Customer Reviews

The Second Attack on Pearl Harbor: Operation K and Other Japanese Attempts to Bomb America in World War II

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Written by aviation journalist and retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel Steve Horn, The Second Attack On Pearl Harbor: Operation K And Other Japanese Attempts To Bomb America In World War II is a crucial history of a little-known facet about the war in the Pacific - that Pearl Harbor was targeted for attack again after the infamous incident that led to America's entry into World War II. In March of 1942, the Japanese launched Operation K and attached Pearl Harbor a second time; yet because dense cloud cover over Pearl Harbor obscured the targets, the bombs did no damage. Other largely unknown or historically neglected Japanese military plans include a plan to bomb the Panama Canal, abandoned when the war ended, and a plan to launch thousands of bomb-carrying balloons intended to ride the jet stream across the Pacific and create terror in American cities, scrapped when the effect of these so-called "wind weapons" could not be practically determined. Accessible to lay readers and scholars alike, The Second Attack On Pearl Harbor is a welcome contribution to military history libraries for its illumination of an oft- overlooked topic, and highly recommended.

I'm writing this on Pearl Harbor day (2005), there's a documentary on the tube about Pearl and just finshed this book on the subsequent air attacks conducted by the Japanese on Pearl. I was surprised at how many such attacks there were.

This book begins with Fuchida's arguments to Admiral Nagumo that a third strike was needed. Well known from various books on Pearl and in the movie 'Tora, Tora, Tora' this attack would have finished off several Navy ships and perhaps most important bombed the millions of gallons of fuel that the Navy would later use to carry the war to Japan.

The next real attack was conducted on March 2, 1942. Two of Japan's big four engined flying boats flew from the Marshall islands, refueled by submarine and dropped bombs in Hawaii. They did no damage, but did drop bombs. Another such attack was planned as part of the recon before the battle of Midway, but when the subs got to the refulling point they found Americans and the planes could not be refueled.

There were other plans by the Japanese to work in conjunction with the Germans to use these big planes to bomb the US East Coast, the Panama Canal, the West Coast and more. These never came to pass.

This book is a well researched, well written story of these Japanese efforts, both planned and actual. It cover a little known part of the war in the Pacific.

Steve Horn attempts so much in this book. He covers the night time attack on Pearl Harbor during March 4, 1942. The book opens with the Battle of Midway, covers American code-breaking, the development of aircraft-carrying submarines and the aircraft carrier, and the strategic bomber programs that Japan wasn't able to get off the ground. There is a bit about the paper balloons used as a strategic bombing system, and the role that the Aleutian Islands played --other than as a diversion for the Midway attack in June, 1942. As during the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, radar detected and tracked the incoming bombers--but there wasn't anything that could intercept the two Emily flying boats at 1 AM on Oahu. There were a dozen or so Boeing P-26 fighter planes, painted black, assigned the night interception mission, but these ancient aircraft didn't have the speed to catch the raiders.

I think that Steve Horn tried too much in one book. No wonder--the simple story of the one raid would have made a fine magazine article. More material is expected from a book. I could quibble that the O2U and F4U were lumped together in an appendix as the same Corsair aircraft--the first was an observation airplane and the second was the famed fighter planed flown by the Black Sheep squadron--but the book has an index and a decent bibliography. There are footnotes, but no photos. Calling the firebomb bearing paper balloon campaign "one of America's first terrorist attacks" struck me as inaccurate--anybody remember the use of the Native American by France and England during the 18th Century or the abolitionist and pro-slavery terrorists of Kansas and Missouri prior to the Civil War? Like the second Pearl Harbor raid, the balloons barely made the newspapers.

On the other hand, this book does detail a little-known raid that preceeded the Doolittle Raid by six weeks. A major "character" in the story is the Kawanishi H8K "Emily" four-engined flying boat. It was fast, heavily armed, and (unusual for early-war Japanese aircraft) was armored. With long range and its ability to operate from the ocean, the two flying boats refueled from Japanese submarines to extend their range during the March 4, 1942 operation.

I enjoyed this book and welcome it to my World War Two library, but I think that the author tried too much.

With a long-standing interest in military aviation and a rated seaplane pilot, I could not wait to start reading what I thought would be a valuable addition to my modest library. Simply stated: I was wrong. The author puts together several very slim chapters around the main subject -- the March 1942 attack on Hawaii by two IJN "Emily" flying boats. From the bibliography the volume appears well researched and documented, the fault, therefore, must be presumed to rest with the author's ability to tell us a story worthy of the subject. The inability to do more with material that, on its face, is inherently compelling and a dramatic war-time aerial adventure is, sadly, disappointing. Very few details about performance or specifications of the Emily are given. At almost every page, the reader wants and needs more, but it never arrives. Except for the jacket, the book is entirely without the photographs of aircraft, people and events that would have literally brought this story to life. A substantial part of this thin volume attempts to cover other missions by the Japanese to attack the West Coast of the United states. Attacks by a submarine launched light float plane, submarine shelling of areas near Los Angeles, the baloon attacks launched from Japan, and a few others are presented. Unfortunately, they are brought to us in such shallow detail and tepid prose that even the most avid reader will be left wanting. This is a facinating subject that deserved much better presentation. This book could have delivered much in the hands of another author, but falls very short of even modest expections.

I think that Steve Horn has expanded what should have been a monograph into a book. The information he provides on Operation K is very worthwhile. In my opinion, he does not do so well on the subject of Japanese Balloon Bombs. More information would have been worthwhile. His treatment of Japanese I-Boat attacks on the U.S. West Coast could have been expanded somewhat. His book begs for photographs and maps and there are none. He includes a very impressive appendix in which he includes all sorts of information that is not always relevant to his subject. The author uses extensive footnotes which will be helpful to the reader who wishes to expand his research and there is lots of technical information for aviation enthusiasts.

The book is worthwhile for the reader who is unfamiliar with Japanese attempts to bomb the U.S. during WWII and there is enough additional information to please one familiar with the subject. It's a good read, but it left me somewhat disappointed. Maps, and illustrations would be a significant improvement of an excellent book.

"The Second Attack On Pearl Harbor". Subtitled: "Operation K And Other Japanese Attempts To Bomb American In World War II" by Steve Horn. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2005.

Other Amazon reviewers are of the opinion that Steve Horn has "bitten off too much" in his presentation of the Japanese seaplane attack on Pearl Harbor in March 1942. In my opinion, Steve Horn has taken the mosaic of the Second World War and has chosen to polish or burnish a few tiny chips of stone in that mosaic: the Japanese attacks against Hawaii and the American mainland. This book is an excellent job of focusing attention on a little noted arena in the Pacific theatre. For example, the Naval Institute Press published book, "Attack From The Sea; The History Of U.S. Navy's Seaplane Striking Force" by William F. Trimble, (2005), relegates the Japanese attack, Operation K, to two small paragraphs.

Steve Horn`s book fills this gap by giving an in-depth presentation of not only Operation K, but many of the other attacks, planned and actual, by the Japanese on mainland America in the Second World War. He gives a detailed assessment of Operation K, while setting it within the historical background, i.e. the time period just before the Battle of the Coral Sea and then, the Battle of Midway. I believe this to be necessary, as to polish one or two stones in a mosaic you have to overlap and polish the surrounding stones. Steve Horn, however, gives just enough information to cover the setting and then refers the reader to other works. The author provides an excellent (and lengthy) bibliography, from pages 315 to 333. But, what I really appreciated was the Appendix entitled, "Glossary Of Aircraft", where Mr., Horn gives the common name for the aircraft, its numerical or alphabetical designator, and then a nice note to explain the aircraft's mission

Mr. Horn may have been a bit extravagant when he calls the Japanese balloon attack "one of America's first terrorist attacks". An Amazon reviewer picked up on that but then engaged in his own hyperbole when he claimed the use of Indians by France and England during the 18th Century or the abolitionist and pro-slavery terrorists of Kansas and Missouri prior to the Civil War, were early terrorism. The Indians were irregulars in the frontier wars, and, although their attacks were terrifying, they were not terrorism as we understand it today. If not, then the Allied bombing of Nazi Germany was truly "terror bombing". Further, the first true terrorism attacks in these United States were the anti-Catholic attacks by the Know Nothing Party and its predecessors. Otherwise, what do you call the burning of the Ursuline Convent, Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1834? Or the burning of the church of St. Michael in Philadelphia in 1844? Or the burning of the church of St. Augustine in Philadelphia in 1844? Etc.

Having read a lot of history of the second world war I am pretty familiar with a great deal of it so I was pleasantly surprised by this book and story of further Japanese attacks against the United States after Dec. 7th. I was in Honolulu on Dec. 7, 1941 but my 9 month old memory was not quite up to retaining the details although I have my parents versions, 16 mm movies taken that day and pictures, so I have a great interest in the subject. I lived and went to school not far from where the bombs fell on the second attack but never knew about it until I read this book. The author did a fine job of research and I very much enjoyed this book. I would certainly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the war in the Pacific.