Pearl Harbor Books

Don't look to this book for accurate or in-depth information on the attack on Pearl Harbor. This book is useful for the photos and as a companion to books like At Dawn We Slept by Gordon Prange or Walter Lord's Day of Imfamy.

What do you expect from a Life book. Great pictures and that is what this book delivers. Unlike other books dealing with Pearl Harbor, this Life book examines the conditions in both the U.S. and Japan, then goes in detail about the attack, and then shows some of the personal glimpses of some of the participants sixty years later. This book excels in both its photos and personal portrayals of people.
There are some flaws in this book. An experienced person can pick them out quite easily. For instance, it talks about the battleship Shaw blowing up, well the Shaw was a destroyer. It also details the invasion of Belgium and Netherlands, and states the invasion of France was later, both invasions occurred at the same time. There were other mistakes, so hopefully this does not confuse the beginning historian.
This book was a OK read, and the pictures are great.

This concise history of the SeaBees offers many first person narratives and sometimes a true gritty feeling for the struggles of SeaBees in war and in peace. Kimmel features activities from the islands of the Pacific in WWII to modern peacekeeping and relief efforts. Much of the book reads like a history textbook but he comes a long way in documenting the sometimes less glamorous but still vital jobs that SeaBees have been called to complete. However, he seems to write more about the fighting part of the motto "We Build. We Fight." Overall I recommend it to fill the missing chapters of the proud SeaBee history. This should be the second SeaBee book in any SeaBees library next to "Can Do".

Now in a newly updated third edition, U.S. Navy Seabees: Since Pearl Harbor by historian and author Jay Kimmel is a seminal and detailed history of the U.S. Navy's "Seabees", the military construction units that played key roles from their inception just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, through their often hazardous duty throughout the battlefields of World War II. By the end of the war the Seabees numbered some 325,000 personnel. The Seabees went on to serve with distinction in the Korean Conflict, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq as those emergency, war-time, battlefield crises required both their construction and fighting skills. Enhanced with 200 illustrations in a large, 232-page, paperback format, U.S. Navy Seabees is a unique and welcome addition for personal, academic, and community library American Military Studies reference collection and supplemental reading list.

This is a great book if you are looking for general or in-depth history on WW2 in the Pacific.It gives great details on all the land and sea battles in the Pacific and gives the reader info on what was happening in the Imperial High Command of Japan.

I was very disappointed with this book. Considering that it was published in 1995, I was shocked at the amount of out-of-date and incorrect information it contained. You would be better off purchasing the biased but informative volumes written by Morrison. In fact, this book is little more than a rehash of previous works.

I was particularly struck by blatant errors contained in this book. Three examples will suffice:

1. The reference on page 195 (paperback version) to the Japanese Battleship 'Kumano.' There was no such ship. There was a 'cruiser' of that name however.

2. The everchanging description of the Japanese Battleship 'Ise.' Page 153: it's a 'battleship.' On Page 354 it's a 'half-carrier.' On page 363 it's a 'converted battleship.' And on page 478 it's a 'battleship' again. This may seem minor but it indicates a complete ignorance on the part of the author that the ship was modified ONCE with a deck added in place of the aft 14" gun turrets. This was not explained and an uninformed reader may be confused or assume that there is more than one 'Ise.' It also raises the possibility that the author's research in some places goes little beyond quoting other sources uncritically.

3. The bizarre restating of the since-discredited (or at least now much in doubt) theory that the American submarine 'Nautilus' sank the Japanese Carrier 'Soryu' during the battle of Midway. This was shocking to me since one of the books listed in the bibliography lays to rest this apparently false notion (Fuchida's 'Midway' which the author should have read-- he clearly didn't). It was the 'Kaga' the sub attempted to torpedo: and the torpedos all failed to detonate or hit the carrier. NOTE: Part of the 'Kaga's' remains have been located in the Pacific. The 'Soryu' may be near-by...

I lastly note that I am not an expert on United States Naval History during the Second World War. I am however a former history teacher and have had a life-long interest in this subject. I point this out because I strongly suspect that many other errors are contained in this book which I simply failed to notice.

Interesting book, and worth getting if you want another side of the Pearl Harbor story. I am a big FDR fan, so it is hard for me to consider that he wanted this disaster to happen to get us involved. I do think there is more of a chance that Churchill knew in time to alert us. However, he knew it would be a benefit in the longrun as England needed our help. As for FDR and the USA - the writing was on the wall, and FDR (and others should have seen it) However, one thing we usually forget. The US does not make policy for Japan. Japan had trained very hard for this mission. They should be given credit where it is due. They caught us with our paints down, and they out smarted us, and they had been forced in a corner, because they knew in the end they would be the ones that would pay. Sorry didn't meant to preach, but the book brings up points in which I find in conflict with my views. But a good book can do that. I do suggest to read both sides of the story though, before making your final decision. I'd buy this book but also get another to balance.

Negative reactions to this book here reiterate the enormous capacity that Americans share for abject denial.

Human behavior is as simple and uncomplicated as it could be. People have left reviews here who have not read this book, so horrified are they that they may be forced to accept that this country is not, and hasn't been since 1776, the Disneyland Main St. USA that they so cherish.

It's a nasty world, and we're right at the center of it.

Why would the US government need to keep military documents from Congress and the American people if `they' had nothing to hide from us? Mr. Stinnett provides these military documents to support his conclusion.
This book examines:
"1 - The US Navy's eight point Overt Act of War strategy adopted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that lured Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.
2 - The 1941 Japanese naval radio intercepts.
3 - Presidential and U.S. Army and Naval dispatches ordering American Pacific commanders to stand aside and let Japan commit the first overt act of war.
4 - Discover six years of Pearl Harbor hoaxes intended to deceive the American public and congress.
Follow the Japanese naval spy who was allowed carte blanche to spy on and prepare bomb plots of Pearl Harbor."

The McCollum Memo alone provides evidence that this was no surprise attack; well no surprise to the higher levels of the US government and military.

Does anyone use plain ole common sense anymore? Are we really to believe that the president of the United States would deliberately let thousands of Americans be killed, let half of our Pacific Fleet be crippled, and leave the west coast of America open to attack, all for the sake of winning support for a war that we would eventually be dragged into anyway? And this from a president that loved the Navy? What a bunch of hogwash. There is no doubt many things things about Pearl Harbor have been left out of history, but c'mon folks, use your brains..

This is a well documented history of events leading up to Pearl Harbor which gives a lot of credibility to FDR manipulating events to pull the US into WWII. I will try to find out how Mr. Stinnett is viewed by other noted WWII historians. This book presents a different light on FDR than I have heard before and I wonder if this view and Mr. Stinnett are credible rather than having an agenda to prove. It is well written and an easy read for the most part. It certainly caught my attention as it should anyone that has an interest in FDR's legacy and how his administration operated prior to WWII.

I am glad I didn't read all the reviews on this book before reading it,as I might not have read it at all. There are a lot of good things about this book,but it seems there are a lot of things that prevent it from becoming a great book.
The attack on Pearl Harbor has been covered in many books and films. It was an event that had so much to it that one wonders whether it can ever be covered perfectly. Even people who were there that terrible day;would have seen it very differently.
The thing about this book that is different, is that it concentrates as much as possible,on the USS Arizona;but not entirely.The fact that this ship's story has to be seen in its relationship to what went on around it that day.
The book does a good job of showing what it was like to sail on the Arizona from its earliest days and what it was like to be part of the crew the day she was destroyed.
As much as possible,the book concentrates on the personal experiences of several survivors who were lucky enough to live to tell their stories.
The book also tells what efforts were made to retrieve the bodies of the victims ,salvage operations,visits to the wreck by divers;and the decisions and things that were done to create the memorial that now exists. Complete lists of all the casualties,as well as survivors is included in appendix B&C.Also included in appendix D are all the funeral services held at the memorial for Arizona Men who were aboard the Arizona that fateful day,but have since died and requested it be the final resting flace of their remains with their friends.
The book includes 33 B&W photographs.
No one book can say everything that needs saying about the Attack on Pearl Harbor,so this book should be taken in that light.
I don't know ,nor do I imagine does anyone else,what details are correct and what are errorerous or simply careless researching.It seems others have critizied the book on these points,so I guess many of the details must be taken with caution.

I purchased this book as a gift for an uncle who was an ARIZONA survivor who had preceeded me in my Naval career. He survived to serve twenty more years in the Navy after the sinking of his ship, including surviving having another ship sunk beneath him. Unfortunately he died before I had the chance to give it to him--though prehaps not so unfortunate in one respect. He was a stickler for details and he would probably have been disappointed in the story of his ship as told in this book.

The book is a dramatic story of a dramatic event that shaped world history. Having said that, there's not much else to say about it. It is the result of collaboration by three authors, one of whom is a retired U.S. Marine. It reads as though they each took one part of the story to write and the book was hurriedly cobbled together to meet a publishing deadline without adequate reconciliation of the different parts. Other than the personal accounts of the individual survivors quoted, I can find little new material in the book that isn't published elsewhere. I was disappointed in the inconsistant data in the books--such as calling ADM H.E. Kimmel an Admiral (4 stars), a Rear Admiral (2 stars) and a Fleet Admiral (5 stars) in the space of a page and a half. That part was obviously not written by the Marine, who would never make such a mistake in rank. There was also a discription of one of the surviors who, also in the space of a couple of pages was referred to as a "chief warrant officer", a "warrant officer" and "eligible for warrant officer" (a chief petty officer). Other similarly discordant data jangled the attention of a reader. Nautical terminology was sometimes used, sometimes misused, sometimes disregarded entirely. Many of the scenes were decribed repetatively and inconsistantly, not just from the different viewpoints of the different survivors but from the narative matrix connecting the stories. Details about the ship and the people were erratic and kept the reader off balance, trying to construct a picture of the events. The pace and feel of the book was inconsistant throughout and not of the caliber I'd have expected of a book recording events from the perspective of sixty years later.

The USS Arizona by Joy Waldron Jasper, James P. Delgado, and Jim Adams was great. Granted to the perfectionist this is not a flawless. This isn't a detailed, stats filled book. It is more of a holistic view of a ship that has become an icon of America told by 3 people. I believe this book is perfect for your everyday person wanting to learn about the Arizona and not meant for your core historian. I have read many books and seen many shows about Pearl Harbor and the ships, sailors and battle of December 7th. This book takes these 3 individuals, a journalist, a historian and a Marine, who all have been connected in some way to the Arizona and tell the ships story from a Ship of War to a Symbol of America.

The interviews of the survivors and history that covered the time before December 7th was something new for me in that it gave me a new perspective of life on the Arizona. I did not really think about the fact that battle ship was over 20 years old and been around the world. It was good to be reminded of the daily routine of the sailors and how much the ship was their life and home. It gave me a new appreciation of the impact her loss and the other ships' of Pearl Harbor had on the sailors that served in them.

The part afterwards about the memorial and the ship today was a good conclusion. Understanding the Navy's attempts at salvage and finally settling on leaving her as a memorial shed new light on how she got the way she is. I really appreciated the accounts of the burial of survivor's ashes back aboard the sunken ship. All in all I felt a certain closure with this book and have a better understanding of what the USS Arizona means to me and other Americans.

I bought my copy of "The USS Arizona" after a trip to the 'Arizona' memorial in Hawaii last year. I have always been interested in Pearl Harbor and World War Two in the Pacific Theatre, and have read extensively on it (I particularly like the Gordon Prange books, especially "At Dawn We Slept".) I found the 'Arizona' memorial to be a place of beauty and tranquility, yet amazingly solemn and haunting. After the visit, I decided to learn more about the 'Arizona' herself. This is a great book for a start. It is an interesting amalgam of operational history, information on the attack, including an excellent section debunking myths surrounding the attack, personal recollections, and historical preservation efforts today.

The bulk of the book deals with recollections of crewmembers on shipboard life, with emphasis on December 7, 1941, obviously. These recollections form a valuable oral history of the ship, and though there are minor conflicts between the stories on a couple of details, they are heartfelt, well told, captivating, and historically irreplaceable.

Equally important is the story of the current preservation efforts of the National Park Service to manage the wreck. In particular, the stories of survivors who elect to rejoin their fallen comrades when they are interred in Turret Four are moving beyond all expectations, and reinforce the significance of the Pearl Harbor attack in their lives.

There are some minor errors in the book, many of which are typographical, for instance using "savage" instead of "salvage". Some of the errors are a bit more careless as in a reference to 'General Yamamoto', when he was, of course, and Admiral, and going back and forth on whether the 'Arizona' was tied up at quay F-7 or F-8 (I believe it was F-8.) These are pretty nit-picky, but need to be mentioned. The book does have a couple of standout features in the five appendices. Appendix A is an excellent, if brief, overview of the key events in the Pacific war, Appendix B is an 'Arizona' casualty list, Appendix C is a list of 'Arizona' survivors, and Appendix E is a list of ship casualties of Japan in World War Two. Appendix E makes a sobering statement, that I have never heard anywhere else and found utterly fascinating: "Of the attacking Japanese fleet that initiated the war against the United States on December 7, 1941, all ships ended up on the bottom of the sea by the war's end except one midget submarine." As horrible as Pearl Harbor was for the American forces, the whirlwind reaped by Japan, in the end, was no less ferocious.

This poorly written book reads in part like some dollar tourist brochure available at any Honolulu newsstand. And those are some of the better parts. This is all said in respect to the ship and its men, more respect than they are shown between the covers of this book.

THE USS ARIZONA was written by three authors (Jasper, Delgado and Adams), and was obviously written in haste with little collaboration and less intelligent editing. As it reads it is almost an affront to the memories of the men who fought and died on board, and to those who lived to tell about it. It gets two stars in their honor. The oral histories of that terrible December day are worthy of remembrance.

The memoirs of Regular Navy swabbies who called the ARIZONA home in the late 1930's and early 1940's are priceless. They give the reader a fine sense of what being a sailor on a battleship in peacetime was like: A spartan man's world of honest hard work punctuated by liberty calls in one of the world's most exotic ports of call.

The terrible and sorrowful recollections of the men who lived through Sunday, December 7th are likewise to be treasured. They are a testament to an America that was blasted out of a dolorous drowse of peace and yet immediately showed its best side. ARIZONA men tried to defend Hawaii, protect their ship, save their buddies, and turn back the invader. That the ship and her crew died in the doing takes nothing away from them at all.

Unfortunately, the book's flaws are so glaring that they detract from these finer points. The seams of the story, where one author left off and another began, stand out like scars. The tense shifts from third to first person, depending on who is writing. The changes in tone and changes in pace are jarring. So is the repetition of information. For example, we are told five times (and three times in two pages!) of the same modification made to Japanese aerial torpedoes.

It's a shame the authors were not up to their task. The book's recounting of the early history of the ARIZONA is spotty. We find out that the ARIZONA once ferried President Hoover, but we never find out where or why. Technical information on the ship is virtually nonexistent. The ship underwent several major refits in her career but almost nothing is said about them. Likewise, relatively little is actually said about Pearl Harbor, the ARIZONA's role there, the attack, or the damage to the ship.

Much of this is probably not so much the fault of the authors (whose qualifications to write this book are exemplary) as much as of the editors who simply did a BAD job, unworthy even of a high school "alternative" newspaper, such as:

"At 7:55 AM the sky was dark over Oahu...the sun glinted off the wings of the Japanese planes."

Hawaii is an admittedly amazing place, but even there the sun does not shine at night in the morning. Nor does gloom of night last until eight bells. We are told that the ARIZONA had taken on "a million" or "millions" of gallons of oil prefatory to sailing, but in other spots we are given precise (but varying) amounts which seem far too small, such as 3,300 or 5,000 gallons, a huge discrepancy. It would seem relatively easy to find out what the oil bunker capacity of the ship was (4,630 tons, or 9,260,000 gallons according to outside sources) but the authors leave us, carelessly, not knowing. Disdaining fact-checking as a luxury, apparently the editors confused oil tonnage and gallon capacity in their rush to get this book into print for the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

The book also lacks maps and diagrams, an unforgivable oversight in any book involving Pearl Harbor and its ships. The photograph on the cover of the Mass-Market Edition is NOT that of the ARIZONA, but of a much smaller vessel. Several of the photographs within the book are also of other ships misidentified as the ARIZONA. THE USS ARIZONA is peppered throughout with this kind of editorial slovenliness. It ruins this book.

Meant to be a paean to the ship and its crew, THE USS ARIZONA fails miserably, except where ARIZONA survivors speak in their own voices. It would have been profound to write a quality history of the ship instead of this patchwork job in which so much is unremembered, half-remembered and distorted.

Someone looking for the ARIZONA is well-advised to tread cautiously amongst the memory holes that Jasper, Delgado and Adams leave behind them. A visit to the Memorial, where one can experience the presence of the ship is a far, far better thing than this overall disappointing book.

I'm a big fan of 'At Dawn We Slept' and 'December 7, 1941,' the first two books in Gordon W. Prange's Pearl Harbor trilogy. 'Verdict of History,' in which he shifts his focus from 'what happened' to 'why it happened,' however, is more troubling. Prange himself died before the publication of his trilogy. The work was finished by his two co-authors, Goldstein and Dillon, and so I'm tempted to hold them responsible for the things I find most disappointing in this volume.

Part of the problem is the title, which I hope Prange himself didn't have a hand in. As Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn sagely pointed out in 'Liberty or Equality,' the verdict of *history* and the verdict of *historians* are two (often very different) things. I would hope a historian of Prange's skill would not be so presumptuous as to claim to speak for all history. The opinions of talented historians are valuable. But relatively few judgments can ever be final (Henry Clausen's Pearl Harbor book has this problem in spades).

The larger issue seems to have been the release, after Prange's death, of John Toland's 'Infamy,' which breathed new life into the so-called 'revisionist' theory that Franklin Roosevelt knew of and/or deliberately provoked the attack. According to their introduction to this volume, Goldstein and Dillon deliberately expanded and refocused Prange's work in order to respond more thoroughly to the 'revisionist anti-Roosevelt thesis,' which they reject.

They concede that Roosevelt 'might have been ill-advised' or insufficiently 'dynamic' in his leadership. But their central thesis is the mainstream one that Pearl Harbor was due to sub-standard naval and military intelligence systems and failures by the on-scene commanders.

In the end, though, Prange is at pains to point out something that often is overlooked in the 'who do we blame' debate: the magnitude of the Japanese achievement. Pearl Harbor was a massive strategic undertaking -- one the Imperial Navy executed nearly to perfection. Students of the attack do well to remember that attention rightly focuses on the Japanese side of the equation as much as on the American.

I've read a lot of Pearl Harbor history, and recommend Stinnett's recent 'Day of Deceit,' which I think is the most important piece of new Pearl Harbor scholarship in some time. But I readily admit I don't believe anyone has all the answers yet. Prange's seminal work (the sum of his three volumes) is an important part of the dialectic that presents arguments and interpretations and helps us get a clearer picture of what really led up to the Day of Infamy.

This is an excellent book that examines the background to the Pearl Harbor attack, and does not detail the attack itself. This book takes an in depth look at the men and the assumptions that made Pearl Harbor. It searches out the flaws in the American communication system, and the flaws in the commander's thinking which determined the outcome at Pearl. The reader will be surprised at the bureaucratic stumbles that pleagued the American effort. And the reader will quickly recongnize that these same flaws exist in every government (and private) institution today. The authors take great care to quote from the hearings and documents to show their points and leave little room for argument about their conclusions. The research and the analysis are excellent in every way. And the Japanise side of the issue is examined as well. The Japanise pulled off a great feat in surprising the US at Pearl, and they managed it in large part because the US Navy recognized it would be so hard to do; thus, Kimmel and Short (the two US Commanders on the spot) thought it would not be attempted. They also thought it would not be a smart move for the Japanise, and so they assumed the Japanise would play it "smart". The Japanise, for their part, did not think the US would hesitate to fight once Japan moved toward Southeast Asia; however, they also thought the Americans would not fight for long being weak willed, and too comfortable to risk much. The interplay of this thinking makes the Pearl Harbor story compelling. What makes the book so good is the interplay between all the assumptions made by the US and its commanders and Japan and its commanders. How different the outlooks and assumptions were. It is also interesting to see how even within the US Army and Navy men of intelligence and candor could totally miscommunicate their intentions. Knowing about the details of how the attack took place is great, and one would want to read several books, including At Dawn We Slept, to discover this information - however, unless you know the information in this volume one would have missed the biggest part of the Pearl Harbor story. The "why" it happened. I highly recommend this book. AD2

Over the years, there has developed a "revisionist" group of historians who claimed FDR Knew in advance about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor and he did nothing to stop it. In this excellent book by Gordon Prange, this somewhat questionable viewpoint is thoroughly destroyed. One of the revisionists' claims is that the radio stations on the West Coast were able to track the Japanese fleet due to their radio signals. This is impossible, since the Japanese fleet NEVER broke radio silence, and, in fact, had their transmitters removed from thier radios all together. Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the attack, also said that "the force maintained the strictest radio silence throughout the cruise". Revisionists also believed, according to Prange, that if the Japanese task force would have been discovered, it would have turned back. Again, this is not true. The Japanese hoped to attain surprise, but if they were to have been discovered, they were prepared to fight all the way to Pearl Harbor to deliver their attack. What Prange attempts to achieve in this excellent book is who really was to blame? In this aspect, the War Department and the commanders, Kimmel and Short, are held responsible. Prange comes down hard on the War Department for failing to notify the commanders of the intercepted "bomb plot" message. This message, intercepted by "Magic", was transmitted to Japan by a Japanese spy. It broke Pearl Harbor into several sections, which, in effect, could be interpreted as a bombing grid. This information was not transmitted to Kimmel and Short, and could have proven invaluable. But the bulk of the blame appears to fall on Kimmel, Short, and the subordinate commanders. Kimmel and Short both grossly misinterpreted the "War Warning" message dated November 27, 1941, and sent to them by Washington. Short only alerted his troops against possible sabotage and maintained his training schedule. The War Department is also to blame here, because they failed to follow up to make sure Short understood the meaning of the message. Kimmel also failed to grasp the meaning of this message, and, unfortunately, communication between the army and navy was poor at best, so very little information was shared between the commands. One must also realize, and Prange makes excellent reference to this in the book, is that the Japanese placed tremendous amounts of time, thought, and training into this mission, and they must be credited with the success of the attack. America's belief of their huge superiority in both ships and personnel was totally destroyed. Prange also covers each of the resulting investigations fully and includes excellent testimony throughout the book. In summary, this is an excellent book about the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and does a good job of refuting the revisionists and acurately placing blame.

I approached this book thinking that it would yield insights into how the United States was so unprepared for the attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed appropriate in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, to see if the United States had failed to learn from the past and condenmed itself to repeat it.

What I found between the covers of "Verdict of History" was a thick skulled and fatuous account that, in a nutshell, said "this stuff just happens, and no one is to blame". As anyone who read "The Valor of Ignorance" (Homer Lea), "Strategy", by Lidell hart, the writings of Thucydides (a successful ancient Greek General) or other books on military strategy and the nature of warfare realized, the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet was predictable -- and in fact was first discussed in military and political circles as a likely event in 1905.

The author of "Verdict of History" impressed me only with his staggering and colossal stupidity: evidenced in the book by his complete lack of analytical skills, and his obtuse lakc of comprehension when it comes to strategy. In fact, I think the author is probably a candidate for most inept debator of the century: he asserts that Roosevelt's administration was not derelict in exercising its duty or responsibility to defend the United States, and then he provides hundreds of pages of text that indicates that they were (At Dawn, They Slept..and in the afternoon and evening as well, apparently). Mr. Prange seems to have done a great deal of research but learned absolutely nothing from it ... regrettably, that's par for the course with academic writers.

Throw this one into the rubbish can of history.

I approached this book thinking that it would yield insights into how and why the United States was so poorly prepared for the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed appropriate in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to see if the United States had failed to learn from the past and had thereby condenmed itself to a repeat.

What I found between the covers of "Verdict of History" was a thick skulled and fatuous account that, in a nutshell, said "this stuff just happens, and no one is to blame". As anyone who read "The Valor of Ignorance" (Homer Lea), "Strategy", by Lidell Hart, the writings of Thucydides (a successful ancient Greek General) or other books on military strategy and the nature of warfare realized, the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet was predictable -- and in fact was first discussed in military and political circles as a likely event as early as 1905.

The author [...] asserts that Roosevelt's administration was not derelict in exercising its duty or responsibility to defend the United States, and then he provides hundreds of pages of text indicating that they were (At Dawn, They Slept ... and in the afternoon and evening as well, apparently). Mr. Prange seems to have done a great deal of research but learned absolutely nothing from it. Regrettably, that's par for the course with academic writers.

[...]

Series review:

The Sunfire Romances are an interesting specimen of books, especially if read from a feminist point of view. There are several rules in place for the construction of a Sunfire book: the protagonist is a young woman, who celebrates her sixteenth birthday during the course of the story. She lives in a turbulent period of time in American history (examples include the World Wars, the American Civil War, the Salem Witch Hunts, etc) and during the course of the story is approached by two handsome and appealing suitors, forming complicated love-triangles. At the end of the story she has reached maturity and found happiness in the arms of the man best suited to her.

These books sound older than they actually are; they were in fact published for the first time in the 1980's, well after the feminist revolution. Therefore it is refreshing to find that these young girls' stories are not solely defined by their quest to find `true love'; often the social conditions and hardships of life take centre stage as the protagonist struggles against moral decisions and the backdrop of the historical crisis going on around her. And although the stories *do* usually end with a kiss, it is always the young heroine's decision as to which beau she will eventually spend her life with. As such, the Sunfire romances are a delicate blend of feminism and femininity: the girls are all domesticated and beautiful; and yet are never reduced to mere prizes to be won by the most worthy suitor.

Book review:

This particular installment is set during World War II, taking place in Hawaii at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbour, dealing with the immediate and long-term aftermaths. Veronica is the daughter of a naval captain who is called into duty as America joins war, whilst his wife and daughter are left in leaderships roles amongst the community. Jane Claypool Miner does a fine job in creating the atmosphere of war - from the bloodshed and tears of the initial attack, to the exhaustion and paranoia that follows (particularly directed toward the Japanese community). Particularly good is the surrealism of the moment when Veronica goes to a neighbour's house for help after the bombing, only to find they have no idea what's just occurred. Veronica practically grows up over night, and - as is always the way - the war brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

Every Sunfire Romance has the protagonist torn between two love interests, and the two boys in question for Veronica are Mike, her Hawaiian classmate and Philip, a worldly sailor. Veronica is fond of Mike, but is flattered by the attention that Philip bestows upon her - but when the war endangers both of them, she knows she only has a limited time with both of them to decide who she truly loves. In my opinion, the best Sunfire Romances are those that present two worthy suitors to the protagonist who has a truly difficult decision to make in choosing between them that keeps the reader guessing - "Jessica" is a good example of this. "Veronica" doesn't deliver on this account. Not only is it obvious who Veronica will end up with early on in the book, but one of her boyfriends is thoroughly unlikeable. Plus, there's the cover art: what girl would ever choose the baby-faced blondie on the right over the drop-dead gorgeous guy on the left?

Either way, the romance of the story takes a backseat to the more personal toll that the war has on Veronica, from her initial reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbour, in which she finds herself the driver of an ambulance, to the more long-term effects, in which she throws herself heart and soul into the war effort. The most touching relationship of the book is between Veronica and her mother, who initially comes across as cold and snobby, but shows her true colours when the war calls her into action. The bond between mother and daughter takes precedence before Veronica's love interests.

I was surprised at other reviewers' responses that they found Veronica spoilt and stuck-up - I honestly didn't pick up on this during the course of the story, in fact I found that her two defining qualities were very worthy: her steadfast loyalty to friends of differing ethnicity and her determination not to be rushed into a relationship that she wasn't ready for. Although it is not one of my favourite Sunfire books, it's a vivid look into a tiny portion of World War II and one of the lives that lived through it.

In the beginning, Veronica starts off spoiled, but through the book, we see her grow and change. I highly recommend the book.

Veronica is the only Sunfire book I did not like. It was all about a selfish, spoiled girl and I hated it. She did not even think about anyone but herself. It was very dull and not very romantic at all.

This was not one of my favorite Sunfire books. The main character, Veronica, was too self-centered, especially at the begining. During the attack on pearl harbor, all she worried about were her two boyfriends. When she heard of a great tragedy, the sinking of the ship one of her boyfriends is on and the deaths of most of the sailors, all she cares is about her boyfriend, not the other innocent people who died. A dissapoinment.

Veronica is a young 15 year old girl placed during the time of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. I love Sunfire books, and I thought it would be especially good, because I enjoyed the new movie that came out a few weeks ago. Yes, Veronica is a spoiled girl who usually gets what she wants, but she's also young, so she has a lot to learn. She had a lot of spirit throughout the whole book, and it gave it a more exciting perspective.

One of the reasons I gave this book three stars, and not five, was because from page four, I knew who Veronica would end up with. Knowing the history of the Pearl Harbor bombing gave away the ending, but it was still fun to read.

As an analyst and historian of the Pearl Harbor attack, Ned Beach brings to the table qualifications few others can match: a career as a highly-decorated Navy commander and combat veteran. That makes this look at America's on-scene military leaders on the Day of Infamy particularly insightful, and Captain Beach's opinions particularly worthy of respect.

Almost from the moment the bombs stopped falling, the rush was on to hold someone responsible for the catastrophe. Anxious to draw attention away from errors (or, according to some, deliberate policy decisions) by senior officials in Washington, D.C., government investigators and their defenders fingered Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter Short, the commanders in Hawaii, as the men to blame.

Beach sees this as accusation as a slur on the memories of two competent and dedicated officers. Kimmel and Short, Beach argues, did the best they could with the incomplete information and insufficient tools they were given. Beach does not subscribe to the 'Roosevelt knew' school of thought, though he does argue that Roosevelt's policies regarding Japan made war inevitable. Beach's main criticisms are directed at America's military and diplomatic intelligence services, short-sighted budget priorities, and political pressure to 'make someone pay' for what happened.

Very useful in its own right is Beach's concluding 'References' section, in which he shares his thoughts on nearly three dozen books, articles, and government reports on the Pearl Harbor attack. Toland, Prange, Clausen, George Morgenstern, and other key pillars of Pearl Harbor historiography are all covered in this chapter.

Author of the classic navy story 'Run Silent, Run Deep,' Captain Beach is a skilled writer as well as a keen observer, and the prose in this relatively short book never lags. 'Scapegoats' helped start the movement, still ongoing in Congress and elsewhere, to rehabilitate Kimmel's and Short's reputations, and clear their names of six decades of tarnish and shame. Beach ably makes a strong case for righting this wrong as soon as possible.

CAPT Beach's book is extremely well researched and expertly written. In just 200 pages, he provides the reader with the information available in D.C. prior to 12/7/41. He also shows how little of the information was passed to Hawaii. As to Kimmel and Short: "The glove does not fit; so...."

Captain Beach's SCAPEGOATS: A DEFENSE OF KIMMEL AND SHORT AT PEARL HARBOR was published by the Naval Institute Press in March 1995. I'd corresponded with Captain Beach for two or three years prior to his decision to write SCAPEGOATS. A few words about Edward L. Beach before examining this particular book, and Ned Beach's (and the USNI's) motive for writing and publishing this book.

Edward L. Beach graduated second among the 581 midshipmen from the Naval Academy's Class of 1939. Because of his Academy background---to say nothing of his high class standing, and the fact that Beach served two tours as naval aide to President Eisenhower and was a nuclear submariner (like my late father), I had great expectations for this book.

I first read SCAPEGOATS in late March and early April 1995. At that point I'd been working on a book about Pearl Harbor myself. Should my Pearl Harbor MS ever get published, its title will be: CLOSING THE LOOP ON PEARL HABOR.

SCAPEGOATS wants its readers to believe that criticial intelligence available in the Navy and War Departments was denied to Admiral H.E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short in Hawaii. This is the same story that virtually every other Pearl Harbor revisionist has been telling readers for about the past 60 years.

We're told - there is testimony to back this up - that "Hawaii (or Kimmel or Short) didn't have a PURPLE machine." We're also told that the Army and Navy on Oahu didn't share the "limited" intelligence that they did have. The Navy's communications intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor (a.k.a. Station HYPO) was using traffic analysis and call sign recoveries rather than code breaking to learn what they could from Japanese naval codes and ciphers.

We're also told that Admirals (and Generals as relates to the War Department's sending intelligence to General Short) prevented or otherwise failed to send intelligence to Kimmel on Oahu.

Readers who wish to believe Captain Beach's (and every other revisionist's story about Pearl Harbor) are encouraged to read Admiral James O. Richardson's ON THE TREADMILL TO PEARL HARBOR and Navy Basic War Plan, Rainbow 5 (WPL-46), published as JCC Exhibit 129 in the 39-volume PEARL HARBOR ATTACK HEARINGS. Now go back and read JCC Exhibit 115, the so-called daily ComInt summaries from CIU, Pearl Harbor written between 1 November and 6 December 1941. (Allegedly photostatic copies of the original Com14 daily ComInt summaries, all these documents were sanitized prior to being made exhibits of the Hewitt Inquiry, the Clausen Investigation and the JCC on Pearl Harbor. In short, these documents are not the originals.)

Over breakfast on Sunday, 7 December 1941, Admiral Richardson (then serving on the General Board in the Navy Department) told he wise that he wouldn't be surprised at war breaking out "any moment." Compare what J.O. told Vice Admiral George C. Dyer in ON THE TREADMILL TO PEARL HARBOR with what Admiral Kimmel stated in his Roberts Commission testimony, his Navy Court of Inquiry testimony, his Army Pearl Harbor Board testimony, and his JCC testimony. After you've read all of Kimmel's testimony, (and ADMIRAL KIMMEL'S STORY published in 1955), do you still believe much of what he testified to?

Don't waste your money on SCAPEGOATS: A DEFENSE OF KIMMEL AND SHORT AT PEARL HARBOR. This book - like so many of the others (mostly written by former Navy officers) - is a cover-up.

Andy McKane IV
Missoula, Montana

I enjoyed reading Edward Beach materials since they are well written and well research books that tells the stories of Navy. In his books, the challenges and roles of leadership remains ever so presented and clearly described. Due to this, I was bit surprised when I read this book where the author tried to defend the roles of Admiral Kimmel and General Short, two American military commanders who were caught by surprise on 7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

Unfortunately, there's really isn't anything new in this book that bears consideration. Beach reinforced and restates many aspects of Pearl Harbor events as well as many of the myths and theories that surrounds it. But what Beach cannot do and as a former naval officer, he should know this all too well is that he cannot absolve responsibilities that Kimmel and Short had on 7 December 1941. They were in command and its upon their shoulders that responsibilities and blame must fall on. It really matter not if information was withheld, or misplaced, or that they should had warnings or not. All of it proves to be pointless second guessings and Monday morning quarterbacking that actually resolves nothing. These two men were in command and if Edward Beach understand command responsiblity, then he should understand the consequences of that responsiblity.

Were these men made a scapegoats by the military and the politicans? I am sure they were but that come with a territory if your command was caught with their pants down! There are thousands of excuses in this book but they remains unimportant. Unimportant because as commanding officers, Kimmel and Short held the ultimate responsbility and accountablity for their actions or lack of actions. Any military officer from the armies of Ramses II to those fighting in Iraq knows this to be true.

The book harped a lot on the Dorn commission who reinvestigated the entire Pearl Harbor thing and there's really nothing new to say. As I read on, I am really began to think that families of Kimmel and Short were trying to do their utmost to save a reputation of these two men but by doing so, converting them into some sort of mindless drones, incapable of leadership or command without having every single information in front of them. Its my understanding that Kimmel and Short were both pretty competent men who were caught unready and unprepared on 7 December. Such events happens all the times in military history. It was Kimmel and Short's misfortune that they were in command and they were complacent. One characteristic that no military commander should not have!!

The book doesn't appears to recongized this factor. I am bit surprised that someone of Edward Beach's reputation would support such dilly-dally civilian blame game. How truly un-Navy like in perception and words.

PS: It should be noted that in 1999, the US Senate did cleared both Kimmel and Short. In the atmosphere of political correctness, that must have been nice but I wondered how the men under their commands feel. Japanese may have dropped the bombs but thanks to Kimmel and Short, their jobs were made easier.

This book received an award in the scholastic category from the Conference of California Historical Societies for "distinguished contributions to California history." Author Lillian Baker has written several books in her indefatigable efforts to set the historical record straight about the treatment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during WWII. Her most readable effort may be "Dishonoring America: The Falsification of WWII History."
Supporting Baker's work are luminaries such as Prof. Kiyoaki Murata of Yachiyo International University in Tokyo who was in the relocation camps as an "enemy alien" of university age until he decided to leave the camps in 1943 to attend university in Chicago, where he graduated and then returned to Japan after the war. Murata calls the report of the government committee on reparations a "falsification of history" and says that West Coast newspapers refuse to print reviews of his own book "An Enemy Among Friends" that verifies this history as presented by Lillian Baker.
One is forced to wonder if the newspapers are pandering to the reverse racist activists or cynically using them to support their own political agenda.
In the pages of Ms Baker's books you will see the details of the wartime groups, both anti-American and pro-American, and find exactly how their history has been hijacked by small-but-strident groups with an agenda - and the agenda is not concerned with getting the historical facts straight. You will see statements from many Japanese-Americans who resent the falsification of their history by "anti-racist activists" (more correctly called "reverse racist activists"). You will be shocked at the distortions, including falsified photos, that such activists have used to rewrite this history.
The reparations committee was a stacked deck, loaded with types similar to Congressman Norman Mineta, an outspoken proponent of reparations and apology. You'll find that Mineta has constantly lied about his "war-time experiences." You'll also find that Sen. Daniel K. Inouye covered up and withheld from the Presidential Commission, the Congress and the Courts information about MAGIC (see below) that proved the military necessity for E.O.9066 (the Executive Order by President Roosevelt establishing the exclusion zone on the West Coast).
On the other hand, you'll find that Sen. Hayakawa denounced the committee, calling it a "wolf-pack of young Japanese-Americans who weren't even born during WWII." Also, Dr. Ken Masugi, son of alien evacuees, stated that the committee's report "Personal Justice Denied" consists of (1) moral posturing, (2) intellectual dishonesty, and (3) political opportunism. Prof. Murata denounces the report as a "falsification of history."
Naturally, Lillian Baker was a lightening rod for the anger and personal vituperation of the reverse racist activists, who would like nothing more than to suppress her documentation of that period. Unable to counter the evidence she has presented, they revert to the lowest form of attack, casting aspersions on her person and character, including lies about her husband dying at the hands of Japanese in WWII. Their charges of her "anti-Japanese racism" are belied by the fact that she served as the South Bay chair for the successful campaign of Senator S.I. Hayakawa.
After reading this book, you will also want to have a look at "MAGIC: The untold story of US Intelligence and the evacuation of Japanese residents from the West Coast during WWII," by David D. Lowman, former Special Assistant to the Director of the NSA, and Prof. Murata's book "An Enemy Among Friends."

This is yet another diatribe by self-proclaimed 'historian' Lillian Baker, who led what was virtually a one-woman crusade against Americans of Japanese ancestry for years until her recent death. She wrote a few books on the subject and none of them, including this one, follow the standards of academic research. She fails to provide sufficient evidence to back up her claims and she willfully distorts what really happened--primarily because history has proven that she was wrong in her assertions that Americans of Japanese ancestry were all disloyal during World War II and were threats to national security and deserved to be hauled away and locked up in American concentration camps. Bitter and hate-filled to the end because she mistakenly blamed Americans of Japanese ancestry for the death of her husband in the Pacific Theatre during WWII (she, like many others, did not differentiate between Japanese nationals and Americans of Japanese ancestry), Baker's legacy is certainly the opposite of what she had hoped for. Her racism and hate against Japanese Americans did for more to unify them in their struggle for redress and reparations than it did to hamper the movement. Therefore, don't waste your time on this 'book.' If you want to REALLY learn about what happened, there are other fine works on this subject.

Retired G-2 Intelligence Captain Albright's book provides a succinct and accurate summary of how Japan's Pearl Harbor attack went wrong.

- Japan controlled most all islands in the Pacific, with the U.S. limited primarily to Aleutians, Midway, Hawaii, Howland, Wake, Guam, and some of the Philippines.

- Japan's attack hit just one row of 18 U.S. capital ships, out of some 400 overall in Pearl Harbor, plus supporting airfields.

- Japan's December 7 attack was intended to discourage the USA from challenging Japanese hegemony in Southeast Asia. At stake there were oil, rubber, tin, and other important resources to support imperial power. Japan miscalculated.

- Japan's terrible blunder was in not destroying Pearl Harbor's oil reserves, machine shops, and submarine pens - so as then to invade and dominate the Hawaiian Islands and preempt the USA from carrying on war in the Pacific.

After summarizing history, Captain Albright's book continues with fictional speculation, and very effectively and engagingly at that. Had Japan decided to take Hawaii and preempt U.S. military might in the Pacific, what would have been intelligent strategy and tactics?

- First of all, a third strike that would have taken out the oil reservoir, submarine pens, and machine shops - as Harvard-educated Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto later regretted not doing.

- Next, to take Kauai's Hanalei Bay and base a portion of the Japanese fleet there to carry on the Oahu invasion.

- With the U.S. Pacific fleet seriously disabled, Japanese prospects for taking all of Hawaii would have been good but still uncertain. Albright weaves a fascinating tale of hypothetical tactics, deceptions and countermoves by both sides from there.

- The outcome of Albright's speculations is left inconclusive, which should stimulate the reader's own research and explorations of strategies and tactics.

It's all in all a most lively and important book for historians and laymen alike to ponder.

One of the major problems with this book is hinted at by the mixed messages on the cover. I found it (in a library) shelved under nonfiction, history of WWII while the back cover copy describes it as a 'novel'. The confusion is understandable. Albright begins with real historical events (the Russo-Japanese War, and the early stages of the Pearl Harbor attack) although in a superficial and novelized format. Then at the point where the Japanese attack in reality broke off and went home, Albright postulates further assaults both in the air and on the surface. Unfortunately, the left turn into alternate history isn't all that well marked. I spent quite a bit of time after the shift into fiction wondering if Albright had his facts wrong or if my previous reading on the subject had missed something.

The author information in the hardcover edition mentions that Albright, then a serving Army officer, was present at the Pearl Harbor attack. While this credential commands respect for him personally, it is of little help to him as a novelist. Since (past a certain point) the book is fiction, it demands the fiction writer's craft of drawing readers into the story. While Albright uses the tools of fiction -- directly quoted dialog, physical description of characters with speaking parts -- they aren't really handled adeptly. His idea might well have been better served by an essay format without the foray into fiction.

(Another problem, one in no way Albright's fault, is that in the years since his book appeared "alternate history" has become a lively fictional genre populated by talented storytellers such as Harry Turtledove. The genre has developed smooth methods of handling narrative problems -- such as conveying the real history, the alternate history, and the point where the two diverge, to readers all without tedious lectures -- which Albright was trying to solve entirely on his own. This unfortunately means that although alternate-history buffs would be the ideal audience for this work, they are also the audience most likely to judge it harshly.)

Unfortunately this book falls between two stools -- it's not quite a historical account of Pearl Harbor, and not quite a what-if novel on the same subject.