Miracle of Deliverance

The main theme here is the extreme reluctance of the Japanese to surrender in 1945, even after the atom-bomb attacks on two of their cities. Harper maintains that authorities in Tokyo awaited an Allied invasion on the home islands with positive eagerness, and asserts that the slaughter on both sides would have been horrendous. On another level the book is a good, if brief, account of the Japanese war as a whole, with emphasis on the British contribution. In one interesting speculation, the author describes why Operation Zipper, the amphibious landing of Mountbatten's forces, would have been crushed had the war not abruptly ended with the ""miracle of deliverance'' (the phrase is Churchill's) at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Harper is a correspondent for the London Daily Express. Photos. (May)