Forum

For reservations for remote or in person attendance, email, kmaurer@mac-stl.org.

After a series of meetings devoted to wars of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the Military History Club returns to World War II on July 25 as it welcomes a Zoom appearance by renowned scholar and author John McManus.  Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History, Prof. McManus will talk about the subject of his most recent book, To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945.  From Luzon to Japan, McManus will recount ordeals of American soldiers and officers, braving intense heat, rampant disease, and a by-now suicidal enemy, determined to kill as many opponents as possible before defeat, and they will encounter Japanese soldiers faced with the terrible choice between capitulation or doom. At the same time, the titanic ego and ambition of the Pacific War’s most prominent general, Douglas MacArthur, adds to the complex challenges presented by Japan’s unconditional surrender and America’s lengthy occupation.