Men watching from the rails of the ships felt the blast concussions in their viscera." The successive explosions merged into a solitary, unbroken roar. The projectiles arced toward the island in parabolic trajectories, high and low, according to the caliber of the gun and the distance that each warship lay offshore.
Wrapped in a shroud of smoke and flame, nothing of Iwo Jima could be seen from the fleet, except (sporadically) the peak of Mt. In writing about the Battle of Iwo Jima, Toll writes, "The bombardment force, which had arrived off Iwo Jima the same day the carrier planes hit Tokyo, buried the islands under an avalanche of high-explosive shells. “I can assure you that my intentions were excellent, but my execution rotten.”"
Roland Smoot, one of the Navy's more acclaimed fighters, called him “a complete and utter clown,” while admitting that “if he said, ‘Let's go to hell together,’ you'd go to hell with him.” Halsey was always on the edge of being fired, and knew it: “I am most apologetic for the present mix-up,” he wrote to Nimitz after one foul-up. But Halsey cultivated loyalty and received it. "The charge sheet against Halsey is long and complex, but is nowhere rendered more grimly than in Toll's description of his “pattern of confusion, sloppiness and impulsiveness in basic procedures,” his “slapdash habits,” his penchant “to speak first and think later,” his persistent promotion of his own “glorified public image” and his questionable familiarity with naval aviation - a requirement, you would think, in a theater that featured carrier operations. One figure that stands out in Toll's story for criticism is Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. From this point the central figures in Toll's account are primarily the leaders of the Navy- King, Nimitz, Spruance and Halsey, with Nimitz shown as being the principal strategist of the American Pacific war and Spruance emerging as the chief tactician implementing Nimitz's plans, while Ernest King gradually fades into an important, but background role. The story of the rivalry between Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz provides an important backdrop to the story, one that resembles the rivalry between the Americans and the British in Europe, but is focused more on geography than resources at this point in the conflict the American military-industrial complex was able to provide more material to both leaders than was needed to win the conflict, the dispute centered on which geographic path to Japan would lead to the quickest victory. Toll concludes the story with information about the planned invasion of the Japanese main islands, the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese surrender and American occupation of Japan. Toll then begins the story of the final phase of the war in the Pacific, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, beginning with the Battle of Iwo Jima and then moving into a detailed account of the fight for the island of Okinawa. Toll continues into a detailed narrative of the long and multiple battles that resulted in the liberation of the Philippines. The story begins with the July 1944 conference between General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz in Hawaii, where the dispute between the two principal military leaders over the best path to defeat the Japanese was mediated by President Franklin Roosevelt.
Continuing the story of the Pacific war, Twilight of the Gods covers the period from July 1944 to the end of the conflict in September 1945.
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