very often, and can look puzzled if you do. Ho hum.

Another common term is “utopia”, which literally means “no place” and tends to describe any fictional ideal – do you see what Doctor Who did there? The saint who coined the term in 1516 meant an island of sunshine and sheep, and generally people know what you mean. But what about something like Nineteen Eighty-Four which is evidently the opposite? Or that staple of science fiction, where what seems to be an island of sunshine and sheep turns out to be all monstrous?

These are surely two different things; the state that’s in no way a utopia, and the state that says it is and yet is not. I’ve seen critics carefully define these two terms from each other, labelling them “dystopia” as opposed to “anti-utopia”. The trouble is, different critics apply the labels different ways round.

There are also different kinds of utopia: heterotopia, extropia, techno-utopia. It all gets rather fiddly.

Tom Moylan’s “Demand the Impossible” also argues that utopias can’t be fixed points; that in fact they breakdown if they ever stop striving to be better. What he calls a “critical utopia” is continually self-assessing, asking difficult questions. I argued in Foundation a long time ago that that’s exactly what happens in Iain M Banks’s Culture stories, since we usually see the utopian Culture through the eyes of someone off-message.

Utopia is, then, the journey not the destination. It is the aspiration to make better worlds, the methodology, processess, questions. Literally, it is the state of being, not the place.

Majestic and Coronet

While flying across the Pacific just a month ago, I read Codename Downfall – The Secret Plan to Invade Japan. Jonathan Clements had recommended it to me after I’d asked him to help with my homework, and it’s a fascinating and detailed account of what might have happened had Truman not dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Authors Thomas B Allen and Norman Polmar effectively disagree with AC Grayling’s thesis in Among The Dead Cities that those bombings were war crimes. They follow the slow, island-by-island crawl of Allied troops towards Japan, the high casualties suffered by both sides and the Japanese refusal to surrender or even to acknowledge protocols like not shooting at stretcher bearers or those brandishing white flags. Islands commited mass suicide rather than give in to the Americans; on one island Japanese soldiers were still resisting invasion until the 1970s.

Admittedly, tales of the horrors suffered by Allied POWs and the spread of a particular photograph of a beheading meant that the Allied troops weren’t exactly prone to winning heart and minds, let alone taking prisoners. But the general idea is that an invasion would have been a Bad Thing.

Had the bombs not been dropped, Codename Downfall would have been carried out in two distinct parts. Operation Majestic (formerly Olympic) was the invasion of the south island of Kyushu. This would have established air and army bases (perhaps at the strategic port of Nagasaki) that could then lead to Operation Coronet – the invasion of the main island of Honshu. Plans were well advanced by the time President Truman made his decision about the hydrogen bomb, and the book examines the attitudes, knowledge and estimates of those involved to piece together what might have been.

On 16 June 1945, General MacArthur was asked to supply estimates for battle casualties in the invasion of Kyushu. He sent back his expectations of dead, wounded and missing from the day of landing: in the first 30 days, 50,800; in the next 30 days, 27,150; the next 30 days, 17,100. There were also 4,200 ‘non-battle casualties … for each 30 day period.’

MacArthur was what people sometimes call "single-minded" when what they actually mean is "a shit". He'd got his plan and whatever the evidence, alternatives or men-who-would-be-killed, he was not going to budge.

When he realised that these figures had been requested for the President, who was considering other options, MacArthur,

“back-pedalled from his original estimate, saying it had been ‘a routine report … for medical and replacement planning purposes. … I regard the operation as the most economical one in effort and lives that is possible.’”

Thomas B Allen and Norman Polmar, Codename Downfall – The Secret Plan to Invade Japan, p. 241.

But MacArthur knew full well what a horrid war this would be, and tended to speak less in numbers of casualties as ratios of Japanese to American killed. The authors explain the ideological underpinnings of ‘special attacks’ – i.e. suicide planes, submarines and individuals. The original ‘kamikaze’ or sacred wind was a hurricane that had wrecked Kublai Khan’s invading fleets in 1274 and again seven years later – the last time anyone had dared try an invasion on Japan.

We get details of the civilian population trained to use bamboo spears, “flame bottles” (Molotov cocktails) and “spider-holes” (fox-holes). And all I could think of was another civilian population being bigged up for imminent invasion with encouragement to fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and streets, and in the hills.

“We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940.

Despite this impossibly hostile force, MacArthur resisted any suggestion that they might conclude the war another way.

“[MacArthur] had absolute confidence in his own battle plan, little confidence in any information that came from Magic or Ultra, the code name for intercepted Japanese military communications. Willoughby had recently reported that US air forces were not doing enough to stop Japanese reinforcements from reaching southern Kyushu. But when MacArthur wanted to refute Ultra’s penetration of Japanese Army movements in his message to Marshall, he proclaimed his faith in air power’s ability to knock out the Japanese reinforcements coming to Kyushu.”

Allen and Polmar, pp. 266-7.

The authors argue that MacArthur disliked Ultra for two reasons: it had proven him wrong about Japanese strengths and intentions; and the intelligence came via the US Navy – MacArthur’s rivals in leading US troops through the Pacific. I wasn’t just horrified that these office-politics wranglings about who had the biggest willy were going to greatly increase the numbers killed and wounded. MacArthur was also adamant about who he’d be sending to their sudden deaths.

“By MacArthur’s personal orders, only American troops would go ashore for the climactic invasion of the war. And all the assault troops would be white.”

Ibid., p. 300.

Oh yes. But before we start daring to think that this madman was also some kind of racist, he did explain his thinking.

“The British initially proposed that British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and Indian divisions participate in Coronet, but General MacArthur objected to the Indian troops – ‘I doubt the advisability of employing troops of native origin in this complex operation where homogeneity of language within the corps is required … Likewise, there is a question of the advisability of utilizing troops in a temperate zone without an extended period of acclimatization, hence the acceptance of Indian troops is not concurred in. The British division [sic] should be Anglo-Saxon.”

Ibid., p. 160.

So, er, Asians should not fight in Asia because they wouldn’t cope with the climate. It’s obvious, isn’t it? And also it’s not like the Indians in the British Army could be expected to speak the language.

MacArthur also had views on the make-up of troops under his own command.

“Walter White, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, had complained to President Roosevelt about the Army’s treatment of black troops, focusing on a division serving under MacArthur – the 93rd Infantry. MacArthur, attacking White as a ‘troublemaker and a menace to the war effort,’ said the 93rd was inferior to other divisions ‘except in the matter of motor maintenance,’ with poor morale – ‘as evidenced by courts martials, homosexual activities, selfmaiming, alleged discrimination, etcetera.’ MacArthur said his decision to order was ‘not, repeat not influenced in the slightest degree by race or color…’”

Ibid., p. 237.

Got that – he’s not a racist because he said so himself.

And it wasn’t that the Army didn’t have any use for black soldiers – they just weren’t going to be part of the actual invasion. Many soldiers in the US Army were discharged after VE Day, but there were exceptions for those with special skills or those who,

“had to be shipped to the Pacific ‘so swiftly that no opportunity is provided for replacing’ them … Many of the men in the ‘so swiftly’ category were black soldiers – the pick-and-shovel GIs who would build the port facilities and air bases needed for the invasion of Japan."

Ibid., p. 237.

But what really amazes me is that MacArthur seemed to think that getting yourself blown to bits in the invasion of Japan was some kind of high-esteemed privilege. Getting hacked to bits by the Japanese civilian home guard was not the sort of thing for just anyone.

Oh, and an entirely unrelated but interesting top fact: the Japanese attacked the west coast of the USA with explosive balloons, which mostly did no harm to anyone.

“But on 5 May 1945, Mrs Elsie Mitchell and five children were killed. While fishing in Lake County, Oregon, they found a Japanese balloon bomb that detonated when they examined it. They were the only casualties of enemy action on the US mainland during the war.”

Ibid., p. 222.

This reminded me of a thing in something else I’d been reading, about the space race of the 1950s and the not-often-spoken fact that a lot of the rockets in development were designed to carry nuclear payloads.

“But in 1957 came the shock of Sputnik. The psychological effect on the Americans was considerable… In the US it was felt almost as an invasion of the country. Britain had suffered bombing of London as early as 1916, but the US had never experienced hostile aircraft in the skies. Sputnik was perceived in those terms.”

CN Hill, A Vertical Empire – The History of the UK Rocket and Space Programme 1950-1971, p. 13.