I’ve just finished reading William Manchester’s absorbing memoir about the Pacific War. ‘Goodbye Darkness’ is a reminder of just how brutal that campaign was, particularly the battle for Okinawa in 1945, where Americans and Japanese fought in hand-to-hand combat in conditions that Manchester likened to Passchendaele. There was one key difference though: in the East China Sea, Americans were up against an enemy only too willing to die for their cause.