Books with author Bruce Lee

The “extraordinarily informed” account of how US cryptographers broke Japan’s Purple cipher to change the course of World War II (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Marching Orders tells the story of how the American military’s breaking of the Japanese diplomatic Purple codes during World War II led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and hastened the end of the devastating conflict. With unprecedented access to over one million pages of US Army documents and thousands of pages of top-secret messages dispatched to Tokyo from the Japanese embassy in Berlin, author Bruce Lee offers a series of fascinating revelations about pivotal moments in the war. Challenging conventional wisdom, Marching Orders demonstrates how an American invasion of Japan would have resulted in massive casualties for both forces. Lee presents a thrilling day-by-day chronicle of the difficult choices faced by the American military brain trust and how, aware of Japan’s adamant refusal to surrender, the United States made the fateful decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hailed as “one of the most important books ever published on World War II” by Robert T. Crowley, an intelligence officer who later became a senior executive at the CIA, Marching Orders unveils the untold stories behind some of the Second World War’s most critical events, bringing them to vivid life. With this book, “many of the mysteries that have eluded historians since the end of the war are much clarified: the Pearl Harbor fiasco, D-Day, why the Americans let the Russians capture Berlin, and why the decision to drop the atomic bomb was made. This is the most significant publication about World War II since the recent series of books on the Ultra revelations” (Library Journal). It’s a story that, as historian Robin W. Winks said, “no one with the slightest interest in World War II or in the origins of the Cold War can afford to ignore.”

Already acclaimed as "one of the most important books ever published about World War II,"* this brilliantly written book reveals a host of previously untold stories: how the American breaking of the Japanese diplomatic Purple ciphers led to the defeat of Germany and caused Eisenhower not to capture Berlin, as well as why America and Great Britain agreed to employ nuclear weapons against Japan.In researching Marching Orders, Bruce Lee had access to 1.5 million pages of U.S. Army documents -- plus 15,000 pages of Japanese decrypts -- detailing Germany's most sensitive military secrets. Japanese diplomats and military attaches in Europe sent these reports daily to Tokyo, believing falsely that their ciphers could not be broken. In turn, Tokyo sent its diplomats plans for the military expansion of the Japanese Empire.In Marching Orders, Bruce Lee takes these decrypts and shows, with an overlay on wartime chronological events, what their impact was on Chief of Staff George C. Marshall (plus a handful of others) and how they influenced his strategic prosecution of the war. New light is shed on myriad issues, including the ceding of Berlin to the Soviets, the wars in Africa and on the Eastern Front, the invasion of Europe, and the atomic bombing of Japan.Challenging conventional wisdom, this book concisely documents the dreadful casualties both American and Japanese forces would have suffered in an invasion and occupation of Japan. Marching Orders demonstrates, through its interpretation of the supposedly secret communications between Japanese leaders, that Tokyo was adamant in its refusal to surrender. The difficult choices facing the Americans about how to end the war quickly are explained on a day-by-day-basis.

Robert T. Crowley, an intelligence officer in World War II who later became a senior executive at the CIA, has called Marching Orders simply "one of the most important books ever published about World War II." At last available in paperback, the book reveals a host of previously untold stories about codes and codebreaking—including how the American breaking of the Japanese diplomatic Purple ciphers led to the defeat of Germany, as well as why America and England agreed to use nuclear weapons against Japan. Bruce Lee, who had access to 1.5 million pages of U.S. Army documents and 15,000 pages of the sometimes daily top-secret messages sent to Tokyo from Japanese diplomats stationed in Berlin and elsewhere, constructs the most complete history available on American codebreaking activity and its consequences. He concisely documents the extraordinary casualties both American and Japanese forces would have suffered in an invasion and occupation of Japan, demonstrating through intercepted secret communications between Japanese leaders that Tokyo was adamant in its refusal to surrender.