Pearl Harbor Books

There have been far grander literary hoaxes in the field of history--the spectacular disaster of the phony "Hitler Diaries" in the early 1980's nearly sunk the career of one of England's preeminent historians...as well as the editors of the Times of London and Germany's Stern.

British engineer Peter J. Shepherd probably did serve his country valiantly as a young lad amidst thee horrors of Britain's abandoned war zone of Southeast Asia where stubborn and idiotic strategic decisions by both British and US senior military leaders lead to gross over-commitment in the Southeast Asia Theatre from Singapore to Hong Kong to the Phillipines resulting in many tens of thousands of deaths by starvation, torture, and general inhumanity after the inevitable Japanese conquest/occupation.

No doubt he has long resented the senseless suffering he saw all around him--a feeling he captures quite well in colorful prose of daily life in a distant, forlorn encampment at the far ends of the British Empire.

But in this book more than six decades after the events it claims to describe may work for him as a kind of payback, but it does a disservice to all those in the South Pacific fronts who fought and died with valor, even when certain pipe-smoking and cigar-smoking strategists were playing the Great Game often without regard to the devastating impact on young soldiers like Shepherd.

Having been an editor, writer, and researcher in magazines, books, and newspapers for thirty years, I feel confident in saying that what he has written is one very good yarn. It is far, far too good to be true and at all the key points, the story just breaks down of its own heavily weighted logic. (As in his very solemn reasons for not having come forth earlier for reasons of state--precisely the kind of stuffy, archaic thinking he detests. Good heavens, American admirals were writing devastating critiques of military strategy in the same broad theatre of war by the mid-1950's and continued to do so through Rear Admiral Layton's meticulous but scathing "And I Was There": Pearl Harbor And Midway -- Breaking the Secrets (Bluejacket Books)

A critical editor should have pulled himself away from the thumping good read aspect of the book and said to himself, "Wait a minute...everything is just too conveniently perfect. Even the main source of the story dies of methanol poisoning shortly after revealing the biggest secret in Japanese military history. What are the odds?" And the odds just keep jumping higher and higher with every question one raises. It is just too much like a thriller movie...and then one reads that Mr. Shepherd is now engaged in "screenplay writing" right there on the bookjacket bio.

Yes, it is quite well-written, a page-turner, in fact. But it is not history and anyone who has had to research facts, assemble complicated investigative projects, or thoroughly vet stories from freelancers develops a second sense for tales that have a convenient trap-door escape at every junction where the writer might otherwise have to provide documentation or substantiation.

This is very surprising given the high standards of the Naval Institute Press...a bit dismaying. Even the top-line gimmick, three days, "72 hours to Pearl Harbor" is precisely the kind of simplistic silliness one finds in spy novels. When there is no documentation and the plot of the book involves essentially "knocking off" everyone else who could verify, even a junior editor should have raised the distress flag or fired a flare.

In December 1941, Peter Shepherd was a teen-age mechanic in the Royal Air Force, stationed at a remote airfield in north Malaya.
"Three Days to Pearl" relates how a mysterious, dashing pilot in a civilian plane landed at his base, arranged for Shepherd to accompany him as flying mechanic and took off for Cambodia (then French but under Japanese military occupation) on Dec. 4.
While the pilot was off conducting some smuggling and/or espionage business, Shepherd encountered a drunken Japanese civilian engineer. Although neither spoke a word of the other's language, by signs and sketches the engineer revealed to Shepherd the size, route, intentions and schedule of the Japanese fleet then approaching Pearl Harbor.
When Shepherd returned and told his tale to two British intelligence officers, the authorities in Singapore did nothing. As one consequence among many, Shepherd was blown up in a Japanese air raid on Dec. 8 (Malaya time, which was Dec. 7 on the other side of the International Date Line in Honolulu).
Shepherd dresses up this story with a deal of circumstantial but uncheckable detail, including an impossible romantic encounter with a beautiful Malay girl named Wan. These details do not authenticate the story; they prove it to be bogus.
To believe the key events of this tale, you would have to accept that by gestures and sketches, the engineer could have imparted such information as "that he was a civilian engineer and employed by a big company engaged in metal fabrication for the aircraft industry" or that he had been sent to an aircraft carrier "to lengthen the standard racks to accommodate new armor-piercing bombs."
You wouldn't want to play Charades against that team.
Shepherd proves himself a hoaxer when he tells how he tried to prove to the intelligence officers that the Japanese target would be Pearl Harbor, a place Shepherd claims never to have heard of up to that time.
According to him, the Japanese engineer kept stabbing a pencil at a map of Hawaii and repeating excitedly, "Purhabba!"
Shepherd says he told the British, "Perhaps the Jap was pronouncing the words 'Pearl Harbor' in his way -- the way the Japanese pronounce it -- or, rather, that may be the way it sounds to us when they say it."
But the way an English speaker would hear a Japanese-speaker trying to deal with Pearl Harbor would be something like Pu-ru Ha-bu, very different from "Purhabba," which Shepherd clearly got from "Me Tarzan, you Jane" stereotypes in movies or in "Boy's Own Paper," a popular magazine among English lads of his generation.
The plot of "Three Days to Pearl" sounds very much like a "Boy's Own Paper" story.
It would not be worth noticing this paltry effort except for two things: this book undoubtedly will be placed more or less reverently on the long shelf of books designed to prove that the U.S. government really was not surprised at Pearl Harbor; and it has been endorsed by several historians of World War II who ought to know better.
Shepherd, the old soldier, does have one good point to make.
He is rightly bitter against his military commanders who let down the common soldiers (not to mention the civilians) in Malaya, and against the government of Japan, which has ignored his repeated demands for a personal apology for its "barbarous acts . . . before its government made any formal declaration of war against either the United States of America or Great Britain."
The book gets two stars instead of one, because the framework of his experiences in Malaya -- I accept that he was, indeed, there with the RAF -- is probably as authentic as the memoirs of any other vet.

A fascinating first-person tale by an RAF aircraft mechanic stationed in Malaya (now Malaysia).

After a slow start, the author provides an entertaining story of the days leading up to the simultaneous attacks by Japan on Pearl Harbor, Singapore and his base in northern Malaya. The story continues through his evacuation and recovery in the months following the attack.

The primary story line involves the author's flight to Vichy French Indo China, where he learns details of the impending attack. While somewhat difficult to accept as described, the tale is well-told and provides a plausible background to the "surprise" attacks.

The book is an easy-to-read and worthwhile investment for the WWII aficionado.

I CAN'T SAY I READ IT ALL. I TRIED TO READ, BUT ENDED UP SKIPPING AROUND. HOPING IT WOULD GET BETTER, BUT GOT WORSE. THERE ARE A LOT MORE PEARL HARBOR BOOKS OUT THERE THAT WOULD BE BETTER. ANYTHING BY PRANGE OR EVEN A CONSIPIRACY BOOK ON PH WHICH I DON'T BELIEVE IN..... AT LEAST IT WOULDN'T BE AS BORING (HOPEFULLY). BOTTOM LINE - IF YOU WISH TO FILL UP YOUR SHELVES WITH PH BOOKS HERE IS ONE.

This reads like the driest of text books but what it lacks in compelling storytelling, it makes up for with extensive research and thorough accounting. Only recommended for those with a penchant for adding to their Pearl Harbor libraries.

When I recieved a letter from a seller of this book asking for an order for it I thought: "Wow, shipwrecks... especially ones from WWII!" As a student in an oceanography-themed high school, I was right away interested in this book. The excerpts and details from the preview made it sound great.
However when the book came in, it wasn't what I thought. The book was nicely writen by Dr. Ballard, but the detail of each section was nothing to brag about. The book shows each area as a section. Beginning with Pearl Harbor, each section describes a certain battle scene involving the Navy. From Midway to Guadalcanal, each battle is shown with photos and diagrams. However these pictures and maps are not really enough to satisfy your thirst for WWII information. The text ends off in a way and talks about something else, and the lack of good photos make each section seem empty.
When I opened to the Midway chapter I expected more in-depth information on the battle. Instead I got a lot less than the National Geographic article on Midway from '99. None of the planes were mentiond much, and when they mentioned a PBY, they did not show what this scout plane looked like, making you have to use your imagination to picture the Catalina plane.
This book is supposed to mention salvage oeprations for the wrecks and exploration expeditions to them as well. However most of the text is a history lesson rather than a step in Marine Affairs. Out of the entire book I would say about 20% is actual expedition info.
As an owner of many of Dr. Ballards works, I would have to say this one is not one of his best.

This book purports to take the reader "on a tour" of Pacific warship shipwrecks. What a complete crock.
There are probably not a dozen wrecks covered here; all the photos save one are very small and mostly boring (unless you're really keen to see portholes underwater). Two photos come from the Japanese merchant wrecks at Truk, some of the most-photographed wrecks in the world (and offered in exceptionally better quality in other publications). The only large wreck illustration is a lovely Tom Freeman painting of the YORKTOWN wreck. Nice, but by no means worth the space on your bookshelf.
If you're someone who knows nothing about the Pacific war, then this is a reasonably good primer of some of the major actions. If you already know what the Battle of Midway was and have some idea that the Americans and Japanese each had aircraft carriers, this book will tell you nothing about the war you don't already know, and the photos, while nice, are available in dozens of other books. If you're looking for some interesting views of the shipwrecks Ballard has made his reputation on finding, you will find nothing of interest here.
Save your money, and pass this one up.

This is the first book which I have purchased concerning shipwrecks. I expected many photographs with information concerning the wrecks. What the book actually contained are sappy attempts to tell stories of the battles and Ballard retelling how he has found previous wrecks. This book was more about Ballard blowing his own horn, and less about the ships which went down during WWII. Save your money!

This is the first book which I have purchased concerning shipwrecks. I expected many photographs with information concerning the wrecks. What the book actually contained are sappy attempts to tell stories of the battles and Ballard retelling how he has found previous wrecks. This book was more about Ballard blowing his own horn, and less about the ships which went down during WWII. Save your money!

Very interesting account of World War II Pacific wreck sites. However, I was hoping for a detailed photographic examination of the wrecks.

Because I just finished reading Day of Deceit at this late date (2007) I have the advantage of reviewing it both for what's on its pages plus a lot of information about it from several other sources. They include extensive testimony from numerous genuine experts on the book's core subject matter, plus two television documentaries that are totally focused on it. In a nutshell, all of those inputs add up to a rather convincing conclusion that Day of Deceit is far from what its cover claims it is: "the truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor."

I have never met Mr. Stinnett and therefore assume him to be an honorable, forthright researcher who genuinely believes his theories. The sad fact is that all of his key assertions are highly arguable if not demonstrably wrong. That has been abundantly shown by other reviewers who have provided point-by-point rebuttal to each of the author's charges against FDR and the Navy's communications intelligence (ComInt) organization of the prewar era. You can see that for yourself with an Internet search and, even better, by watching the two TV documentaries: "Conspiracy Theory" (2004) on the History Channel and "Deception in the Pacific" (2006) on the Fox News Channel; both available on DVD. Those programs feature numerous bona fide ComInt experts, none of whom are from the political or military arena that Stinnett brands as conspirators. Instead, they are respected authors, historians, and scholars, and they take Day of Deceit apart piecemeal on screen, leaving it thoroughly discredited.

Therefore, since a line-item rebuttal of Day of Deceit has already been done, I'll focus here on a broader view. In broad terms, then, Mr. Stinnett is basically saying that FDR knew that the Japanese were about to blind-side his military forces on Oahu, and conspired with others to let it happen in order to take the nation to war.

There are three real problems with that: (1) Art. 3, Sect. 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Such a conspiracy could easily have brought a charge of treason against FDR had it been revealed, and there's little doubt that the Republicans in Congress would have jumped on that with zeal. And (2) was there a reasonable expectation that it would be revealed? There certainly was if Stinnett is right, for he said during the Fox News documentary that virtually EVERYONE in the ComInt services at that time were deliberate co-conspirators...scores of personnel in FDR's administration plus Army and Navy officers and enlisted men from the service chiefs down to the lowest ranking intercept operators. "All of them!" (Stinnett's words.) With that many opportunities for leaking a secret, there's no way it's going to be kept, especially in Washington, and especially for 60 years. Yet in all that time, NO ONE has ever come forward with the smoking gun, leaving the inescapable conclusion that there isn't one.

And then there's the third problem. Stinnett is very clear that General Marshall is a willing co-conspirator with the President. Okay, let's understand this: George C. Marshall is going to idly stand by while an enemy force attacks and destroys a portion of his army and air force, undoubtedly killing a great number of his soldiers in the process. Preposterous! One has to believe that had Marshall been aware of such a conspiracy against his army, he would have stopped FDR by any means at his disposal, constitutional or otherwise. The notion is blatantly ludicrous, and Day of Deceit offers no INARGUABLE evidence to the contrary.

And that's really the fundamental flaw in this book. The front cover says that it tells "the TRUTH about Pearl Harbor." How can it be the truth if it is scorned by virtually every genuine expert in its subject matter? How can it be the truth when it presents NOTHING that explicitly proves that advance warning of a Japanese attack on Hawaii was ACTUALLY RECEIVED by the President and UNDERSTOOD FOR WHAT IT WAS? How can it be the truth when the entire issue, with all of the author's "evidence," could simply have been the result of misinterpretation and poor leadership in the ComInt organizations in Washington, DC?

At best, Mr. Stinnett's many assertions add up to no more than the possibility that evidence of a Japanese advance on Hawaii might have existed in Washington before the attack. However, he fails to demonstrate that FDR and the ComInt leadership there ACTUALLY RECEIVED such information BEFORE THE FACT, that they UNDERSTOOD it for what it was, and that they then actively CONSPIRED to conceal it. That's the "proof" that readers are tempted with on the book's front cover, but it's simply not to be found.

Having not read Mr. Stinnett's book, I limit my comments to Mr. Russell's comments. I know nothing of Mr. Russell other than his review of Stinnett's book and his profile. Nothing personal here, just an observation.

Mr. Russell's "three problems" with Stinnett's position are flawed in my opinion. First; That Art. 3 Sec 3 of the Constitution exists in no way forces action. We see that today with the blatant lawlessness of the Bush administration. The Republican Congress may have acquiesced then in the same way they acquiesce to unconstitutional war mongering today. Who's to say? Constitutional torts in the USA as well as treasonous governments world wide are business as usual throughout history, as are false flag operations.

Second, the lack of a whistle blower, per Russell, is not proof of a lack of conspiracy; just a lack of a whistle blower, which, as I understand, is not the case.

Third, regarding Russell's comment that General Marshall allegedly stood idly by while his forces were attacked is "preposterous". We have today a multitude of evidence of active duty officers following the unconstitutional orders of Bush. Their reasons are unknown to us but can reasonably be imagined to be loyalty to the chain of command (in violation of their oath to protect and defend the Constitution from enemies within) or loyalty to the administration. Indeed, General Petraeus is watching more troops dying in this illegal non-war of aggression than in Pearl Harbor, yet acquiesces to the whims of the President again in violation of his oath. Russell's assertion that no officer could conscientiously stand by while his own troops are slaughtered to advance the greater strategic mission is wholly naive, unfortunate as it may be.

One last observation: Mr. Russell makes the case that Mr. Stinnett provides no "explicit" evidence of the foreknowledge of the attack within the White House, whereas Mr. Russell provides no explicit evidence the President did not know. Rebuttal cuts both ways.

In my purely editorial opinion, Mr. Russell appears to take to heart the romanticism of patriotism while disregarding the realities of human nature, if not of historical precedence. That's just my observation taken from his review.

I've not read the book, and my three star rating is meant to be neutral.

I purchased this book because I am interested in battleships and saw that it was the guidebook of the USS Missouri memorial in Pearl Harbor. I was very disapointed to find almost no technical information regarding the Missouri such as is found in the guidebooks at other battleship memorials. Although this book contains a few nice color photographs, most of the WW II era photos are printed in a brownish sepia tone, presumedly to make them look more "antique"

Published in 1974 by a journalist and world war two Navy veteran, "Battlewagon" is one of many novels that give the reader a slice of life in Hawai`i in the waning days of peace in 1941. Exum clearly knows his way around the fleet, and the central character is a competently drawn Chief Quartermaster who struck me by and large as authentic.

What's unsatisfactory about this book, aside from the good-but-not-great writing and heavy-handed foreshadowing, was how unemotional the story was. Chief Toland has some conflicts with his peers in the Chiefs' mess, a relationship with a Chinese girl, a more substantial developing romance with a Navy widow, and then finally, of course, faces the attack itself. None of these things, however, seem to raise a sweat, either in our hero or in our narrator. Given how bloody the attack was, it's a very bloodless way to tell a story. Still, people interested in the subject or genre and who happen to come across a copy of the book may find "Battlewagon" isn't the worst way to spend a few hours.

(As an aside, I think it's fascinating that Wallace Exum chose "Toland" as the name of his hero, since the combination of "Toland" and "Pearl Harbor" naturally brings to mind John Toland, the author of "Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath." However, the latter book was published a decade after "Battlewagon." Another character, "Ensign Lord," of course suggests Walter Lord, author of another standard Pearl Harbor work, "Day of Infamy" [1957], though this too may have been coincidental.)

It reads easily, save for a few editorial glitches, where the same information is repeated. Ms. Thomas writes of the years 1938-1962 from a highly personal viewpoint. Her narrative shares her early dating experiences prior to WW II with diverse young military officers, and the various places she went with them. Except for the "Day of Infamy", the war years breeze right by, marked with her marriage to an engineer in 1945. From there, they go to sugar plantation life on Maui. There family life is recounted in great detail, e.g. gardens, guest lists, visitors, her children's activities, etc. Sparse historic background is ever included in her narrative, save for bits and pieces here/there--the strongest being on the basic methods of sugar cane farming. This is, instead, a high-resolution look at her everyday life. Since I was interested in regionwide dynamics during those years, I found this book unsuitable because of the tiny canvas Ms. Thomas painted upon. Others might view it differently.

Well, this is basicly a book about what happened before, during, and after Pearl Harbor. The book begins with an area on how Pearl Harbor began to take place. Then it goes into the explination part about going into the war. This book is probably not the best you'll see on the shelves. The chapters are easy to read, and the words are the right size. Good, real life illistrations are probably the best part about this book. In fact, that is one of the biggest strengths of the book. Summing all that up gives this book a two, maybe three star rating.