If victory over Japan meant anything beyond a change in the balance of power, it meant that eternal values and immutable principles, which had come d… - Samuel Eliot Morison

Of course, what we should all like to attain in writing history is style. “The sense for style,” says Whitehead in his Aims of Education, “is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic, style in practical execution, have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being. . . Style is the ultimate morality of mind.”

The situation in China was full of explosives, the handling of which required delicacy. Shortly before the actual surrender the Japanese withdrew their forces to the Yangtze Valley and to North China, where the Chinese Communists demanded that they receive the Japanese surrender. General Okamura, commander of the North China Area Army, refused, but on 17 August let it be known that he would surrender to Chiang Kai-shek. Unfortunately, the Generalissimo and his Nationalist armies were far distant, in southwest China. A Japanese puppet Chinese government with its own "Peace Preservation Troops" further complicated matters. And although the United States was willing to assist the Nationalist government to reestablish control over Chinese territory, it was fearful of being involved in a civil war.

Generally, in an expeditionary force, a 3-to-1 ratio of superiority over the defending enemy is considered indispensable; and often in this war, as at Munda and Tarawa, that proved to be not enough. Here, the ratio at the start was about 1 to 4. Why then did the venture succeed? Simply because the United States and Australia dominated that stretch of the ocean and the air over it. The enemy had so few boats and barges that he was able to apply to his 4 to 1 superiority against the Cavalry-cum-Seabee spearhead. The Navy not only provided the Army with seagoing artillery but brought up troopers, beans and bullets in greater numbers; while the Japanese were as completely sealed off from help as MacArthur's forces had been on Bataan early in 1942.