On May 4, 1945, as the United States and its allies in the Pacific closed in on Japan, a kamikaze bomber crashed onto the warship where Denis Warner was assigned, almost ending his career as a correspondent. But as this book shows, it was only a beginning.
Warner, an Australian, was at the front line of reporting for much of the 20 years of tumultuous Asian history covered by his book. He made three amphibious landings with the U.S. Marines in the Pacific in 1944, flew on the first Superfortress raid on Tokyo, and was with the U.S. fleet for the last great naval battle of the war.
He was back in Australia when the war ended, but left for Asia again on the day Japan surrendered on what was meant to be an assignment of a few months, but which continued in various ways for a lifetime.
The end of the war lighted the fires of nationalism that drove the Western colonial powers into retreat. Revolution and armed conflict marked the beginning of the new era that Warner reported for British and American as well as Australian readers.
Then, out of confusion and conflicting ideologies, came a renaissance in East Asia, an industrial revolution — unpredictable, exciting and as dramatic as the revolution that took Europe from sail to steam and later into the jet age and the world of high technology.....