Customer Reviews

Pearl Harbor 1941: The Day of Infamy - Revised Edition (Campaign)

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Pearl Harbor 1941 is graphically very appealing. If one ignores the first 35 pages and the final few pages, one might even call this an excellent summary. For readers with only a general interest in the Pearl Harbor attack, this volume will suffice, but historians will probably only appreciate the excellent maps and order of battle information. Particularly troubling, given the immense primary and secondary sources available on this subject, is the author's tendency toward misleading and erroneous facts.

The opening introduction and background section is totally inadequate. While the author takes time to mention Hawaii's historical background, he makes less effort to paint the immediate causes of the attack. There is no mention of either the Chinese invasion of China in 1937 that led to the deterioration of US-Japanese relations or the Russo-Japanese border fighting in 1939-40 that shaped Japanese strategic conceptions away from further Eurasian entanglements. The statement that the "US Pacific Fleet was a deterrent" is misleading; that was how FDR viewed it, not the Japanese, who saw it as a threat to their expansionist ambitions in the Pacific. Even Admiral Kimmel, who commanded the Pacific Fleet, felt wholesale transfers of men and vessels to the Atlantic undermined its deterrence value.

The section on opposing commanders is more than a bit rambling and has odd choices of individuals, some of whom were not military commanders involved directly in the campaign. The US section has Kimmel, Short, Stark, Marshall, Hull and FDR. The Japanese section has Yamamoto, Fuchida, Genda, Nagumo and Nomura. Certainly politicians and diplomats such as FDR, Hull and Nomura do not belong here. Noticeably absent are the US air commanders in Hawaii, Bloch and Martin, who certainly bore some responsibility for the defeat. The entry for Nagumo is misleading, implying that he committed suicide at Saigon in 1944 "when the inevitable result of the war became clear." Instead, Nagumo was commander of the naval base on Saipan and committed suicide when US troops overran the island. The entry for Yamamoto that claims he was, "a man who fought but wanted peace" is nauseating. Just what did he ever do for peace? The chronology section, although detailed, is also marked with misleading or erroneous entries, further complicated by the fact that the author does not specify what time zone he is using. For example, he states that the Japanese fleet sailed on 25 November, but local time was actually 26 November. The crucial 27 November "war warning" is falsely delivered as advising Kimmel and Short that negotiations had failed and to "be prepared for any eventuality." It said no such thing.

Although there is a section on the Japanese attack plan, there is no section on US defensive plans or the Rainbow War Plan. The author should have mentioned the Martin-Bellinger studied which addressed the vulnerability of Oahu to air attack. In the Japanese section, there is no mention of the vociferous opposition to the raid and how Yamamoto had to threaten resigning in order to get the operation approved. The whole approach to Japan's strategy is euphemistic: "Japan expanded into Asia..."and the US "thwarted every Japanese attempt to extend Asian influence," instead of, the US sought to contain Japanese aggression. There are many other errors in this section, some so mundane, like claiming that the Japanese task force sailed from "Tankan Bay" instead of Hittokappu bay, that it is a wonder that the author even bothered to peruse secondary sources.

Amazingly, the sections on the actual attack are quite good. To be fair, they are better than Gordon Prange provides in his long-winded At Dawn We Slept. Smith provides excellent maps and graphics for the attacks on each air base and the naval facilities, as well as a decent textual summary. Three-D maps are provided for the first and second wave attacks, as well as the attack on Hickam Field. There is even a map depicting US naval movements in Pearl during the attack, which is most unusual. Several excellent illustrations and many photos complement the text. Overall, these 36 pages that cover the attack (one more page than Prange) are excellent.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath section the author reverts to his misleading tendencies. He claims "all eight [US] battleships [were] sunk or heavily damaged," which is totally wrong. The USS Maryland and Pennsylvania were only slightly damaged and soon available for service, USS Tennessee was moderately damaged. His follow-up conclusions are overly generalized and ignore the immediate affects of the raid.

Overall, this a handy, colorful summary volume, but it should not be used as a substitute for serious history. Unfortunately, the author has taken far too many liberties with the historical record for this to be considered a reliable summary.

December 07, 1941, continues to have a significant emotional resonance for Americans nearly seventy years on. The surprise attack by Japanese naval aviation on US military bases on Oahu, the Hawiian islands, precipitated the US into the Second World War while making a national shrine out of the sunken remains of the battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

Osprey Campaign Series "Pearl Harbor 1941" is a good summary of the Japanese campaign against Hawaii. The introduction to the campaign and the breakout of key leaders is a little uneven; the book picks up narrative momentum with its discussion of the Japanese plan and the conduct of the actual attack. The text is nicely supported with an excellent collection of pictures, graphics and maps that provide lots of detail on the Japanese strikes and the improvised and often heroic US defense. A concluding section provides some pointers on visiting Pearl Harbor today.

"Pearl Harbor 1941" is highly recommended to the general reader as an introduction to a haunting "Day of Infamy."

For most people (including most American military people) Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is a far away island and a long time ago. To those in the American intelligence community, Pearl Harbor was the definition of being asleep at the switch-9/11 has replaced Pearl Harbor as the yardstick of intelligence failure. Carl Smith's "Pearl Harbor 1941" tells one part of Japan's "southern operation"-and provides a context for that "Day of Infamy" with background information and a thumbnail history.

I was stationed at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Air Station from September 1976 to June 1979 (with a brief eight-month cruise aboard the LPH-10 Tripoli), I spent some time as an Army intelligence analyst, and I last toured the Pearl Harbor monument and visitors' center on Oahu around Easter in 1998. Pearl Harbor Day is very real to me even though I was born fifteen years after the Japanese raid occurred.

Carl Smith hints at the complexity of the period immediately preceding Pearl Harbor Day. Some of my research into the events leading up to December 7 differ from the author's, but that's history! History is a "best guess" based on available information. I'm unqualified to determine if some of the variance between my limited work and Carl Smith's are due to error. One thing stands out in my mind because I work with 24-hour time globally-Pearl Harbor Day in Japan is December 8. Earth is divided into 24 time zones due to rotation-sunrise is at different times in Honolulu and Manila and Tokyo. I am unsure when I read Smith's timeline which time zone the event happened in. My research indicates that the United States expected to be attacked at any moment, but that attack would happen in the Philippines first. Smith's bibliography should prove useful to the amateur historian-I've read about 60% of the books he listed, and I own several.

The best part of "Pearl Harbor 1941" are the maps and many illustrations that set the scene and describe the sequence of events on 7 December 1941. Carl Smith's "Pearl Harbor 1941" has a place in my Pearl Harbor library. Pearl Harbor didn't happen in a vacuum-it was part of a sequence of events beginning in 1855 and continuing today. For me, at least, Pearl Harbor 1941 isn't long ago on a far away island.

This is Campaign Book 62 in Osprey's superb series of combat histories. It is an extremely detailed yet concise (just 96 pages including appendices and index) telling of the events leading to and including an almost minute by minute account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the US into the Second World War. It includes thumbnail biographies of US commanders Kimmel, Short, Stark, Marshall, Secretary of State Hull and President Roosevelt, and Japanese commanders Yamamoto, Fuchida, Genda, Nagumo and Ambassador Nomura.

My copy didn't come with a CD and has 104 pages but is pretty much the same thing as this one. It is well written and well illustrated as is typical of Osprey works.

A good read for anyone interested in thie event.

An excellent review for the novice as well as the reader well read about the Pearl Harbor attack. Maps and diagrams reveal the placement of each aircraft and ship. This book also does a good job about detailing how severe this battle hurt the US military. Shocking to realize how little strength the US had in the Pacific on Dec. 8, 1941. Highly recommended.