MacArthur's Luck: Who's real and who's not (1)
Part of the fun in writing alternate history is the potential for blending real and fictional characters as seamlessly as possible. It's not only entertaining for the writer, but also creates an interesting puzzle for motivated readers.
In MacArthur's Luck, all three of the prominent Japanese officers portrayed during a somewhat different Okinawa campaign are modeled on real historical figures.
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima in fact commanded the 32nd Army; Lieutenant General Usamu Cho was his Chief of Staff, and Colonel Hiromichi Yahara was the defensively minded Operations Officer. The disagreements between the three regarding proper strategy are also accurate portrayed, and are dependent in large measure on Yahara's later memoir, The Battle for Okinawa.
How those disagreements played out, how far Yahara was willing to go, the fate of Yahara's family, and his subsequent career in Stalin's Wager are all, however, my creations.
One of the themes I was interested in exploring in MacArthur's Luck was the question of what happened when smart (sometimes even brilliant) subordinates in a military organization succeeded in substituting their ideas and preferred tactics for those they had been ordered to follow. Indeed, within the novel we get to see American, German, Russian, and Japanese officers all doing just that ... and we get to find out how that worked for them (at least in my imagination).
MacArthur's Luck is available through Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, iBook, Kobo, and Smashwords, for the ridiculously low price of $0.99 for 510 pages of a very different World War Two. If you like it (or even if you don't), please leave a review at Amazon.
In MacArthur's Luck, all three of the prominent Japanese officers portrayed during a somewhat different Okinawa campaign are modeled on real historical figures.
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| From L-R: Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, Commander, Japanese 32nd Army at Okinawa; Lt. Gen, Usamu Cho, Chief of Staff; Col. Hiromichi Yahara, Operations Officer |
Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima in fact commanded the 32nd Army; Lieutenant General Usamu Cho was his Chief of Staff, and Colonel Hiromichi Yahara was the defensively minded Operations Officer. The disagreements between the three regarding proper strategy are also accurate portrayed, and are dependent in large measure on Yahara's later memoir, The Battle for Okinawa.
How those disagreements played out, how far Yahara was willing to go, the fate of Yahara's family, and his subsequent career in Stalin's Wager are all, however, my creations.
One of the themes I was interested in exploring in MacArthur's Luck was the question of what happened when smart (sometimes even brilliant) subordinates in a military organization succeeded in substituting their ideas and preferred tactics for those they had been ordered to follow. Indeed, within the novel we get to see American, German, Russian, and Japanese officers all doing just that ... and we get to find out how that worked for them (at least in my imagination).
MacArthur's Luck is available through Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, iBook, Kobo, and Smashwords, for the ridiculously low price of $0.99 for 510 pages of a very different World War Two. If you like it (or even if you don't), please leave a review at Amazon.
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