Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila

by James M. Scott

Overview

“Illuminating.… An eloquent testament to a doomed city and its people.” —The Wall Street Journal

In early 1945, General Douglas MacArthur prepared to reclaim Manila, America’s Pearl of the Orient, which had been seized by the Japanese in 1942. Convinced the Japanese would abandon the city, he planned a victory parade down Dewey Boulevard—but the enemy had other plans. The Japanese were determined to fight to the death. The battle to liberate Manila resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the city and a rampage by Japanese forces that brutalized the civilian population, resulting in a massacre as horrific as the Rape of Nanking. Drawing from war-crimes testimony, after-action reports, and survivor interviews, Rampage recounts one of the most heartbreaking chapters of Pacific War history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393357561
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Pages:	672
Sales rank:	348,892
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

James M. Scott is the author of Black Snow, Rampage, Target Tokyo, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and co-author, with Jack Carr, of Targeted: Beirut. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

"An incredibly important story told by a gifted journalist-historian. Within the pages of this book, Scott honors the many victims and heroes of the battle and reminds the reader that true evil does exist in the world—and that it absolutely must be fought."

Deseret News - Cody K. Carlson

"Rampage is a horrifyingly unforgettable book.… Reminds us once again that man’s inhumanity to man belies the notion of human progress. The massacres in Manila that [Scott] so painstakingly details take their place among the 20th century’s most monstrous and lurid crimes."

New York Journal of Books - Francis P. Sempa

"Remarkable.… Establishes [Scott] as one of America’s preeminent World War II historians."

Dallas Morning News - Gregg Jones

"[A] masterful reconstruction."

Foreign Affairs - Lawrence D. Freedman

"Heartbreakingly detailed.… [James M.] Scott recreates [what was lost] for us and in so doing gives us a renewed and deeper understanding of the conflict for those who lived it.… This book is not just for war buffs but for anyone seeking to understand the last days of World War II."

The Charleston Mercury

"An excellent but wrenchingly graphic account of one of the least-commemorated massacres in World War II."

Richard B. Frank

"A gripping account of one of the most horrific but least-remembered battles of World War II.… Scott has a knack for weaving stories of individuals into an epic fabric."

The Herald (Rock Hill, SC) - Terry Plumb

★ 08/27/2018
Historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott (Target Tokyo) vividly captures the mayhem and horrors that took place during the 29-day Battle of Manila in the closing months of WWII—more than 100,000 civilians were killed, many of them massacred by Japanese fighters, and most historic buildings were destroyed before Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s troops and Filipino forces took the city. Scott draws on such primary sources as diaries, letters, news dispatches, investigator records, and survivor testimony to create a compelling human picture. As one contemporaneous observer wrote, “In Manila they have piled outrage on outrage, infamy on infamy, until it has become a city of nightmarish horrors.” Although the stories of opposing generals MacArthur and Tomoyuki Yamashita bookend the narrative and the battle is recreated in dramatic detail, this is not purely a military history: the stories of Filipinos and expatriates caught in the crossfire are thoughtfully told. Violent and harrowing atrocities are interspersed with brief moments of humanity and humor, such as when a U.S. soldier gives a Manila-born youngster a stick of gum and her father has to teach her how to chew it. Told with rich layers of perspective and cinematic immediacy that transports the reader to the streets of Manila, this is a gut-wrenching and rewarding reading experience. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"What Iris Chang did for our understanding of the Rape of Nanking, James M. Scott has now done for the Battle of Manila. Here is a sweeping tale of frenzied fighting and heartbreaking devastation, written by a meticulous historian who has unflinchingly probed the truth of this largely forgotten episode from the Pacific."

Hampton Sides

"This is General Douglas MacArthur as you have not heard him; this is World War II as you have not seen it before; this is history written with a wide sweep and deep focus, the prose and reporting falling in aching rhythms on scenes of beauty, despair, defiance, the terrible trespasses people make, and their striving to endure. James Scott’s skill as a reporter and his precision as a stylist make this story unstoppable from the very first scene. Across these pages falls the shadow of a history we thought we knew well, but in Scott’s telling, so much is revealed and illuminated. A bold surprise of a history book. A treasure for lovers of stories beautifully told. Transcendent."

Doug Stanton

"Scott has done history a service in recording for all time this dark chapter in the Pacific War."

Buffalo News

"Illuminating....An eloquent testament to a doomed city and its people. Rampage is a moving, passionate monument to one of humanity's darkest moments."

Wall Street Journal

"Powerful narrative history...impossible to put down."

Los Angeles Times - Bob Drogin

"An excellent but wrenchingly graphic account of one of the least commemorated massacres in World War II....Scott has dug very deep into the U.S. and Philippine records of the battle and uses them deftly....[He] wields the vivid testimony of the rare survivors to portray the full horrors of the events."

Richard Frank

"A relentless narrative of one of the darkest chapters of the Pacific War....Deeply researched and superbly written."

Ian W. Toll

"A masterpiece of historical reportage, brilliantly bringing to life the savage battle for Manila—one of the most dramatic and disturbing episodes of World War II."

Alex Kershaw

"A chilling, sometimes horrifying narrative of some of the fiercest urban fighting of World War II....Scott gives voices to the victims, and that is an important service to history....[He] is a fine writer, and he musters his considerable talents to move the storyline forward."

Seattle Times - Hal Bernton

"A masterful reconstruction of the horror of the battle."

Foreign Affairs

★ 2018-07-31

A scarifying history of a terrible moment in the Pacific War.

In 1945, Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines as he had promised, wanting nothing more than a spectacular military parade through the streets of Manila. The Japanese commander of forces in the field, Tomoyuki Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya," intended to oblige by withdrawing his soldiers from the city, but an admiral named Sanji Iwabuchi had other ideas. Defying orders, he commanded his sailors and marines to dig in for a house-to-house defense of the city, co-opting some army units in the bargain. With certain death their only option, Iwabuchi's command embarked on a campaign of atrocities in which more than 100,000 Filipinos and foreign nationals were slaughtered, with orders that they be grouped to save ammunition and then disposed of by burning buildings and, with them, material evidence of the massacre. Historian Scott (Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor, 2015, etc.) holds that "Manila has never truly recovered from the battle"; though a gleaming, modern city at its edges, the old heart remains scarred and in some places unreconstructed. Moreover, he adds, Iwabuchi's orgy of violence was not an isolated instance of soldiers without any other hope playing out their last traces of aggression against an enemy that could not fight back. Instead, it was "a pattern of Japanese brutality that played out across Asia," a bookend to the Rape of Nanking. Scott's narrative, studded with nearly unimaginable atrocity, makes for difficult reading, but one cannot argue with that thesis after reading about babies bayoneted in the face, women gang-raped by squadrons of soldiers, and men burned alive. Iwabuchi killed himself rather than face justice, and not many Japanese soldiers survived the relentless American siege. As for Yamashita, though there is some evidence to suggest that he truly had no control over the rogue commander and his troops, he was hanged as a war criminal, a fate that few readers will lament.

Painful but necessary reading for students of World War II.

Kirkus Reviews