Customer Reviews

Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In April, 1943, American code-breakers managed to learn that the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, would be making a personal visit to oversee front-line operations in the Solomons. After much careful consideration by the American commanders, most notably Admiral Nimitz, it was decided that the Americans would try to intercept Yamamoto's flight and shoot down his plane. The Americans were concerned that this mission might compromise their secret knowledge of the Japanese codes, but it was decided to proceed anyway.

Eighteen P-38 Lightning fighters lifted off from Guadalcanal early on that April morning. Led by John Mitchell, the flight flew for over 400 miles at heights no greater than 50 feet above the water. It was the longest fighter intercept mission of the war. A 'killer group" of four P-38s was assigned to attack the Betty bombers which were carrying Yamamoto and his staff. Among the hunter group were Tom Lanphier, Rex Barber, Besby Holmes, and Ray Hine.

Once the dogfight began, the sky became a crowded mass of planes fighting for their lives. In the end, Yamamoto's bomber, along with the other Betty bomber, were shot down and Yamamoto was killed, but this is where the controversy began. Each pilot in the hunter group claimed responsibility for shooting down Yamamoto. Who actually did it? In the end, it was accepted that Tom Lanphier shot down Yamamoto, but author Donald Davis does a remarkable job of piecing together each pilot's story and sheds enough doubt to question Lanphier's claims.

This is an excellent work of military history. Donald Davis does a fine job of describing Yamamoto's life as a young militatry attache in Washington during the 1920s as well as the meticulous planning for the Pearl Harbor attack and the failures of Midway and Guadalcanal. The reader gets a true sense of what Yamamoto was like; a reluctant admiral who knew that fighting a war against the United States would lead to ultimate defeat for Japan.

The story of the intercept flight, dogfight, and aftermath is some of the most exciting reading that I've read. The reader gets the sense of being in the cockpit of one of the P-38s on the fateful mission, and the aftermath, with its many individual claims and the subsequent near-disaster of the revealing that we had indeed broken the Japanese code, are presented with extreme realism and action. I highly recommend this great book. The action is fast-paced and the story reads like an action novel. Read this excellent work and learn how a million-to-one mission came together in the skies over the Pacific.

Lightning Strike by Donald Davis is the story of the mission to kill Admiral Yamamoto. Although the author takes a while to get to this incident, along the way he provides the reader with a useful introductory background of World War II, from the beginning days to the end of the war. Although the experienced WWII buff will find much of the lead up to the strike on Yamamoto simply a retelling of information previously learned that fact does not detract from the overall story. The men who led the attack on Yamamoto were, for the most part, all veteran fliers from the dark days of the Guadalcanal campaign, and all were very brave. One of them, however, tarnishes what he did that day by trying to take sole credit for shooting down Yamamoto's plane and this led to much controversy for many years after the war. This was an interesting read and I highly recommend the book.

If you bought this book expecting to read about the secret P-38 mission to kill the Admiral who planned Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, you'd be sadly disappointed - at least until somewhere around page 220. By then, you might have concluded that the book is really a history of World War II as fought in the Pacific, for the book is written in much the same vein as one might write about Abraham Lincoln's assassination by starting with the Confederate's firing on Fort Sumter and working his way up. Or, as Jack Nicholson's character in the movie "As Good As It Gets" might say, "I'm drowning here and you're describing the water."

That's not to say that this isn't a good book. It's a very good book, but it sure takes a long time to get to the subject of the book as advertised on the dust cover. In fact, I wanted to downgrade it because to took so long to get to the meat of the subject, but I just couldn't do it.

Starting with Chapter 21 on page 226 the book is just too interesting, too intriguing, too engrossing, and a little too maddening. After reading these pages you'll be able to decide for yourself who really shot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto; the shameless, politically connected self-promoter who wrote the after-action report or the flier who returned from the mission with 104 bullet holes in his plane and chunks of Yamamoto's bomber stuck in his wings. (Shades of the John F. Kerry/Swift Boat Veterans controversy) I just have to give it five stars. But, if you're not really interested in the buildup to the mission, you can always skip the first 20 chapters.

It seems like not much of anything can happen without it becomming a conspiracy. In this case, we all know the story. The code breakers had determined where Admiral Yamamoto was going to be at a particular time. It was just barely within range of the P-38's from the closest air base. American planes took off flying so as to minimize fuel consumption (Charles Lindberg did the experiments to teach them how to do this.).

The American planes got to the location exactly on time, and Yamamoto was also punctual, unfortunately for him. Surprisingly there were two bombers there, and the Americans were able to shoot them both down. Yamamoto was killed.

Then began the argument about who actually shot him down. There were four people in the flight that shot Yamamoto down. One of these did not return from the mission. Of the three that returned, each was convinced that he and he alone had gotten Yamamoto. But there were only two bombers, all three couldn't have shot one down. We still don't know who actually got him.

This very well written book covers the history of the flight to get Yamamoto. By way of background it talks a lot about Yamamoto and covers the careers of the American pilots through the war. A lot of the background information will be familiar to the reader, but it is well done here.

Donald Davis, in his book Lightning Strike, has made an effort to clarify the historical record by providing details that demonstrate, once and for all, who was responsible for shooting down the bomber that carried Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto over Bougainville in April 1943.

Much of the book focuses on events leading up to the mission to find & shoot down Yamamoto's aircraft. This first portion of the book introduces the members of the strike team that was responsible for intercepting & destroying the target.

Tom Lanphier, one of the pilots on the mission, claimed that he was solely responsible for shooting down the aircraft carrying Yamamoto, but Davis brings forth the new evidence that was not available to contemporary historians immediately following the war demonstrating that Lanphier not only did not shoot down Yamamoto's plane by himself, but probably had no involvement whatsoever in shooting down the aircraft.

The book is an easy read & certainly does provide new insights into the 60+ year old controversy over who was responsible for ending Yamamoto's involvement in World War II.

I would change only a couple of things about the book - the first is very minor: at the conclusion of the book, Davis tells us that Rex T. Barber was responsible for the destruction of Yamamoto's bomber, but then he ends the book by writing "In 2004...Rex Barber deserved 100 percent credit for shooting down Admiral Yamamoto. The resolution was accompanied by legislation to clear the path for Congress to finally award Barber the Medal of Honor." Unfortunately, he does not tell the reader whether or not the deserved medal was ever awarded (as it turns out, the legislation was still pending as of the publication date of the book). The 2nd thing I would change is a little more significant - I would have changed the length of the book by removing some of the pre-mission background information about the members of the strike team. The details presented make for interesting reading, but (in my opinion), don't really add to the understanding of the mission itself. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for an understanding of what happened to Admiral Yamamoto on that fateful day.

Prior to starting this book, I hoped the other Amazon reviewers of this book were wrong. There was significant agreement that much of the book was misdirected at giving an overview of the entire Pacific War up until the Yamamoto shootdown. Alas, the collective wisdom is correct. Fully two thirds of this book gives an unremarkable overview of the War with bit parts of the Yamamoto mission pilots thrown in for relevance. If overview is what you want, then go no further than Admiral Morison's masterpieces. What emerges here are two books: One, lasting for most of the book, gives an overview of the war. The second book, lasting only a hundred pages or so, actually addresses what the title purports to address. I wanted to read about the mission in all of its details. Even that was disappointing. It appears that the author is outside of his expertise: a .50 caliber bullet is NOT jacketed in brass, it is jacketed in copper. Admiral Halsey did not return the pilots' salutes because naval officers only salute when wearing a cover (i.e.; a hat) and they were indoors, without hats at the time. There is an unfortunate lack of charts. The only chart looks like it was drawn in crayon. It would have been easy to plot the exact routes of both the P-38s and Yamamoto and show the intersection. Where exactly did the two Bettys crash? Charts are an essential element of any good military history book. The lack of good charts is usually a warning that the book is not serious military history. There are so many details that the author could have added if he wanted to add heft to his book. How about a copy of a pilot strip chart used to navigate? What were all of the aircraft tail numbers? Did the Japanese launch any aircraft during or after the attack in pursuit of the P-38s? What formation did the opposing sides fly enroute to the battle (how about a diagram of the formations)? How about an attempt at a diagram of the dogfight itself? If you choose to read this book, skip the 20 chapter introduction and cut straight to The Mission.

Lightning Strike is suppose to be a story on that secret mission to kill Japanese Admiral Yamamoto but that story really doesn't get there until two third of the book was read. Most of the book tells a basic introductionary history to the Pacific War up to the time of the mission as well as a semi-biographical sketch of Yamamoto himself. Its a pretty sympathetic sketch at that.

The main gust of the book don't take off until the misson and its aftermath. It began with the pilot, Tom Lanphier taking a sole credit for shooting down Yamamoto's bomber transport plane and ends with Lanphier's total discreditation after his death. The pilot who ended up with most of the historical glory was Rex Barber who challenged Lanphier's claims quietly, indirectly and without rising much fuss. Barber's efforts paid off on the long run as wartime hype died off and replaced by those who want the records set straight. The fact that one of the Japanese escort pilots survived the war and he basically counterdicted Lanphier while supporting Barber helped cleared up the muddy water. Another Japanese eye-witness account published in a diary form also supported Barber and Japanese pilot accounts as well. Wrecked remains of Yamamoto's plane was found as well.

Its a real shame that the best part of this book come only at the last third of the book. Its too bad that the author got so distracted that he lost focus of what the book was supposed to be about. Readers will get no great insights or real information on the Pacific War by reading this book, little on Admiral Yamamoto himself. There are plenty of other books on these subject matters that does a far superior job. Mr. Davis should have kept his eye on the ball since there's a real story to be told here on Yamamoto's death and the highly controversial aftermath. It is simply too bad that it took so long to get to the crux of the story so late in the book that I felt it got shortchanged. It would have helped if we had diagrams of how two pilots differed on how Yamamoto's plane was shot down and photos of the plane itself.

For a book that was supposed to be on the long and difficult mission to shoot down Yamamoto and its aftermath, the book seem to be strangely distracted from that subject matter.

(For some reason, I cannot understand why we Americans overrate Admiral Yamamoto so much even to this day.)

A fine history of not only the mission to kill Yamamoto, but also of the Pacific theater during WWII. A fantastic overview for people like me who have read little of the history involved, and knew nothing of the plan to kill the Japanese top admiral. A colorful account of the characters, a whodunit of the mission strike, and an explaination of the secrecy involved in mission and why. I loved this book, and would reccomend it to anyone new to the flying aces of WWII.

I normally snap books like this up. I work in the Intelligence Community as an analyst, and I love stories about intelligence "coups," moments in history where a secret fact supplied at the right time made all the difference in the world. The shootdown of Admiral Yamamoto certainly qualifies as such. I imagine it's a story that American Siginters (signals intelligence personnel) savor.

The problem is that the story of the shootdown does not begin until the last third of the book. There are over 200 pages of what I would call exposition and background. It may be well written and researched, but I can't help but think that a much tighter, focused book would have resulted from losing about 150 pages. Written the way it is, I think "Lightning Strike" is a deceptive title, "Slow Waltz" would have been more appropriate.

perhaps not so surprised to discover that others question the first third of the book being a mundane re-re-telling of the entire history of early Pacific War--it does occur that this could have been handled with an Introduction chapter-- and this did seem disappointing, but of course, he does relate a lot of that retelling to the wheres and whats of his "players"...Perhaps many of the books readers already know the rough course of the Pacific war, but perhaps many younger ones still do not. Certainly the second-half of the book hits its straps more than the first, as a read.

What I particularly liked, as a chump-change Pacific War historian myself, is his account of the Cactus Air Force of Guadalcanal...Especially the exploits of the P400/P39 pilots, flying an underperforming outclassed American fighter against top class Japanese opposition, but gradually finding the AiraCobras strengths and compensating for its weaknesses.
Apart from this, his telling of the interception mission itself, and its aftermath, is gripping.
The book has many inaccuracies regarding airplanes and also such as place names (Baxhous??Marsh really?)
"Bacchus Marsh "s the placename.
He also asserts that US servicemen on leave from the Solomons battle were rested and encamped uncomfortably
in parts of Australia which caused them to come down with malaria??
Australia is notably free of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, albeit countless Mosquitoes carrying plenty of other things bar
Malaria.
He certainly savages LAnphier, and mounts powerful and virulent arguments both against his claim on sole
credit for the Yamamoto shoot-down, and Lanphiers
character flaws in general.

I have just one question, regarding that, which the book seems not to address directly.
If Lanphier was of such modest relative ability or achievement as a fighter pilot, compared to some of the others even....to the point where Lanphier apparently could not really tell if he had shot at a Betty bomber at all, if he had a record of tall stories such as the one about shooting down a Zero while manning a B17 blister gun, or perhaps the even wilder one about strangling a Japanese soldier with his bare hands..

Then why was Lanphier even included in the 4-plane
'killer' section spearhead
of the 16-18 plane P38 formation
at all?