Michel Paradis’s Last Mission to Tokyo, a “superb” (The Wall Street Journal) and “engrossing…richly researched” (The New York Times Book Review) account of a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolittle Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined the Japanese-American relations and changed legal history. In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl … freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.
Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. In Last Mission to Tokyo, Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers–in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes–that would change the face of our legal and military history. Perfect for fans of Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, Last Mission to Tokyo is an unforgettable war story-meets-courtroom-drama that “captures the reader with the first sentence and never lets go” (John Grisham).
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Last Mission to Tokyo is a thoroughly compelling true story of legal intrigue in the most unexpected of settings. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, it captures the reader with the first sentence and never lets go.
Those who say all the stories about World War II have been told are wrong because Michel Paradis has found one and it’s a doozy — the fates of the Doolittle Raid survivors and the Nuremburg-like efforts to bring their captors and killers to justice. Last Mission to Tokyo is both a narrative of wartime heroism and a courtroom thriller that grabs readers to the very last page.
A deeply researched and hauntingly intimate case study of war, law, revenge, and responsibility on both sides in the tragic clash between Japan and the United States in World War Two. An excellent book.
Slightly Misleading Title, Solid History. If you’re looking for a history of the actual Doolittle Raid… this isn’t it. Instead, this focuses on the 1946 war crimes trial of the Japanese officials implicated in murdering four of the Raiders after their capture in China following the raid in 1942 and subsequent conviction in a kangaroo court. But for what it is, this is truly a remarkable story that brings to life a part of history I personally had never so much as heard about. Paradis notes in the afterword that upon researching what was originally supposed to be a more straightforward legal analysis, he realized that he needed to change the focus to be a historical narrative fit for a wider audience, and in that new goal this reader can confirm that he did particularly well. Yes, Paradis is a miliary lawyer historian by trade, and this particular background comes through quite blatantly in the text, but it is never so full of jargon from any of those parts of his background as to be incomprehensible to the wider audience only cursorily aware of those subjects. Very much recommended.
This is a powerful, extremely well written book about the Doolittle Raid and the Japanese war crime trials that followed. The story begins with the shocking and surprisingly formal execution of three of the captured Raiders. In the international war crime trial that results, lawyers bring the captors of the Raiders to justice and, believe me, the final scene is unforgettable.
Last Mission to Tokyo tells the previously neglected but fascinating afterstory of the famous 1942 Doolittle Air Raid on Japan by sixteen American bombers. Paradis writes with the precision of a lawyer but the narrative flair of a novelist in telling this extraordinary tale of heroism, suffering, and justice. What an amazing story.
Michel Paradis beautifully chronicles the impassioned search for justice in the aftermath of war. Novelistic and engrossing, this true tale takes you inside the minds and hearts of those who sought redemption for war crimes in the face of crushing realities. Whether you are drawn to military strategy, courtroom drama, or just a great yarn, Last Mission to Tokyo will keep you on the edge of your seat until its final climactic scene.