Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision [Paperback]

Roberta Wohlstetter (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; New edition edition (June 1, 1962)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804705984
• ISBN-13: 978-0804705981
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #534,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, May 14, 2000

By 

Gary W. Roberson (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Paperback)

This work is the definitive analysis of the intelligence failures leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. It is not an historical account of the attack, but is rather a concise analysis of the mistakes made by naval intelligence authorities in Hawaii and the U.S. during the months leading up to the attack.

The book offers a unique analysis of the attack, and doesn't pull any punches. Human failures are analyzed, as well as bureaucratic failures, which were many. The reader comes away with a better understanding of the attitudes prevelant among intelligence authorities of the time, as well as an insight into their workings.

This is not a book for those just beginning their studies of the attack. It is more appropriate for someone who already has a good understanding of the historical timelines of the attack, the Japanese perspective of U.S. military policy at the time, and the military and civilian authorities involved in the attack and their roles.

The only negative comment regarding the book is that it offers rather tedious reading at times. But to serious researchers this is more than offset by the volumes of information gleaned from it.

This is a "must-have" book for serious Pearl Harbor researchers.

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Hearty Perennial, January 2, 2005

By 

Guy Crouchback (NC, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Paperback)

The first two (petulant) reviews here rather miss the point. Wohlstetter's "Pearl Harbor" is a venerable classic which is still read and quoted from more than 40 years after publication. (It is, for example, referred to by historian and strategist John Lewis Gaddis in the lead article of the Jan/Feb 2005 issue of "Foreign Affairs.")

If you haven't read "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision," then you really aren't prepared for serious discussions with well-informed people about such things as "pre-emptive" and "preventive" wars.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Anatomy of a Surprise, March 11, 2008

By 

Retired Reader (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Paperback)

The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 succeeded in putting a large portion of the U.S. Pacific Fleet out of action for months. The attack succeeded because of what today would be called a failure of Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, and Reconnaissance (C3IR). In this definitive history, Roberta Wohlstetter provides an extensive documentation that catalogues the C3IR failures that explain the success of the Japanese attack. From her account it is clear that these failures were caused by a pervasive mindset among the U.S. Army and Navy high commands that Japan would not and could not attack the fortified island of Oahu in then territory of Hawaii.

Wohlstetter demonstrates that this mindset was coupled with an almost complete lack of inter-service cooperation between the Army and the Navy. Not even George C. Marshall, the brilliant Army Chief of Staff, understood that to defend an island like Oahu the Army would need to cooperate closely with Navy. In fact Marshall and his naval counterpart Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Stark hardly communicated at all. This distant relationship was duplicated by the lack of cooperation between General Short, commander of the army's Department of Hawaii and Admiral Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Thus the defense of Oahu and Pearl Harbor was not based on joint, integrated planning nor on a mutual understanding of the two services' capabilities and weaknesses.

The much discussed failure of the then U.S. intelligence system to provide warning of the Japanese attack was exacerbated by the failure of the newly established Air Warning System (AWS) to operate as it was designed. Neither Short nor Kimmel demonstrated any interest in the AWS and made no effort to ensure it was properly staffed and trained. Further the Navy chose not to provide the long range air reconnaissance patrols that were to be a part of the AWS. Finally the command and control as exercised by the Army General Staff and the CNO in Washington in the period prior to the attack was weak and badly executed. This was mirrored by the staffs of Short and Kimmel in Hawaii. In short the Japanese surprise attack on December 1941 succeeded because the U.S. C3IR systems in place failed. As Wohlsetter clearly shows Pearl Harbor was caused by multiple U.S. Military failures of concept and execution.

This book wisely does not speculate on the pre-Pearl Harbor actions of the U.S. civil government under President Franklin Roosevelt. The evidence here is much more complex and subject to interpretation.