At War With The Wind [Hardcover]

David Sears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

A Main Selection of the Military Book Club and a Featured Alternate of the History Book Club

In the last days of World War II, a new and baffling weapon terrorized the United States Navy in the Pacific. To the sailors who learned to fear them, the body-crashing warriors of Japan were known as suiciders; among the Japanese, they were named for a divine wind that once saved the home islands from invasion: kamikaze. Told from the perspective of the men who endured this horrifying tactic, At War with the Wind is the first book to recount in nail-biting detail what it was like to experience an attack by Japanese kamikazes. David Sears, acclaimed author of The Last Epic Naval Battle, draws on personal interviews and unprecedented research to create a narrative of war that is stunning in its vivid re-creations. Born of desperation in the face of overwhelming material superiority, suicide attacks by aircraft, submarines, small boats, and even manned rocket-boosted gliders were capable of inflicting catastrophic damage, testing the resolve of officers and sailors as never before. Sears s gripping account focuses on the vessels whose crews experienced the full range of the kamikaze nightmare. From carrier USS St. Lo, the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by an orchestrated kamikaze attack, to USS Henrico, a transport ship that survived the landings at Normandy only to be sent to the Pacific and struck by suicide planes off Okinawa, and USS Mannert L. Abele, the only vessel sunk by a rocket-boosted piloted glider during the war, these unforgettable stories reveal, as never before, one of the most horrifying and misunderstood chapters of World War II.

This is the candid story of a war within a war a relentless series of furious and violent engagements pitting men determined to die against men determined to live. Its echoes resonate hauntingly at a time of global conflict, when suicide as a weapon remains a perplexing and terrifying reality.

November 1, 1945 Leyte Gulf

The destroyer Killen (DD-593) was besieged, shooting down four planes, but taking a bomb hit from a fifth. Pharmacist mate Ray Cloud, watching from the fantail, saw the plane a sleek twin-engine Frances fighter-bomber swoop in low across the port side. As its pilot released his bomb, Cloud said to himself, He dropped it too soon, and then watched as the plane roared by pursued and chewed up by fire from Killen's 40- and 20-mm guns.

The bomb hit the water, skipped once and then penetrated Killen's port side hull forward, exploding between the #2 and #3 magazines. The blast tore a gaping hole in Killen's side and water poured in. By the time Donice Copeland, eighteen, a radar petty officer, emerged on deck from the radar shack, the ship's bow was practically submerged and the ship itself was nearly dead in the water.

Practically all the casualties were awash below decks. Two unwounded sailors, trapped below in the ship's emergency generator room, soon drowned. The final tally of dead eventually climbed to fifteen.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A victor's-eye view of the desperate suicide-bombing campaign in the closing months of World War II.Former naval officer Sears (The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices from Leyte Gulf, 2005) writes affectingly of the terror the "divine wind" campaign wrought on American sailors. Contrasting the fate of several American ships to that of USS Cole in the 2000 al-Qaeda terror attack, he demonstrates the damage that the Imperial Navy suicide bombers wrought. That campaign, he observes, was a mark of having no other options, the American fleet having destroyed most of Japan's and forcing "a stunning new 'backs-against-the-wall' paradigm for modern warfare." The author focuses on U.S. forces, though with considerable attention to the Japanese side of the equation, for which readers will also want to consult Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney's provocative Kamikaze Diaries (2006) and Albert Axell's Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods (2002). Sears does a particularly good job of bringing in the various voices of the fast-dwindling corps of American survivors of hellish engagements at Leyte and Okinawa, among other places. Drawing on interviews, diaries and other sources, the author depicts men such as a Marine junior officer who, his soldiers suspected, slept at attention, in contrast with one of those fighters who weighed only 135 pounds and was "quiet, introspective, and mild mannered." Both served valiantly, as did most of their comrades, even though, by the closing months of the war, recruits were pushed through training and sent into the field as "90-day wonders fresh from Midshipman School." The horror of kamikaze steeled them - those who survived, that is, for the attacks took a terrible toll on American sailors, Marines and soldiers, which left "even the healthiest veterans perplexed and embittered at a nation, culture, and people capable of devising such attacks." Sears closes with a look at how veterans on both sides bridged the gulf between them.Of considerable interest to students of the Pacific War. (Kirkus Reviews) --Kirkus Reviews

A work of power and passion . . . The finest account of the American reaction to the furious suicide raids that attempted to turn the course of the War in the Pacific. --Donald L. Miller, author of D-Days in the Pacific

A real stunner . . . A superb narrative of life, death, and incredible heroism. --Jim Hartz, former host of Today

"Thorough and vivid . . . A timely, absorbing book." --John C. McManus, author of Alamo in the Ardennes

"Gripping naval combat writing . . . Sears pulls no punches in this powerful account of the sheer terror that was kamikaze warfare." --M. G. Sheftall, author of Blossoms in the Wind

Mesmerizing . . . With history like this, who needs fiction? Simply thrilling. --Kenneth Sewell, author of Red Star Rogue

Powerful . . . David Sears salutes American heroism in the bleakest days of the war. --H. Paul Jeffers, author of Command of Honor

Gripping . . . Sears puts readers beside the heroic American sailors in the bull's eye. --Jerome Preisler, author of All Hands Down Well-researched . . . a must for World War II book aficionados. --Steve Jackson, author of Lucky Lady --The experts praise At War With The Wind

About the Author

David Sears is a New Jersey-based business consultant and author. A former United States Navy officer with extensive sea duty aboard a destroyer, as well as a Vietnam war veteran, he is the author of The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices from Leyte Gulf. In researching and writing At War with the Wind, he carried out extensive original research and hundreds of personal interviews.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: C Hardcover; 1St Edition edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806528931
• ISBN-13: 978-0806528939
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Sears is a New Jersey-based author and historian. David's early career included service as a United States Navy officer with extensive sea duty aboard a destroyer and a tour of duty as an in-country advisor during the Vietnam War. (Visit his web site: www.dlsearsbooks.com)

David's forthcoming book (May 2011)is: Pacific Air: How Fearless Flyboys, Peerless Aircraft and Fast Flattops Conquered the Skies in The War With Japan

Such Men As These, his newest book, tells the remarkable, true-life exploits of Korean War U.S. Navy combat pilots--events and heroes that inspired The Bridges at Toko-Ri, James A. Michener's classic book about aerial combat ever.

At War with the Wind, his previous book, recounts the U.S. Navy's fierce defense against the Japanese air- and seaborne suicide attackers: the kamikazes.

His book The Last Epic Naval Battle: Voices of Leyte Gulf chronicles the exploits of 60 sailors and aviators in the last and most decisive sea battle of World War II.

In addition to his books, David and artist partner Thomas Houtz publish Tin Can Calendar and Carrier Air Calendar, annual historical calendars that celebrate the exploits, lives and legacies of U.S. Navy ship, sailors and air crews in historical fact and full-color illustrations (see samples on this page). Visit www.dlsearsbooks.com and click on Courageous Calendars for more information and free enrollment in the Courageous Calendars Roll Calls.

David's corporate business experience includes management roles at the New York Times Company and Dow Jones And Company. David has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MS in Industrial Relations from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Vivid But Flawed Portrayal, April 24, 2009

By 

Bob Armstrong (Katy, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: At War With The Wind (Hardcover)

This is a quite remarkable assemblage of anecdotes detailing the carnage wrought by Japanese aerial and naval suicide campaigns conducted against Allied forces in the Pacific during World War II. The bulk of the book consists of explicit, blow-by-blow descriptions of a number of these horrifyingly deadly attacks. Sears obviously went to great lengths to obtain official action summaries, diaries, letters, first-hand accounts by survivors, interviews with unsuccessful attackers, and many other sources providing vivid portrayals of the incidents.

Despite the value of Sears' depictions as a record of the atrocities resulting from the kamikaze phenomenon, this book's readability and overall value are diminished by several significant defects. The text contains multitudes of punctuation goofs, mistaken or misleading word choices, and other basic typographical errors that any competent copy editor should catch on the first reading. Sears, obviously an experienced Navy man, throws many acronyms and other jargon into his narratives, often neglecting to define them at first use. A glossary explains many of these terms, but the requirement to consult it so frequently detracts from the flow of reading.

A more serious weakness is the inconsistency of both fact and commentary in Sears' attempts to frame his battle reports with summaries of the major events in the tide of war in the Pacific. The frustrating thing is that he does a marvelous job of introducing many of the pivotal battles and decisions in a way that even the least knowledgeable of readers can understand. But, probably in an effort to remain concise, in some places he omits or skews facts to the extent that those same neophyte readers may come away with misconceptions that might never be corrected. For instance, the Battle of Midway is dismissed in a paragraph without any indication of the crucial role of this engagement in shaping the rest of the Pacific air war. Sears' description of the SBD Dauntless dive bomber not only misspells its designation as SPD, but confuses it with its predecessor, the SB2U-3 Vindicator, mistakenly bestowing the latter's unfortunate nickname of "wind indicator" on the far more airworthy Dauntless. The universally respected Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher receives short shrift throughout the book, coming across to any uninitiated reader as a hesitant, obstructionist figure mainly responsible for losing carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Yorktown (CV-5) and serving more as an obstacle than a competent leader at Guadalcanal. (Sears probably picked up his negative view of Fletcher from Samuel Eliot Morison, who had been offended by the publicity-shy admiral's refusal to cooperate with his naval history research.)

One of the more ironic gaps is Sears' failure to provide any detail in mentioning the gallant sacrifice of the American ships of Taffy 3 during the Battle Off Samar in October 1944. As described by James Hornfischer in his excellent book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour, destroyer Johnston and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts charged the battleships and heavy cruisers of Admiral Korita's armada at point-blank range with such ferocity that the Japanese fled in disarray, thereby sparing the Leyte landings from probable disruption. In the face of certain destruction, USS Johnston executed not one but two attack runs, the second after the ship had already been riddled with shells and many of the crew were dead. This heroism presents such an obvious parallel to the deliberately suicidal behavior of the kamikazes that its omission is incomprehensible in a book of this level of detail, particularly since Sears himself is a former destroyer officer. On the other side of the conflict, Japan's long-standing traditions of death with honor and respect for suicide receive little attention, and there's no mention of the naval officer generally credited with drawing up the first plan for a Special Attack Corps, Lt. Comm. Jo Eiichiro, whose samurai heritage undoubtedly spawned the concept.

I think the most damaging lapse is the book's denouement without a thorough treatment of the potential for catastrophe inherent in a land invasion of the Japanese home islands. After sprinkling numerous implied comparisons of damage caused by kamikazes in outlying areas with a presumably vastly greater toll to be inflicted during the final battle, Sears ends his account with only a cursory mention of the atomic bombs and a few anecdotes illustrating the joys (and problems) meeting homecoming sailors and airmen after the war. In light of Sears' diligence in research and access to original databases and first-hand sources, it seems likely that he should be able to contribute significantly to the ongoing discussion of hypothetical losses due to suicide attacks that purport to justify the use of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Appendices listing ships and crew victimized by kamikazes are limited to those personally researched by Sears. Hundreds more were targeted by suicide planes, and their story remains to be documented by a more complete, if perhaps less graphic, chronicle. Although this is an outstanding record of the ghastly effects of many individual suicide attacks, it cannot stand alone as a history and analysis of suicide missions in general, their significance in the overall war picture, or their lasting effects on victims from both sides.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read!, December 25, 2008

By 

Burke J. Landry (Madisonville, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At War With The Wind (Hardcover)

Sears portrays the battles with the kamikazes superbly and so graphically as to be nearly palpable. The memories of my experiences as a gun-tub member on the aircraft carrier,Intrepid, CV11 prior to and during the battle for Okinawa brought back a flood of memories as I relived them in my mind. The accounts of the men on the smaller boats, the DD's, the DE's and the landing crafts and the ships that were more heavily damaged, e.g., the Franklin, mostly attest to the heroism of ordinary people placed in traumatic situations beyond their control. The discussions involving the Japanese sailors and airmen also state that heroism was not one sided. This book is a must read for anyone who experienced such trauma. I believe that reading this book might possibly serve as a catharsis for some who still might not be able to discuss their war-time experiences. Just to know that there were some who experienced similar or even worse catastrophies than they might relieve some internal stress which prevents them from opening up about them.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like an action novel, but it's true., April 11, 2009

By 

R. Dixon (Arkansas USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At War With The Wind (Hardcover)

This is an exceptionally well-written historical account of the Japanese suicide campaign that emerged at the end of World War II in the Pacific theater. Sears does a very nice job of weaving togther accurate historical fact with the accounts of individual sailors involved in battling the Kamakazi. The author manages to give you history written with real narrative tension. Sears also includes accounts of a couple of Japanese airmen who survived the Kamakazi campaign. It is a valuable addition to the library of anyone with an interest in World War II combat.