WW II WAS OVER, AND ALL OVER THE WORLD THE KISSING STARTED. BUT WAS IT REALLYOVER?Brilliant new OSPREY PUBLISHING book arrives in time to give as a perfect Christmas giftReviewed and Highly Recommended by Don DeNevi“WHEN THE SHOOTING STOPPED August 1945”, by Barrett Tillman. Osprey Publishing-Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: 2022, 304 pages, hc; $35. Visit www.ospreypublishing.com.God Bless Sally who suggested the concept of this unusual, thought-provoking, easy to readand digest, in short, incomparable, read. Writes award-winning author and historian BarrettTillman, “Rumors wafted on global winds throughout the first half of August 1945: ‘Tokyo is onthe brink of surrendering’, and ‘Tokyo is sure to fight to the bitter end’. Contrary to popularperception, the war did not conclude with the dropping of two nuclear bombs. On the very day
that the second atomic bomb began its ominous descent over the city of Nagasaki, a Soviet
juggernaut was steamrolling into Japanese-occupied Manchuria as Operation August Storm – acampaign that continued until the third week of August costing tens thousands of lives. Despitethe negotiations, dogfights and naval engagements continued, a mixture of poorcommunication and desperate hardliners”.Thus, the birth of an idea: why not a new history describing the complete story of the finalweeks of WWII, detailing the final fierce air, land, and sea battles military writers have ignored.Check Barrett’s thankfully informative bibliography, and its sacristy of titles pertaining to thesefinal three weeks of fighting. “When the Shooting Stopped August 1945” would not haveamounted to much unless he made the effort of tracking down the rare first-hand accountsfrom long deceased pilots and sailors caught up in those long-neglected fights. The pages ofAcknowledgments, Endnotes, Bibliography and even Index are the best assembled this reviewerhas ever encountered in the literature of World War II, and, alone, worth the price of the book.In short, “When the Shooting Stopped. August 1945” is one of the five best WWII books toappear so far this year heading into the tenth month of 2022. For the casual military armchairbuff, or very serious reader in search of genuine, meticulous, scholarship, the book will beappreciated, especially as a surprised Christmas gift. Trust this reviewer: no comparableachievement has yet appeared in popular print revealing the bloody truth of that final month of
the war when neither war nor peace was certain.
