Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation under Attack [Hardcover]

Michael Gannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2001

A naval historian draws on newly revealed primary documents to shed light on the tragic errors that led to the devastating attack, Washington's role, and the man who took the fall for the Japanese tactical victory

Michael Gannon begins his authoritative account of the "impossible to forget" attack with the essential background story of Japan's imperialist mission and the United States' uncertain responses-especially two lost chances of delaying the inevitable attack until the military was prepared to defend Pearl Harbor.
Gannon disproves two Pearl Harbor legends: first, that there was a conspiracy to withold intelligence from the Pacific Commander in order to force a Pacific war, and second, that Admiral Kimmel was informed but failed to act. Instead, Gannon points to two critical factors ignored by others: that information about the attack gleaned from the "Magic" code intercepts was not sent to Admiral Kimmel, and that there was no possibility that Kimmel could have defended Pearl Harbor because the Japanese were militarily far superior to the American forces in December of 1941.

Gannon has divided the story into three parts: the background, eyewitness accounts of the stunning Japanese tactical victory, and the aftermath, which focuses on the Commander, who was blamed for the biggest military disaster in American history.

Pearl Harbor Betrayed will be published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gannon, author of two excellent books on the Battle of the Atlantic, jumps onto the 50th-anniversary bandwagon with this effort to demonstrate that base Admiral Husband A. Kimmel was made a scapegoat for his military and political superiors. The thrust of Gannon's argument is that President Roosevelt, and the entire defense establishment, were so focused on the prospects of war with Germany that the deterioration of U.S. relations with Japan went relatively unnoticed. Gannon describes Japan's decision to go to war as not forced by U.S. behavior but made in a rational calculation of Japan's vital interests. He wraps his package by presenting what he considers U.S. intelligence's failure to convey appropriate warning to Pearl Harbor in the final weeks and days before Japan's blow struck. The arguments, however, develop a reverse effect. If, as Gannon also convincingly demonstrates, the inevitability of war with Japan was understood at all senior command levels in Hawaii, it is difficult to see how more emphatic and direct communications from Washington would have produced different behavior patterns. Gannon's portrait of Kimmel in particular establishes him as more or less a peacetime admiral suddenly out of his depth when confronted with a wartime situation. Illustrations (40 in b&w) not seen by PW. (Sept. 10)Forecast: Buffs and scholars may take this one up for argument's sake, but it will change few minds. And few consumers browsing Dec. 7 display tables will be worrying over the blame assignment.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

For the last 60 years, historians have been trying to assign blame for the disaster of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A few revisionist historians have even gone so far as to state that Roosevelt was responsible, as he wanted to involve the United States in the war (e.g., Robert Stinnett in Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, LJ 11/15/99). This is hard to take seriously. While Roosevelt knew that the war was coming, he wanted to fight Germany, not Japan, and it is not credible that he would have allowed his Pacific fleet to be ravaged. Naval historian Gannon, after extensive research, has succeeded in re-creating the dramatic events so that they can be understood by a careful reader. He describes how American na?vet?, arrogance, confusion, and an unwillingness to accept reality resulted in the loss of 2,323 men at Pearl Harbor. Drawing on primary sources, the author has painted a narrative that attacks the cover-ups and faulty decisions of the army, navy, and State Department. Gannon states unequivocally that Gen. Short and Adm. Husband E. Kimmel were unjustly made scapegoats and court-martialed. He argues that a good deal of the blame should be assigned to the failure of U.S. Intelligence to evaluate Japanese intentions correctly. This book is well written but presents little that is new. For libraries with large World War II collections. Stanley L. Itkin, Hillside P.L., New Hyde Park, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (September 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805066985
• ISBN-13: 978-0805066982
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,820,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than Midrange, October 23, 2001

By 

Louann Miller (TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation under Attack (Hardcover)

It's hard to tell from the title, but this is neither a conspiracy book nor (entirely) a whitewash of Adm. Kimmel but a fairly good overview. The book covers the comprehensive blind spots, especially those in Washington, that lead to the surprise at Pearl Harbor. Gannon writes entertainingly and covers detail well. However I think his (deserved) admiration for Kimmel leads him to soft-pedal the parts of the evidence that suggest his culpability. The admiral deserves, although not the whole blame for being unprepared, a sizeable amount of it. Gordon Prange's relatively hard to find "Pearl Harbor: the Verdict of History" covers much the same ground as Gannon but does not hesitate to point out Kimmel's and Short's mistakes alongside everyone else's. And Prange (himself a WWII vet) knew and liked Kimmel personally. I don't regret buying Gannon's book but I would hate to use it for my sole resource on the subject.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good analysis of what went wrong, September 25, 2001

By 

Kenneth S. Smith (Goleta, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation under Attack (Hardcover)

This book examines the reasons why the American forces were so inadequately prepared for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Only one chapter deals with the actual attack, the rest focuses on the failures in intelligence, communication, and inter-service cooperation. The intelligence and resources that were available to CINPAC and other obstacles that interfered with the defense of the fleet and bases are examined. Gannon makes a good case that much of the blame should go to Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, then chief of the Navy War Plans Division. Turner withheld some of the detailed intelligence available and passed out only vague warnings. There was an intercepted coded message to the Japanese consul in Honolulu asking whether the Navy had barrage balloons and torpedo nets installed at Pearl. Hello!!!

The scramble was on after the attack to find the parties responsible for the disaster, and those with any possible responsibility ducked for cover. It took a board of inquiry for Kimmel to gain access to the pre-Pearl Harbor decrypted Japanese messages. The board exonerated Kimmel, but CNO Adm. King reversed the board's findings and Kimmel was found guilty of dereliction of duty.

Lt. Gen Short, the Army commander really messed up. There was radar available, but only one set was operating. When this unit picked up the incoming Japanese formations and sent in the information, their sighting was discounted. Short was also responsible for the order to concentrate the fighters into tight groups to defend against sabotage, making them nice easy targets. The fighters were not even armed and ready to do their job. The number of Army troops available could have easily guarded the aircraft.

This book should appeal to anyone interested in the attack on Pearl Harbor. My Dad was on the U.S.S. Dobbin during the attack and he told me that the officers with the keys to the ammunition lockers were ashore and they had to beat the locks off with fire axes. When the report of the sinking of a midget submarine came in, going to General Quarters would have greatly increased the defensive response and helped reduce American casualties and damage to ships and bases.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vindication for Kimmel, September 9, 2001

By 

J. Gilbert (Santa Ynez, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pearl Harbor Betrayed: The True Story of a Man and a Nation under Attack (Hardcover)

I must confess that I greatly looked forward to this book, having much enjoyed Gannon's "Black May" dealing with the defeat of the U-boats in 1943. In this book, he analyzes the causes of the army and navy to be adequately prepared for the aerial attack on Pearl Harbor. He spends only a chapter on the attack itself, dealing more with the failures in intelligence, communication and interservice coordination. Admiral Kimmel is the focus of the book, and much of it is spent detailing what intelligence and resources were available to CINPAC and what other tasks interfered with the defense of the fleet and base (like training PBY crews that were then shipped off to the Atlantic Fleet). He believes, and this is supported by Samuel Eliot Morison, that the primary failure was due to Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, who was then chief of the navy war plans division. Turner was smart, but he thought that he was much smarter than he was. He userped the intelligence functions into the war plans division and passed out only vague warnings, not forwarding detailed material that would have pointed to specific targets and method of attack - probably the most infamous of these was a coded message to the Japanese counsul in Honolulu asking whether the navy had deployed barriage balloons and torpedo nets at Pearl. Turner's caustic, sarcastic and vindictive nature kept people from questioning his judgement. After the attack, everybody in Washington proceeded to cover their trails (entirely human of them, if I had been responsible for a failure like that, I'd try to cover my trail too). Kimmel demanded a board of inquery and, only then, got hold of the pre-Pearl Harbor decrypted Japanese messages - he was exonerated by the board, but the board's findings were reversed by Adm. King, the Chief of Naval Operations, who found Kimmel guily of dereliction of duty.

The book is a rather dry read except to Pearl Harbor buffs (such as the this reviewer - my maternal uncle Arthur Manlove was killed on the Arizona, and memorialized in the USS Manlove, DE-36), but the arguments are compelling with a few exceptions. Requiring the officers to live on board would have helped - the vast majority of sailors were on the ships, but some ships had up to half the officers ashore. Going to General Quarters when the midget submarine was sunk and closing watertight doors in ships would have greatly increased casualties in the attacking force (by making all AA batteries ready with full ammunition supplies) and perhaps have reduced damage to some of the ships, but there wasn't much in the way of long range aircraft patrols really possible with the resources Kimmel had. Lt. Gen Short, the army commander is more culpable, with all but one radar shut off and the plot room closed at 7am, and the P-36 and P-40 fighters moved together and unarmed and fueled. He had two infantry divisions which could have quite adequately guarded the planes from sabotage and still kept them ready for use.